More ATV fiddling
After finding the dead LCD screen that was to be a 5.6GHz ATV receiver it also turned out that the 7" Pi screen on my Portsdown setup had similarly died - just white lines on the screen. No amount of stripping, reassembling and general fiddling fixed it. A new screen did.
Anyway, I now have a Winterhill receiver. This came from a fellow ham and saved me building one. As is usual with any new box one absolutely must try it right away, which is how I discovered the bust screen on the Portsdown. After that was replaced I successfully sent a test card 40 inches across the desk! Small steps... and at least the Winterhill is in a nice box unlike my Portsdown which is still waiting for a suitably sized case - why is it all the nice metal boxes are a few mm lower than the 7" display needs. Huh.