The Historical Wireless Society of South East Queensland Inc. in Qld 1A33018 Club Events Calendar for 2014 Wireless Review Volume No. 16 Issue No.3 Published quarterly March 2014 Dates/venues may alter due to unforseen circumstances. 24 16 Mar Wynnum S.S. Club Aucon 4 May Eric Allen's Residence Crystal Set Group Meeng 18 May Everton Park Fishing Club Club Aucon 27 Jul Gumdale Hall Boot Sale 10 August Fred Clarke's Residence Crystal Set Group Meeng 2 November Ray Slater’s Residence Crystal Set Group Meeng 6 December Moreton Bay Trailer Boat Club Xmas Funcon, Quality Aucon 2014 An Eagle Radio Co. neutrodyne set snapped up at the Darra Auction. More details Page 17.
Transcript
The
Historical Wireless Society
of
South East Queensland
Inc. in Qld 1A33018
Club Events Calendar for 2014
Wireless Review Volume No. 16 Issue No.3 Published quarterly March 2014
Dates/venues may alter due to unforseen circumstances.
24
16 Mar Wynnum S.S. Club Auction
4 May Eric Allen's Residence Crystal Set Group Meeting
18 May Everton Park Fishing Club Club Auction
27 Jul Gumdale Hall Boot Sale
10 August Fred Clarke's Residence Crystal Set Group Meeting
2 November Ray Slater’s Residence Crystal Set Group Meeting
6 December Moreton Bay Trailer Boat Club Xmas Function, Quality Auction
2014
An Eagle Radio Co.
neutrodyne set snapped up at
the Darra Auction.
More details Page 17.
DISCLAIMER AND WARNING "Wireless Review", the official newsletter of the Historical Wireless Society of South East Queensland Inc. often contains *articles regarding mains-operated valve radios and associated equipment. Wording of *articles and opinions expressed herein are those of the *article authors/contributors and correspondents and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of this Society, the Society's Committee, Society members or its publishers. Whilst the publishers take due care and diligence in the preparation of this newsletter they take no responsibility or liability for any mistakes, misprints, omissions, nor guarantee the truth and accuracy of any *article. Persons acting on any opinion, advice, fact or advertisement, published in this issue do so at their own risk. The Society, Society Committee, Society members or its publishers bear no responsibility or liability for any loss or injury suffered by any person who relies wholly or in part upon advice or fact in any *article, of any nature, contained therein. *Articles must be submitted with author's name and address which can be withheld from publication on request. To operate such appliances requires high voltages at lethal levels and as a consequence can constitute a serious risk which could conceivably result in electrocution. Any modifications, alterations and/or servicing of electronic equipment should only be attempted by qualified persons. In addition an isolation transformer should be used at all times when working on AC/DC appliances as the chassis of such equipment is often connected to one side of the mains power supply.
11 BARCFest & Invitation from HRSA, Northern Rivers Group
12, 13, 14, 15 My Workshop Log
15 HWS-SEQ Public Displays
16 Photo Gallery ~ 2013 Competition ~ Displays
17 John’s Auction Purchase, Humour Corner
18 Member Profile—Toby Croce
19 Crystal Set Group Meetings
20 Storage
21 In Flight Entertainment - 1934 Style
22 A Day in the Life of a Service Technician
23 Warwick’s Word Search
24 Calendar of Events
A Day in the Life of a Service Technician
The Fibre Optics Signal Generator.
A fibre optics signal generator was for repair. The usual symptom-dead. A quick check of the instrument found the battery, a ni-cad, was discharged, flat. I placed the instrument on charge and monitored the battery voltage leaving it on the bench while doing another job. Nothing happened. A check was done - 240 volts A.C. mains to the instrument was OK; power transformer voltages were also OK; the battery charge circuit read OK too; but no charge to the battery. I found an isolating diode, a large diode with the leads bent down to fit a small space on the printed circuit board in the charge circuit. I could measure voltage on one side of the diode but none on the other side.
