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Early Radio

there is a good thread on Eddystone Radio​

Radio

as i posted i bought one off ebay ended up with 3. i listen to MW at 5am every morning on my walk, i have to hold the radio and turn it as i walk to get a signal just like the old days. remembering having to hold one to my lughole to listen to radio caroline in the 60s. good old. I still like...
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blackcountrymuse said:
My Uncle, now long gone, listened to the first broadcasts of 2LO in 1922. This was the start of the BBC. During the War, he served in the Royal Navy as a Radio Operator, and was proficient in Morse Code, and a Licenced Radio Ham. He built and maintained all his own equipment, and supervised me in the construction of a crystal set, made from all sorts of odds and ends and wire. We had no electrical supply at the house I lived in, so the Radio was powered by an accumulator, or the more expensive multi-celled dry battery. Our yard wasn't very big either, but uncle solved that, by stringing up a long wire antenna, in a series of loops, that was almost 120 feet long. I could then, and did, listen to hundreds of broadcasts around the world when conditions were right. ( I have the QSL Cards to prove it ) Needless to say. I have been doing that ever since, and have been a licenced operator for over 30 years. Although I no longer build my own gear, I still use a long wire antenna.
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Here's a letter from the GPO in February 1923 authorising the installation of 'a station for receiving wireless signals for experimental purposes' at a house in The Broadway, Handsworth. There are several conditions of use including the external aerial 'shall not exceed 100 feet' and the licensee 'shall not divulge or make any use of any message received from another experimental station, except time signals, musical performances and messages transmitted for general reception'.

Anyone know what exactly is meant by an 'experimental station' and what messages it would be picking up?
 

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Hi Martyn,

In those early days of radio, new discoveries and advances were being made all the time, and
the allocations of Amateur radio licenses were made for the purpose of experimentation
( and still are!) . There were 2 classes of transmitting licence at that time, - one which you had
to pass exams to get, which allowed you to transmit which had callsigns in the series
2 + two letters. The other license class which is often referred to as an Artificial Aerial (AA)
license only allowed you experiment with the equipment, and any testing of a transmitter
could only be made into a Resistor (Dummy Load) to burn off the RF output,. These stations
were allocated callsigns in the series 2 +three letters. It was commonplace for these stations to
use a 'leaky' dummy load so that their signals could be heard locally.

Kind regards
Dave
 
Thanks Dave, I know that the person applying for the licence was an electrical engineer working for the GEC so perhaps had a personal and professional interest in the development of radio.
 
I have posted this link to a excellent Radio History site containing a goldmine of information in a previous thread not exactly related to Radio and thought it may be a good idea to post it here as a reminder.

Its really worth a visit, its more than just radio with fantastic content that also covers television, music and electronics history. All content of this site is downloadable for you to enjoy at your leisure. Hope you enjoy it.

https://worldradiohistory.com/index.htm
 
Dave89 said:
Hi Dave,

I've used this site for some time, it's brilliant.
Only problem is, - it's so addictive!
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Yes Dave, I have also spent many hours browsing the World Radio History site too. It is a true dedication these guys have who manage this site and credit must go to them for their time, effort and money they put in to it.

Many hours I have spent looking at the electronics magazines and books sections. Many of these publications I have purchased over the years, I must have spent hundreds if not thousands of pounds on these mags and books only to find them all available at the click of a mouse button! Still if people had not brought them back then and donated them to World Radio History to scan and put on their website then they would not be available to us now.

It is really pleasing to see this many publications of yesteryear available to the younger generation who missed out on the many years of fun and education that we all enjoyed back then.

Its well worth a look at this section https://worldradiohistory.com/Scanning-for-American-Radio-History.htm to appreciate the expense of equipment and the purchasing old magazines and books, also their time and trouble they go to for our enjoyment. A true dedication and I take my hat off to them for what they do. keep up the good work guys.
 
Dave Riley said:
Yes Dave, I have also spent many hours browsing the World Radio History site too. It is a true dedication these guys have who manage this site and credit must go to them for their time, effort and money they put in to it.

Many hours I have spent looking at the electronics magazines and books sections. Many of these publications I have purchased over the years, I must have spent hundreds if not thousands of pounds on these mags and books only to find them all available at the click of a mouse button! Still if people had not brought them back then and donated them to World Radio History to scan and put on their website then they would not be available to us now.

It is really pleasing to see this many publications of yesteryear available to the younger generation who missed out on the many years of fun and education that we all enjoyed back then.

Its well worth a look at this section https://worldradiohistory.com/Scanning-for-American-Radio-History.htm to appreciate the expense of equipment and the purchasing old magazines and books, also their time and trouble they go to for our enjoyment. A true dedication and I take my hat off to them for what they do. keep up the good work guys.
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My goodness, they really have there stuff together! A very impressive group indeed.
 
