by AF4K

Despite rumours to the contrary, I have decided to keep this web site up!

PAGE 2

From: walt@dial.pipex.com (Walt Davidson)
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 

jclefever@aol.com wrote:

...Ahhhhhh Z & I, now there is a name from the past.  Where are they now?

Probably in the same happy hunting ground as Southern Radio Supplies of
Lisle Street, just off Leicester Square.  I bought a fully-working
38-Set there in 1958 for œ5.19.6 complete with throat microphone and
"webbing".   (Only ever used it into a dummy load, of course ...)

73 de G3NYY, Walt Davidson
E-mail: walt@dial.pipex.com
walt@enterprise.net

(Editorial note: Youngsters DON'T try to think you can put one of these on the INTERNET just because it's got "WEBBING" har har! - Editor)

Here's a 38-set (also known as WS-38)

From: KolsterBrandes = rex@g0mwh.demon.co.uk
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 
jclefever@aol.com writes

] Ahhhhhh Z & I, now there is a name from the past.  Where are they now?

But Henry Radio is still going in their old location on the Edgeware
Road...was in there today and they still have a lot of good junk for
sale in the back...*but* it's all computer stuff...

I bought an R1155 in Lisle Street in about 1954 for 2.10.6d...in a grey
wooden shipping box brand spanking new...used an old chassis to build a
PSU with a 6V6 audio stage. I used it to listen to the Ham bands while
residing in the old Workman's Camp off of the Green Man Pub in Heston
when I worked for the old Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation.
(T3e was my CS Grade)

I never held a Ham call in the UK...used to plague old Henry Staff G4KO
off of the Larkman Lane in Norwich to use his station...he never
complained....as well as Ray G2YU of the Post Office Radio
Inspectors...who fixed up my BC348 for me when I was about 14....

Got another R1155 in Canada and used it with a T1154 for my first foray
into the world of Ham Radio....(VE3DPD from 1960 to 1989)

Wish I could find another 1155 with it's case.......or a R107....or a
WS52...or a BC348...My old Kenwood TS440SAT that I brought back from
Canada with me in 1989 works well but is just another rice box...I got
it in 1984, one of the first out...it is still reasonably good.

Happy days!

73 de Rex J Atkins G0MWH
BBS G0MWH @ GB7UWS
E-Mail Rex@g0mwh.demon.co.uk 

From: jayemd@cix.compulink.co.uk ("James Dunnett")
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 20:26:30 GMT

Stephen@blacksheep.org writes:

] For the record, whilst we are on the nostalia trip, the rig was a Pye 
] Vanguard with a 6/40 in the final; R1475 rx with Hbrew nuvistor
] converter for RX and a 4ele beam.

I remember the R1475 (R88). Used them in the RAF before the
advent of the RA17. A surplus one from the Thieves' Market 
in Singapore was my first SWL receiver, with homebrew PSU.
 
] Wasn't it more fun in those days, or am I just getting old.

It was more fun because you had to make do with homebrew and
surplus. A sense of achievment at getting it working properly
which you don't get from using a Japanese black box.

There also seemed to be more people around on the bands then,
many of whom were much more technically competent than they
are today. This was probably due to having to homebrew and
adapt surplus! (Or I'm getting old too, perhaps).

73

Jim, G4RGA   = jayemd@cix.compulink.co.uk

From: Martin Davies 
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 97 22:59:13 GMT


frank@g3wte.demon.co.uk "Frank Erskine" writes:

Does anybody know  what  date  the  G8+3's  where  introduced  out  of
curiosity ?

] I think it was in the early '60s - I remember reading about the "new"
] type of licence while I was in the train going to the Radio Show at
] Earl's Court :-)

Well, I was first licensed as G8DRJ in (IIRC) 1970, so the first
G8's were probably licensed in the mid-60's.  Indeed, my copy
of the 1994 RSGB Callbook claims that the G8AAA-G8AZZ series ran
from '64 to '67.