The diode was unsoldered and I found a manufacturing fault (it was open circuit) caused by the assembler breaking the connection internally in the diode. A phone call was made to the manufacturer, “Please do not bend the diode lead right on the case, leave a few millimetres.” Fault fixed.
Another happy manufacturer and another happy customer.
The Boss’s Radio.
When gainfully employed, we (meaning the staff) were required to repair anything electrical and electronic. Sometimes "foreigners" were fixed and the boss’s car radio was one of these “foreigners”.
It displayed the usual symptoms—it was dead. I recognized the brand and the common faults associated with it. I explained to the boss that there are red tipped disc light tan coloured capacitors, the size could be about the size of a one to the ten cent coin. When measuring these capacitors, one could find a complete open circuit, the loss of its capacitor marked value, the characteristics of a resistor or a diode. The marked values could be 0.1 uF to 0 .001uF.
The boss was informed and he volunteered to do the job himself. I earned my "brownie points" that day. Nine times out of ten the problems were these capacitors, they were a common fault.
4 21
Editorial
In this edition of “Wireless Review” you will find a mix of articles reflecting the broad range of interests of our members. My thanks goes to all those club members who have contributed. At the Christmas function I was intrigued to hear the variety of experiences and interests of our members. Steve, Doug, Neill and I had a lively discussion around the old Marconi versus Tesla debate. It would be great if we could continue that discussion and begin other ones through these pages. I must admit to being a bit on the Tesla side, having visited the Tesla Museum in Belgrade in 2012 and being swayed by working displays and detailed information, not to mention the passion of the volunteers who man the museum. My thanks to Toby for his Member Profile in this issue. His (relative) youth and enthusiasm for historical technology could help in attracting new members. The Announcements on Page 7, the Events Calendar on the back cover and the Crystal Set Group’s date claimers on Page 19 indicate what an active club this is. I welcome feedback or articles from anyone attending these events. It need not be lengthy, as you can see from Gary’s article on the Nuclear radio, a picture paints a thousand words. As I am travelling abroad in June and July, the June issue will be published and mailed in mid to late May. As a result please consider submitting items for inclusion early. If members know of radio related sites to visit in Poland, North Germany, Denmark or Holland, please let me know. Naturally, I’m excited! Mike Melzer
In Flight Entertainment - 1934 Style by Ray Slater
This is a rare photograph taken in 1934 on board a DC1(2) aircraft showing the latest in modern in-flight entertainment - an on-wall radio set. The aircraft seated 12 in relative comfort and the radio reception was "great" - provided the 2 Wright 9 cylinder radial engines were not at full revs, the radio valves were not burnt out, there were no rain clouds, and they were within 50 miles of the nearest transmitter. The aircraft owned by American Airlines was a modified DC1 fitted with 14 seats, comfortably seating 12. Looks like the other 2 had an uncomfortable flight.
20 5
President’s Report
Last December we had our Xmas function and I was pleased to see it was well attended by members and partners. Some very nice items were presented for sale including an Atwater Kent model 46. After lunch, Fred Clark stepped up to the plate as our guest speaker and presented an informative talk on the Fort Lytton area. Dan Bedford and Fred Clark submitted entries for the 2013 club competition. Dan and Fred gave a brief presentation on their respective entries prior to the judging by "People's Choice". The count was conducted and the result was a draw. Congratulations for a great effort. Our first meeting for 2014 at Darra was not well attended and it went against the normal attendance trend of recent years. I will be interested in any feedback as to why the attendance was low. Nevertheless some very nice items were presented for the auction sale. At the Darra meeting Peter Gofton presented the first instalment of how valves work and how to test them. Future talks will focus on how to test valves and the various valve testers. One of our members has agreed to open their collection for a progressive viewing. If there are other members prepared to do the same, particularly in the Brisbane south-west suburbs out to Ipswich area, please contact a committee member or myself directly. The HRSA Northern NSW Group have invited us to attend their meeting to be held on 30th March near Bangalow. Several of our members will make the trip. See full details elsewhere in the magazine. We currently have a vacancy for the position of Events Co-ordinator. If you have an interest in this position please make yourself known to a committee member. This year the Xmas competition theme is Radio Related Restoration. You will find the complete set of rules elsewhere in the magazine. I hope to see plenty of submissions which will be judged at the Xmas function in December. Rob Zanchetta President Historical Wireless Society of South East Queensland