I didn't realise that Birmingham or more precisely Sutton Coldfield was a pioneer in early British TV. Reading an article on building and operating the View Master, a set that my father also built and operated, it states that London, Alexandra Palace was using double-sideband transmission, while Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield was to use single-sideband transmission, the system that would become part of the national standard. A first for Birmingham!
ssbtv.jpg
 
i remember building a kit like that all i could hear was radio Moscow

1642239383827.png 1642238385102.png

in the late1940's Wireless World published a design for television reciever for home construction. At the same time a few companies were marketing television kits. With such interest in television Practical Wireless added a seperate television section to it's magazine. With the opening of the Birmingham transmitter in December of the previous year it was deemed that there was enough demand. picking up transmissions from the new Sutton Coldfield transmitter. Subscribers to the service were charged 7s 6d per week, the charge including the license fee.
 
mw0njm. said:
i remember building a kit like that all i could hear was radio Moscow

View attachment 166206 View attachment 166205

in the late1940's Wireless World published a design for television reciever for home construction. At the same time a few companies were marketing television kits. With such interest in television Practical Wireless added a seperate television section to it's magazine. With the opening of the Birmingham transmitter in December of the previous year it was deemed that there was enough demand. picking up transmissions from the new Sutton Coldfield transmitter. Subscribers to the service were charged 7s 6d per week, the charge including the license fee.
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7/6 per week seems like rather a lot of money!
 
I remember my father building a floor-standing TV. It had a 9" tube and the EHT was provided by a pair of transformers so could provide lots of current, far more than ever needed. I don't know where the design came from, probably Wireless World. A few years later he made a table-mounted model that he always called a View Master. This had a 12" tube. He modified the design so that the sound section could be switched on with the vision section off and I expect it was multi-band. That meant that the 'TV' could be on during the day playing radio stations then switched over to TV when those programmes started in the early evening - 'instant start' TV as a lot of the valves were already 'hot'.
If my memory serves me well he used that TV and a Heathkit FM tuner to listen to early BBC experiments in stereo radio, one channel using the otherwise unused TV audio channel and the other the newly-introduced FM VHF channels.
The Heathkit radio was designed to have an add-on, yet to be designed, unit as the BBC hadn't decided how stereo would be finally broadcast. I was, many years later (1970s?), to fit an integrated circuit-based stereo decoder pcb within the original set so it served as the house FM stereo set until a Panasonic music centre took over that job.
 
Spargone said:
I remember my father building a floor-standing TV. It had a 9" tube and the EHT was provided by a pair of transformers so could provide lots of current, far more than ever needed. I don't know where the design came from, probably Wireless World. A few years later he made a table-mounted model that he always called a View Master. This had a 12" tube. He modified the design so that the sound section could be switched on with the vision section off and I expect it was multi-band. That meant that the 'TV' could be on during the day playing radio stations then switched over to TV when those programmes started in the early evening - 'instant start' TV as a lot of the valves were already 'hot'.
If my memory serves me well he used that TV and a Heathkit FM tuner to listen to early BBC experiments in stereo radio, one channel using the otherwise unused TV audio channel and the other the newly-introduced FM VHF channels.
The Heathkit radio was designed to have an add-on, yet to be designed, unit as the BBC hadn't decided how stereo would be finally broadcast. I was, many years later (1970s?), to fit an integrated circuit-based stereo decoder pcb within the original set so it served as the house FM stereo set until a Panasonic music centre took over that job.
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wow the EHT the smell of ozone when you went near them them or the top of the valve
 
The capacitance of the tube could hold the EHT for quite a long time after switch off, ouch!!. I only needed that lesson once. Also the CLUNK of the rotary tuner as it changed most of the RF tuned circuits for each channel at once. And the polish on the cabinet was as important as the picture quality.
Andrew.
 
i had a tv combined with radio up untill 1970 when i lent it someone and never got it back grrrr. the screen was almost green.complete with the pole that ran across it when it was on. now again a police broadcast come through. mom was worried in case they knew we could hear them.
 
In my experimental days, I built a super regen set, using 'high frequency transistors' and got it tuned onto the aircraft band. Heard quite a bit of aircraft traffic. If you remember how these work, you will appreciate that this was a generally bad idea. When I learned how they worked in some depth, I abandoned this project.
Andrew.
 