Long before I was licensed I was an avid SWL; as a 12-year-old I
built a 0-V-0 valve TRF set in 1962 - I was given a 'kit' of
bits as a Christmas present by my parents.  The 'kit' comprised
an unpunched metal chassis and front panel, together with the
single valve and all the necessary R's C's, variable caps, etc -
constructing the receiver involved REAL engineering work!  The
coils were plug-in Denco items.  When I first built the receiver
it didn't work; it took much head-scratching to work out that
the coils were lacking the 'reaction' winding.  This minor
shortcoming was soon overcome, and I can still remember the
thrill of hearing the squeal as the reaction variable capacitor
was adjusted.  Does anyone else remember those directly-heated
valves (DF91 IIRC)?  They ran off a 90V battery which had a
built-in 1.5V cell for the heater supply.  I once got a 'belt'
off the HT; I was wearing a pair of ex-WD headphones with
exposed terminals (the 'phones were in series in the anode
circuit of the valve) and with one hand on an earpiece I leaned
over the front panel to check something and my chin touched the
metalwork!  My mouth stayed locked open for about 5 minutes!

I added an audio stage to the receiver a year or so later,
before moving up-market to a 52 Set in about '65.  It cost about
a tenner from, I think, GWM Radio.  From there I progressed to
buying a Japanese-built amateur-bands-only receiver, a Star SR
200 bought from Bill Lowe for ukp40 in 1968.  I sold the 52 Set
in the 70's to a collector for ukp50 (wasn't you, was it Frank?
I used to live near Newcastle), and the Star set in the early
80's for ukp 40 - the same as I'd paid for it about 15 years
earlier!

I'm now a Novice Instructor, and I recently helped a friend who
was doing the Novice training course with me to construct a
modern FET-based equivalent of my 0-V-0 set.  It worked fine,
but it just didn't seem to be the same somehow!  No glowing
'bottle' to let you know that things were alive!

Enough of this - it's getting too soggy with nostalgia!

73 to all

Martin Davies, G0HDB
DXCluster = GB7DXC
BBS @ GB7GLO.#46.GBR.EU

From: Gerry Kearns = gerry@g4mya.demon.co.uk
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997

Martin Davies = Martin@amdavies.demon.co.uk writes

] Long before I was licensed I was an avid SWL; as a 12-year-old I
] built a 0-V-0 valve TRF set in 1962 - I was given a 'kit' of
] bits as a Christmas present by my parents. 
[Lots of interesting stuff snipped]

I smiled a bit when Martin mentioned using a metal chassis...such
luxury. All the first single-valve receivers that I made were built on a
wooden chassis...ie a 6 inch by 6 wooden pattrass block ( normally used
for mounting electrical switches) and the front panel was a bit of
plywood.. The valve used was invariably the HL2 or similar 2 volt
triode. LT was provided by a 2 volt accumulator which I had charged at
the local glass factory. HT was either a 90 volt battery or the multi-
tapped 120 volt Ever-ready battery. Soldering was done using an iron
bought from Woolworths and which you heated up by placing above the gas-
ring on the stove. At the time, we had no mains electricity....the gas
mantle in the living room being the only lighting in the whole house.

Happy days??....without a doubt! 

Gerry Kearns

From: Keith Jillings = keithj@dircon.co.uk
Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 20:40:08 +0000

g3pho@aol.com wrote:

] How about us all renaming this thread to "the gold ol' days"  ...old
] "Lucky Young William" has had enough hero worship for the moment......!

Good grief!   Just found this.  Is John in Bath still alive/kicking?
I haven't worked him since the 60s.

] Ps...before anyone says it...I do not have sour grapes over the subject of
] LYW, even though he had a bigger signal than me.....( or should I say than
] my 807 with 9.5 watts DC input)

I reckon 'twas the 528 foot inverted L that did it.   My inverted L half
wave didn't do at all bad, but then the farmer sold the field and they
built houses all over it  (sob).