Storage
by Onno Benschop
As a direct result of being involved in Amateur Radio, I find myself spending more time at my workbench figuring out things, repairing equipment and investigating new solutions. My workbench oscillates between clean enough to eat from, to a place where a cyclone went through in the past hour and all the stages in between. I realised that there are some contributing factors to this. Amateur Radio, a lot like LEGO, requires lots of little parts, the obligatory bolts and nuts, washers and the like, connectors and adapters, fuses and wire. Then there are a growing number of resistors, capacitors and other odds and ends. There are projects waiting to be done and the failed ones. I started hunting for storage for all these little bits. I investigated little electronics drawers, but found them prohibitively expensive if you wanted to obtain enough to make a difference. If they were cheap, they were very thin and if they were nice and robust, they came in at a couple of bucks per drawer, which adds up to real money pretty rapidly. I experimented with toolboxes and all manner of different storage bins and then came across a fishing tackle box. Not the toolbox type, just a simple flat semi-transparent box with lots of little compartments. The one I found has about 24 little sections, and the walls are removable, so you can fit a large lure, uh, bolt in them. In my travels through various different clubs and shacks, I've seen a myriad of other solutions too. What do you use to store your precious bits ‘n’ pieces? Onno VK6FLAB
Submitted by Peter Hadgraft
6 19
CRYSTAL SET GROUP MEETINGS 2014
from Ray Creighton The remaining three meetings of the HWS Crystal Set Group for this year have been scheduled.
4th May 2014 - Eric Allen's Residence 417 Boundary Rd, Narangba, Qld, Phone: 07 3888 2366. Dan Bedford will bring along a collection of galena and other mineral samples to test as detectors with a cats whisker detector crystal set. Bring any rocks you have if you want to try them on Dan's test rig.
10th August 2014 - Fred Clarke's Residence 20 Muir St Cannon Hill, Qld, Phone: 07 3399 1974
2nd November 2014 - Ray Slater's Residence 35 Cherry St, Wellington Point, Phone: 07 3207 5294
Auctioneer’s Report
Our Moreton Bay December Xmas function was well re-ceived with some 56 member and partners. Although only 56 items were submitted, there were some quality items up for offers. The top price for the day was a 1920 Atwater Kent model that after a reprieve in bidding achieved $330. 1920s sets don’t seem to attract the prices as they did a few years ago, a trend that other clubs are also experiencing. There was a good sprinkling of ‘restored’ Bakelites including Hotpoint, Stromberg Carlson, STC, and a nicely restored AWA Radiola model 46E that secured $300. The quality of our ‘quality’ Xmas auction reflected the average price of approximately $100.
Our first auction for the year normally gets a good turnout with a lot of interesting
items. And this year the January Darra
meeting was no exception. A good sub-
mission of ‘Club’ items (25 in total) saw
a variety of items from transistor radios
through to laboratory test gear to some
monitor amplifiers. Member’s items in-
cluded 81 lots which were up from the
same time last year when only 54 lots
were offered. Top price for the day was
$270 for an Astor white ‘football’ bake-
lite in good working condition. We saw some very presentable items particularly a
beautifully presented Columbia wind-up gramophone that achieved a very fair
price of $270.
Thank you again all those that make our auctions so successful. If you can scout
around and submit some items for our March Auction that would be appreciated-
See Page 19 for the remaining meeting dates and locations for
2014 .
Club Christmas Function
Saturday, 6th December 2014
Moreton Bay Trailer Boat Club
Member Profile – Toby Croce
Hi. Most of you will know me but
for those of you who don’t my
name is Toby Croce. I'm 32 and
have only been collecting for 3
years.