I bought a war surplus transmitter/receiver from a Hurst Street shop and when I transmitted I noticed looking out of my bedroom window, that a television screen in a house across the road went blank and the man in the house got up from his seat and thumped the top of his television, I quickly switched to receive and his picture came back on !
Being a teenager, I was going to have fun seeing him going back and forth to his tv with the picture going on and off when a shout from downstairs told me our tv was also going on and off .... :rolleyes:
 
Spargone said:
I remember my father building a floor-standing TV. It had a 9" tube and the EHT was provided by a pair of transformers so could provide lots of current, far more than ever needed. I don't know where the design came from, probably Wireless World. A few years later he made a table-mounted model that he always called a View Master. This had a 12" tube. He modified the design so that the sound section could be switched on with the vision section off and I expect it was multi-band. That meant that the 'TV' could be on during the day playing radio stations then switched over to TV when those programmes started in the early evening - 'instant start' TV as a lot of the valves were already 'hot'.
If my memory serves me well he used that TV and a Heathkit FM tuner to listen to early BBC experiments in stereo radio, one channel using the otherwise unused TV audio channel and the other the newly-introduced FM VHF channels.
The Heathkit radio was designed to have an add-on, yet to be designed, unit as the BBC hadn't decided how stereo would be finally broadcast. I was, many years later (1970s?), to fit an integrated circuit-based stereo decoder pcb within the original set so it served as the house FM stereo set until a Panasonic music centre took over that job.
Click to expand...
I remember that my friend had a friend who lived by the aqueduct at Wootton Wawen who built a floor standing 9inch screen tv receiver. The only time I saw it I was gobsmacked

Bob
 
Bob Davis said:
I remember that my friend had a friend who lived by the aqueduct at Wootton Wawen who built a floor standing 9inch screen tv receiver. The only time I saw it I was gobsmacked

Bob
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We literally sat knee-to-knee in an arc in front of that 9" set. The only thing I remember watching on it was a cartoon in which insects were using half a pea pod as a galley.
 
O
oldMohawk said:
I bought a war surplus transmitter/receiver from a Hurst Street shop and when I transmitted I noticed looking out of my bedroom window, that a television screen in a house across the road went blank and the man in the house got up from his seat and thumped the top of his television, I quickly switched to receive and his picture came back on !
Being a teenager, I was going to have fun seeing him going back and forth to his tv with the picture going on and off when a shout from downstairs told me our tv was also going on and off .... :rolleyes:
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OM, too close for comfort!
 
oldMohawk said:
I bought a war surplus transmitter/receiver from a Hurst Street shop and when I transmitted I noticed looking out of my bedroom window, that a television screen in a house across the road went blank and the man in the house got up from his seat and thumped the top of his television, I quickly switched to receive and his picture came back on !
Being a teenager, I was going to have fun seeing him going back and forth to his tv with the picture going on and off when a shout from downstairs told me our tv was also going on and off .... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
reminds me of a friend who had a radio shop . he bought a huge amp/burner for the cb shop it was about 20kw. when we got it working there was a hum and buzz.you could feel the heat from the valves. like a electric fire we conected it to a radio when he keyed the mic on the radio car alarms went off garage doors went up and house alarms started ringing.tvs went blank. what a tool:grinning:

​

 
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As mentioned with pics in post#57 I built a single valve super regen radio and accidently discovered single sideband transmissions on 80metres. I used to listen to a group which included a ham radio guy call-sign G2DAF. He published a design for an advanced SSB receiver known as the G2DAF.

I decided to build it and finished it but then got married and my soldering iron, bits of wire, resistors, and capacitors etc were put away never to be got out again because 10 years later the ZX Spectrum and VIC 20 home computers appeared and I was into computing ... :grinning:
 
oldMohawk said:
As mentioned with pics in post#57 I built a single valve super regen radio and accidently discovered single sideband transmissions on 80metres. I used to listen to a group which included a ham radio guy call-sign G2DAF. He published a design for an advanced SSB receiver known as the G2DAF.

I decided to build it and finished it but then got married and my soldering iron, bits of wire, resistors, and capacitors etc were put away never to be got out again because 10 years later the ZX Spectrum and VIC 20 home computers appeared and I was into computing ... :grinning:
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i liked the vic 20. and the commador 64.i used them for radio packet before the www

:grinning:
 
mw0njm. said:
i liked the vic 20. and the commador 64.i used them for radio packet before the www

:grinning:
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I mentioned the Vic 20 and Commodore 64 long ago in 2009 when many of us forum members were trying out computers and we were learning how to use the forum as it was in those days ...

1st touch on a Computer

We all use computers and I thought about the first one I ever touched at work in (history bit) 1979. It was a Commodore Pet with a programing language called Basic. We had it to do quotes and other calcs, but for a week or more we could not stop playing with it and very little real work was...
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