73s
Keith   G3OIT

Good gracious!!!! Fancy seeing the old " OYIT" callsign again after all
these years! This nostalgic thread is getting the Old Timers out of the
woodwork isnt it?

Given up 160 for the Internet have we then Keith? :-)

73 G3PHO

Peter Day    

From: jclefever@aol.com
Date: 10 Feb 1997 09:11:14 GMT

Whatever happened to H.A.C.?
They used to sell simple valve kits for SW.

I have a copy of Wireless World in front of me, dated April 1950!

Nice picture of a AVO valve tester "specially usesful for television work"
An advert for BCC (British Communications Corp Ltd) selling VHF radio
telephone equipment.
Mullard with a full page ad selling valves.
Acoustical Manufacturing Co Ltd selling what looks like an early Quad ii
(Still going strong of course!)
Dublier selling capacitors
Metropolitan-Vickers selling Scopes.

When I joined the MoD as an apprentice in 1971 I worked ona Met-Vic 4mk7
radar. Amazing beast. Mobile radar weighing in at 16 tons if I remember
correctly.

On the back page there is an ad for capacitors from TCC (The Telegraph
Condenser Co Ltd)

Ahhhhhh the days when they were called Condensers. The only people that
still call them condensers are car mechanics!!

'till next time boys and girls.

Jerry Lefever (GM4CAZ)

From: Frank Erskine = frank@g3wte.demon.co.uk
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997

jclefever@aol.com writes

] An advert for BCC (British Communications Corp Ltd) selling VHF radio
] telephone equipment.

I remember once seeing an advert for Pye VHF police radios, showing a
whip aerial attached to the top of a motor-bike helmet, and a back-pack
that the copper had to wear...  :-)

] On the back page there is an ad for capacitors from TCC (The Telegraph
] Condenser Co Ltd)

] Ahhhhhh the days when they were called Condensers. The only people that
] still call them condensers are car mechanics!!

Speak for yourself!  I still call them condensers!!!  (And I'm not a car
mechanic).

73 - Frank
 
Frank Erskine
Sunderland
http://www.g3wte.demon.co.uk/

From: walt@dial.pipex.com (Walt Davidson)
Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1997 11:36:54 GMT

Whilst on the subject of nostalgia ....

I received a QSL card yesterday from G3VDL (Okehampton, Devon) for a 20m
CW QSO with SV9/G3NYY last October.  There is a nice colour picture of
his rig on the front of the card.  TX: Homebrew VFO/FD/PA (6AG7 - 5763 -
2x807), 60 watts maximum input, built in 1956.  RX: Eddystone 888A.
Ant: Long Wire.

It's good to know such rigs are still in use on the air.  

By the way, old timers of my vintage may remember John, G3VDL better as
MP4BBE of Bahrain (1952 - 1965).

73 de G3NYY, Walt Davidson
E-mail: walt@dial.pipex.com

From: Pete Morgan-Lucas  = pjml@mail.nerc-swindon.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 11:24:08 -0800

Martin Davies wrote:

]  Does anyone else remember those directly-heated
] valves (DF91 IIRC)?  They ran off a 90V battery which had a
] built-in 1.5V cell for the heater supply. 

Yep - first RX i ever built used a DAF91 (diode-pentode)
in a single-valve regen circuit, published in a copy of
PW dating back to about 1960.

Headphones were a pair of the ubiquitous ex-army
DLR5's

I got the valve by scavenging it from the old tip that
was behind Pen Dinas hill in Aberystwyth (which I was
visiting on holiday).

But I used separate 1.5 volt and 67.5 volt batteries
as they were cheaper than the "combined" ones - a big
plus point when you're a poverty-stricken 11 year-old
schoolboy!