I grew up in the small country
town of St. George out west
where after school I became a
Baker/pastry cook which I did for about 5years before moving up to the Sunshine
Coast. Once up the coast I decided to pursue my dream job installing car audio
which I did for 8years. While doing that I learnt a lot about electronics and really
enjoyed doing it to the point I fixed anything I could find.
I then decided it was time for a change and a new challenge so I got a job at a local
TV repair shop doing parts. I started to play around with fixing TVs and found I had
a talent for fixing them. I even started buying broken TVs on eBay and fixing them.
One day I found a guy selling a big lot of old vintage TVs and I decided to go have a
look. Kim used to collect and restore them but needed room so I bought all
fourteen. I started buying and TVs then and it became a passion because I admired
the workmanship and quality of them. Everything is made so cheaply now and
with no character. Then everywhere I went I was offered radios and so I had
caught the bug!
I now have a big collection of radios and TVs and vintage electronics and hi-fi gear
which surprisingly my wife has let me fill the lounge room with. We have a baby
girl on the way in June so we will see how things go as some serious baby proofing
will need to be done. I really enjoy collecting radios and TVs and all the people I
meet on the way and the knowledge I've gained especially from a lot of our club
members.
Hear Ye!
Hear Ye!
Club Auction
Sunday 18th May 2014 Everton park Fishing Club
Boot Sale
Sunday 27th July 2014 Gumdale Hall
Warren Alcorn Our hard working member, Warren, is unwell and our thoughts and best wishes go out to him.Warren and Shirley have catered for our tea, coffee and lunches at most meetings. We need a member, or members, to take over this role which is only required five times per year. Please contact Rob if you can help.
8 17
The Christmas function on the 7th December was well attended.
John’s Auction Purchase
John snapped up a the bargain of the day at the Darra Auction, picking up this
Eagle Radio Co five valve neutrodyne set, recently
brought in from the US by another member. As the
pictures show, it is in immaculate condition. Later in
the day he was able to obtain the matching valves to
complete a very collectable item, making for a very
happy auction attendee.
(See front
cover
picture for
internal
view).
Humour Corner
Some quality items were presented for auction.
The lovingly restored Music Masters Mendelssohn was a desirable prize
for one lucky member.
9 16
Nuclear radio by Gary Forsdike
I recently returned from a trip to Japan doing the usual tourist route from Tokyo through the alps to Takayama and Kanazawa where we caught the Shinkansen to Kyoto for a week. I still had a few days to spare and decided to take the bullet train to Hiroshima as I think everyone has something to learn from that city. The entire city has been completely rebuilt with only the old but famous shell of the atomic bomb dome from the 1915 Industrial Promotion Hall still recognizable. The adjacent Peace Memorial Museum is a must see and contains some disturbing images. In that museum I found this old radio, which had survived, in a fashion, in an old building not far from the epicentre of the explosion . It says a lot without a saying a word.
Dan Bedford and Fred Clark submitted entries for the 2013
club competition. A "People's Choice" count was conducted
and the result was a draw.
Dan Bedford’s two valve regenerative receiver for the Club Competition formed part of his display on “Set Building—1960’s style”
Fred Clarke with his entry in the 2013 Club Competition.
Several members provided excellent displays on the day.
15 10
Poking the wiring around the early stages seemed to influence the fault so I wasted a lot of time trying to re-dress the wiring, in case the AGC or signal wires were picking the hum up from their proximity to the heater wiring. This was inconclusive.
Beware the Aluminium Chassis: I began to think along the lines of bad earths causing heater current injecting hum into the signal circuits. The earth points were lugs riveted onto the aluminium chassis. As is usual, the earthed heater pins are wired together with the other earthed pins and share common earth points. What if one of these earth lugs was making intermittent contact with the chassis? This would certainly cause the fault. I had already wasted a huge amount of time on this radio so I decided to take the blanket approach and isolate the heater circuit completely from the signal circuits. This took some time as I had to rewire the ECH42 and EAF42 sockets and run a new wire for the heater return. This was connected to the same earth point that the transformer heater winding was connected. As a further precaution, I ran a length of tinned copper wire connecting all the chassis lugs together. That was it! The set ran for several days with no sign of hum. I was at last confident that I had found the fault. That was more that two months ago and no complaints. I’ve leaned a lesson here; don’t trust a connection to an aluminium chassis, especially one involving tin plate lugs and brass rivets.
