Recent content by Spargone

A pair of P7s, the test bed for the five-cylinder engine and other ideas.

SD1 in disguise.

Back in 1937 the readers of Practical Wireless eagerly awaited enclosures such as this:

If people want to see large US freight trains there are plently of Virtual Railfan sites on the web with live action. Fort Madison is a good location with around 69 trains per day plus a few Amtrack services. There is also the adjacent Mississippi river with a lot of barge traffic which requires...

A young friend, just started in his new 'big' school, succumbed to peer pressure and carried out a bit of petty shoplifting, (chocolate bars) and that got me thinking about the disciplinary tools used in 1960s Birmingham grammar schools. We had prefects' detentions, masters' detentions, being...

Birmingham's own radio from Stratton & Company, better known under its 'Eddystone' trade mark. My purchases were limited to die cast boxes!

WE had bakelite tree light holders like that, before that coloured ceramic ones. I hope that square lamp shade isn't just being held up by the lamp. (Reminds me off those compact fluorecent lamps that wouldn't fit into shrouded sockets if a lamp shade was being held up by the shroud.

I take it you have never met those children that know 200 species of dinosaur? I used to spend hours pouring over a good illustration!

I think they are all dancing! More importantly, why has the distant signal got the wrong colours (it should be white with a black stripe), why aren't those irons on the front of the loco in-line with the flanges and why is it carrying a ballast train head code and not light engine? Published by...

I don't think we ever put working candles on a tree, we always used strings of lights. I'm pretty certain that at least on had ceramic sleeves covering the metal screw sockets and unlike the later plastic ones they could slip down and expose the metalwork. As these light strings were fed...

My Reader's Digest Junior Omnibus reverses the polarity of D1 and omits C2. L1 consists of 60 turns of 30 swg enamelled wire on a toilet roll former, C1 is a 0.0003 μF variable capacitor, D1 a germanium diode and the earphones 2,000-4,000 ohms. For the aerial 50-100ft of wire. Quite a good...

Perhaps about 1960 my dad fetched out the parts for an old 'wireless' that he had built in 1937, the Scott-Taggart ST900. it had been described in the magazine Popular Wireless that ceased publication that year. The dial for the set had been included as a centre spread and my dad had bought a...

Janice, thanks for the extra detail. It does seem to be period of change. The buildings to the west, of later build, are more or less still there, while the buildings to the east get caught up with changes at the Swan junction, Harding's bakery etc. Lisa is fortunate that the house is given a...

Do you have a good feel for the direction that the directory is recording? I ask because it is curious that the 25 and 6" OS mappings seem to be a decade out at least in showing these buildings. The 1912 6" map does show a smithy towards the Swan, which might fit with Harry Wood, Blacksmith. The...

"Daddy, why does your old car say 2.4 on the back?" "Well son, it's.. err.. it means 2.4 volts." "Daddy, why does it have two pipes poking out the back?" "Ah, yes, that's where the air comes out that came in through the radiator in the front!" "Daddy.." "Don't you have homework to do?"