//Pete M-L//

From: Frank Erskine = frank@g3wte.demon.co.uk
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 15:40:18 +0000

Pete Morgan-Lucas   = pjml@mail.nerc-swindon.ac.uk writes

] But I used separate 1.5 volt and 67.5 volt batteries
] as they were cheaper than the "combined" ones - a big
] plus point when you're a poverty-stricken 11 year-old
] schoolboy!

Is it still possible to buy HT batteries?  I'm building a one-valve set
(using an HL2) (from "The Boy Electrician") and want to try to keep it
as authentic as possible; using a 100V battery - or if possible an Ekco
HT eliminator.  I don't want to have to build up a battery using PP3's
or nicads :-)
I'm also after a 67.5V HT battery for another piece of (telephone
testing) equipment...

Frank Erskine

From: Pete Morgan-Lucas = pjml@mail.nerc-swindon.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997

Frank Erskine wrote:
 
] Is it still possible to buy HT batteries?  I'm building a one-valve set
] (using an HL2) (from "The Boy Electrician") and want to try to keep it
] as authentic as possible; using a 100V battery - or if possible an Ekco
] HT eliminator.  I don't want to have to build up a battery using PP3's
] or nicads :-)

I don't think Eveready still make HT batteries, certainly 
mot for the purposes we intended... though i *have* seen
small 15-volt batteries in some photographic shops.

I usually go the "wire a load of PP3's in series" route when i
need battery-type HT; my one attempt to make an inverter to get
"HT" from a 1.5 volt D-cell was an abject failure - yes, I
got the requisite "HT" voltage, biut also a beautiful comb of
rough harmonics every 30KHz or so which made the thing totally
useless for powering MF or HF receivers!

On the whole, I prefer a Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier
driven by a small 15-0-15 volt mains transformer. This gets
up the required HT voltages for my "18" set quite nicely.

//PJML//   [who admits to being G6WBJ when he's at home]



From: af4k@earthlink.net
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997

Pete - can you tell us a bit about the 18 set?

There are probably a few curious ones out here like me that want to know
more about such boatanchors!

Thanks - Bry (G3XLQ)

From: Pete Morgan-Lucas = pjml@mail.nerc-swindon.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997

Bry, G3XLQ  wrote:

] Pete - can you tell us a bit about the 18 set?

Sure... most of this is from memory so forgive me... (it's the
Mad Cow disease creeping up on me)...

The "18" set was a low-HF-bands (up to 8MHz or so) "manpack"
set used by the British army in WWII. It fitted into a 
canvas back pack. The receiver and transmitter were separate
units fitted to a metal case, with a slot for the dry 
battery underneath. It worked with a short(!) 6 or 8-foot whip 
antenna, or could be connected to a dipole or long-wire for 
static use.

The receiver was a "traditional" superhet using ARP12 pentodes
and a diode-triode(pentode?) AR8 detector. The transmitter
used an ARP12 oscillator and an ATP4 power amplifier.

These are valves on the infamous "Mazda octal" base, which
looks superficially like the *proper* Octal base, but has 
offset pin-spacing and a bigger central indexing spigot.

Modulation was AM (using a carbon mic. and grid-leak modulation)
or CW.

//PJML// G6WBJ

From: steve@btinternet.com (Steve Randall)
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 19:38:49 GMT

I remember John G3LYW - used to talk to him on top band.
I went down to Bath and talked to him mobile all the way
back from my old Mini with an FT101 into a base loaded 10ft
whip.  This must have been in the 70's.

When I went down there, John had a pair of 813's running on top
band (10W hmmm...) then  he used it on SSB the lights in the
house would modulate (I suspect from the RF pick up rather than
the mains load).  I remember the carbon anodes on the 813 glowing
slightly!!!  When we went out in his garden with a 8' florescent
lamp - it lit full brightness. I believe he had a 1/2 wave in front of
a  full wave pointing at eastern Europe? I know he used to talk to the
states on SSB/CW on top band with a good proportion of the time.