HWS-SEQ Public Displays Assistance Required
The HWS-SEQ will provide displays for two public events in South East Queensland as well as at the BARCFest and maintaining the on-going display at the ABC Building, South Bank.
2014 Heritage Gold—Gold Coast Heritage Open Day Sunday 13 April 2014 from 10.00am-3.00pm
Assistance is needed from members particularly in the Gold Coast area. It is at the Gold Coast Hinterland Heritage Museum, Mudgeeraba Light Horse Museum and is hosted by City of Gold Coast.
History Alive Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 June 2014
This event is at Fort Lytton National Park – corner of Lytton Road and South Street, Lytton and is hosted by The Queensland Living History Federation
Please contact our President, Rob Zanchetta, to offer your assistance at these events.
Letter to the Editor I refer to the article in WIRELESS REVIEW, December 2013, page 14, Titled "Ten Tubes $19.95” Subject : Faulty Greencap Capacitors. Firstly, congratulations to Stewart Irwin on an excellent article. Greencap capacitors have always been a source of trouble. They are useless in a frequency oscillator or selective circuit as they are unstable even at voice frequencies. Never put them in a voltage circuit near their marked voltage, they explode. The current carrying capacitor ability is extremely low; I have had units explode with disastrous results. They seem to have "a lazy Q" which effects performance. The only place in a circuit I have found is in a non-critical circuit as a bypass unit. Often, I would do a visual inspection of a faulty set and spy greencap capacitors in a radio frequency circuit. I would change them and this would fix the problem of poor performance. Testing these capacitors with a multi-meter and a capacitance tester, showed nothing wrong with them, no D.C. circuit and the correct capacitance. Thus my conclusion of a "Lazy Q". Instead of thus Yours sincerely, David Brownsey
2014 Club Competition “A radio related restoration project with pictures of progress“
The following rules will apply. Must be a financial member of the Association. A member may enter more than one project. The item/s can’t have been entered in any previous competition run by any
organization. The Management Committee has sole discretion on any entry’s validity for
this competition. First, second and third prizes and certificate to be awarded Completed project with pictures of progress to be displayed at the Christmas
Function. Judging by people’s choice.
11 14
Invitation from HRSA Northern Rivers Group
On 30th March, 2014 Bill McPhillips will be hosting a social meeting at his Binna Burra home. Any HWS-SEQ members who care to attend would be more than welcome. All we ask is that those intending to attend advise Bill beforehand. The usual protocol for our meetings is that we each cater for our own lunch, a BBQ will be available, and something is brought as a contribution to morning tea. Coffee & tea etc. will be provided. The day usually begins with an auction, followed by lunch. The afternoon consists of informal socialising. Bill’s main collective motivation is 20s sets, some 30s and some basic representation of more recent times. Quite a few of the 20s sets are crystal sets. HWS-SEQ members are welcome to bring items for the auction. Bill can be contacted via email: [email protected] or phone: (02) 6687 1296 or 0428872396. To get to the meeting, take the Pacific Highway to Bangalow. From Bangalow, head west on Byron St towards Deacon St. At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto Lismore Rd. 3.4 km on turn left onto Friday Hut Rd. 1.6 km on take the 1st right onto Flowers Rd.
My Workshop Log Continued . . .
The Bell Bounced! I had repaired this radio for my antique collector friend and he eventually sold it. Word came back though that the set was not working. After a while, the set landed on my bench but I could not fault it. It seemed to be working just as well as when I restored it many months ago. Over the next couple of weeks I ran the radio for several hours most days and it didn’t miss a beat. I explained this to my friend and asked what the problem was supposed to be. He replied that he had simply been told that it wasn’t working. No help there. He was just about to come over to pick it up when I noticed that there seemed to be more hum than usual. A few tests showed that it was modulation hum, ie, hum that is only audible when a station is tuned in. Further tests showed that the hum was 50 Hz. This indicated that the hum was not coming from the H.T. power supply as, being full wave, would produce a 100 Hz hum. The hum varied greatly in intensity, sometimes barely there, sometimes absent completely and other times quite bad. Sometimes it was so bad it chopped the audio up horribly. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. I made voltage checks to try and narrow down the problem but to no avail. The voltage levels were identical whether the hum was there or not.
Heater to cathode leakage? My first thought was that one of the valves had intermittent heater to cathode leakage. The trouble was that I only had a substitute for the ECH42 converter but I figured this was the most likely valve to cause these symptoms so I swapped it for the one in the set. That seemed to be it! The set ran well for a couple of days, but the hum returned. I was stuck, as I had no EAF42. I told my friend that fixing the set may take some time as I had to find a valve. Then I remembered that I did have one; in a late 1940s Siemens set I have. Substitution revealed eventually that this was not the problem. I had no EBF21 but I thought that this was unlikely to be the culprit, as the hum was evident at the detector. The detector uses the diode in the EAF42, not the EBL21. I poked and prodded the chassis looking for clues or just inspiration. At one point moving the tuning gang seemed to influence the degree of the fault. The tuning gang had no earth wire and relied for earthing on the mounting bolts securing it to the dial, which in turn was bolted to the chassis. What is more, the dial lamp is mounted and relies on the same precarious earth for its supply. Could the hum be getting into the signal circuits this way? I isolated the dial lamp circuit from the gang, running it back to an earth point near the power transformer. I also ran a wire from the gang to a chassis point near the early signal circuits in the way it should have been in the first place. More lengthy testing revealed that the problem was as bad as ever.
Brisbane Amateur Radio Club BARC Fest
The Brisbane Amateur Radio Club wish to advise that there has been a change of venue for the 2014 BARCFest. This year it will be held on Saturday 10th of May at the Salvation Army Church Hall at Calamvale.
Members of the HWS-SEQ will mount a display at this event.
The address is the corner of Beaudesert Road and Kameruka Street, Calamvale. There is ample parking available. Start time is 9.30am. More details at http://www.qsl.net/vk4ba/barcfest/
Back in May I was given a New Zealand made Bell “Cadet” to restore. As far as I can gather, this was the first radio to use the “Bell” brand; previous versions of this radio being made under the “Antone” brand. This radio was made around 1950 and, as can be seen, used the same cabinet design as the Australian made Airzone “Cub” series. This radio was replaced by the well known Bell “Colt” series in 1951, which was another radio to use a superseded Airzone cabinet design.
The radio is a conventional four valve design using European valves: ECH42, EAF42, EBL21 and EZ41. These are from the European “Rimlock” miniature series, with the exception of the EBL21 output valve, which is from the European loctal series.
Getting it going: After replacing the electros, power cord, most of the paper caps, a trimmer cap and two resistors the radio showed signs of life. When it came to alignment though, all was not well. I was able to peak the aerial trimmer on the high frequency end of the dial but I could not find a peak with the aerial coil core. The inductance of the aerial coil was too low even with the core screwed in as far as it would go. It looked like I had no choice but to replace the aerial coil. I removed the aerial coil in preparation to replacing it and noticed that the mounting bolt was rather long. It screwed into the coil end plug and protruded into the middle of the coils, coaxially with them and the core. I replaced the bolt with one much shorter and that was it, I could now screw the core much further in and peak it with the incoming signal.
Good Sensitivity: A careful alignment showed that the radio has very good sensitivity for a four valve
non-reflexed radio. In fact it gave a sensitivity of 25 V at 600 kHz and slightly better at 1400 kHz. The radio has an in built aerial in the form of an aluminium foil sheet on the underside of the cabinet top and this gave good reception of the stronger Brisbane stations from down here on the Gold Coast. After a soak test of several days, I returned it to the owner. This is unfortunately not the end of the story.