He used to run the "Apollo" net - where everyone had a tone burst
on releasing the PTT. I miss that burst - much better than "over" etc.
for SSB.

Ahhh the good old days indeed!

	Steve Randall  ex G8KHW

From: woodtown@mail.zynet.co.uk (Angus Graham)
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997

]- I bought an R1155 in Lisle Street in about 1954 for 2.10.6d.

That is is interesting, but some of you, older 'hams' must remember the
super surplus store with the "ladies-for-sale-for-your-pleasure" shop,
literally right next door (and perhaps over-the-top) somewhere down Lisle
street?

I had an interview about 30-odd years ago, away from school, with AEI
(relax, I didn't take it) and after this I met up with my school-mate
"Flogger" Harris (no, I don't remember why) to cruise the surplus stores.

Anyway, there was this super store down Lisle Street, full of piles (why
are there no typographical controls on usergroups?) of super Rxs. Knowing
my mate, he would have been looking for a pair of 805s or KT88s for his
guitar amp (he were pretty good), but this fabulous YL, literally on the
door-next-door, offered me a pair of 36Ds and directly-heated as such!

Trouble was, I had never operated in this mode and the instruction manual
was not even in the school library (I was at boarding school) so I was
flumoxed (not in the spell-checker) at such an opportunity (I know, lots
of clever-dicks amongst you) so I let it pass (it were a lot more
expensive than a R1155 at œ2.10.6!).

In retrospect, had I been able to 'seize' this opportunity I might not
have let my call lapse THREE times (was it booze, women, sex, roll'n'roll,
marijuana [fun for those on DejaNews, that!] I forget each time) but
having taken the morse test THREE times (you couldn't "keep a hand free"
for the key, working with that lot), old times (like the 'scrap the morse
test') are here to stay!!

Seriously, there must be older (and richer people) obviously with calls
further down the alphabet than mine (I've seen you  on the usergroup
who knows, perhaps even G2s?) who might have taken negotiations further
than I was able to at my tender age, who can associate this this site with
this surplus store, and remember its name  please let us know!

Regards, I promise not to go to Lisle Street again,

Angus Graham, G3TXL

(Never saw a reply to this rather colourful and amusing posting by Angus,
 but my silly ISP often does not get all of the articles that appear in newsgroups - Bry)

Charles Kenneth Haswell  = n.haswell@zetnet.co.uk wrote:

]Going back a bit further...
]Anyone remember the Lisle Street radio shops in Soho?

Ah, yes.

]Also Webb's Radio the Eddystone only dealership not far
]away off Oxford Street?

That too.

]Spent my first savings on an Eddystone "All World Two" receiver
]early in 1939 but had it taken away by the authorities at the
]start of WW2.

I wasn't old enough to be interested before the war.

]It was returned to me along with my one valve Hartley osc. and
]morse key just after the end of the war, still in the same
]cardboard box.

Nice of them.

]Built my first TV rx. in 1947/8 with surplus 45 mHz IF strips and VCR97
]green CRT and had the neighbours in to watch the Coronation B,cast.   

Sounds a bit like mine.
Ah, happy days!
Alan


As an addendum, much later in SEPT 1997 there was this rather interesting piece:

From:             JACKSON Andy = jackson@cellnet.co.uk
Copies to:        UK Vintage Radio Mail List 
Date sent:        Fri, 12 Sep 1997 12:55:00 +0100

Hi Richard;
Yes, I was also rather puzzled that Louis Mulstee considered
that this was a "standard set".  However a full EMER was written
for it suggesting that a reasonable number were to be
manufactured but  I have no idea of production numbers. A remote
control unit was designed for it as well. The WS42 in question
was one that a colleague had bought and was kept along with lots
of other bits in a room used by the Army Cadet Force signals
platoon in Croydon as a COMCEN;  I was an ACF instructor at the
time (mid - late 70's) and we operated a regular HF net with
other signals cadet units using officially issued kit (WS 19 and
C12, later C13) supplemented by kit that we bought or scrounged.
My favourite was our WS 12/R107 which because the TX was tuned
in stages i.e. first tune the oscillator, then the buffer stage
then the PA for maximum glow on a monitor lamp,  was excellent
for teaching the theory of what was going on. Eventually,
because the PA valves became rarer than a good-humoured RSM,
it's use was reserved for special occasions. As far as I know he
still has the WS42;  I recall once coming across the PSU for the
set in a warehouse belonging to Colomor (who used to have a shop
in Goldhawk Road, Shepherds Bush) but when realization dawned of
what it matched and I went back to get it, it had gone.  The
front panel control markings were done in a particularly
virulent luminous paint and this was what caused concern to the
inspection team.

Your connection between the WS42 and Burma comes because the set
was designed to be panclimatic and was probably the first of
that class of set to be sealed in a box to tropicalize it rather
than spraying all the internal components with lacquer.  The
WS38 followed the same idea in the progression to the Mk 3
version as did the later WS88.   Although fittings were designed
for the set to be carried in a vehicle and as a two-man load, it
seems the most common application was an animal installation for
use in jungle terrain with the set, power supply/control unit,
hand generator and batteries slung across the back of a
pack-mule.  For this reason it acquired the nickname of "the
donkey set".

As far as I know the WS42 came from Plessey and there are clear
design similarities with the R209 receiver in the case and
internal construction.   It's a few years since I looked inside
the set but my memories are of aluminium sub-chassis type
construction utilising mostly miniature B7G valves (i.e. 1T4's
etc) and a nightmare of levers and rods to translate the front
panel channel switch positions into the angular movement
required to set the tuning capacitors.  The tuning arrangements
consist of lettered dials and I presume that the operating
technique was to refer to the required frequency in the manner
of  "channel B,  offset G" sort of thing, in a similar style to
the later A16/PRC316. Unfortunately, as we never found a PSU, I
never got round to trying to fire up the set but I do recall
that the PSU used a rather unusual arrangement of a 2.4v NiCad -
presumably to achieve some sort of stabilisation for the heater
circuits, and a vibrator to produce HT. I've got a (ropey) copy
of the EMER, but a copy of the user handbook would be
interesting if anyone has one.

Hope this helps;  now that you've awakened interest I'll try and
find out where the set has got to.

73,  Andy Jackson   G8JAC

From: Richard Hankins
Date:  11 September 1997 21:18

Andy Jackson wrote:

A WS42 threw the inspection team into a real panic because of
the level of radiation!

Andy (and the rest of the group),

I was fascinated to see this line in your comments about
radioactive sets. The reason is that I regard the WS42 as a real
mystery.  Louis Meulstee describes it as a "standard set for
WWII" in his Wireless for the Warrior tome, however it seems to
have vanished from the surface of the planet.

All enquiries I have made to date about it have drawn a blank. 
No-one seems to have one, or have even seen one - even the
Signals Museum at Blandford.   People can turn up documents but
they can't produce the hardware.  Now you write about it
obviously having had at least one lying about.  Can you tell us
more when and where this was, and what has happened to the rest
of them?  Are there any still about?

For those who know nothing of the WS42, it is portable
(luggable?) HF transceiver covering 1.6 - 12.8 MHz, FM/AM and
CW, and appears to be years ahead of its time.  It had a
hermetically sealed case to deal with extreme climatic
conditions, and 10KHz channelling for to avoid the need for an
external netting signal.  A comparison with the crude WS19, WS22
or WS38, the  "workhorses" of WWII is laughable - for instance
the WS19 has 9 valves in its HF section, the WS42 has 21, to
make a very basic comparison.

I have suggested before that they all went to the forests of
Burma and never came back, but no-one (so far) seems to know. 
Please enlighten me!

Richard

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