Wireless World magazine

I used to love WW--thanks!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

A great resource.

Just opened one at random - Jan 1982. Article on "The New Electronics" - seems like we were bemoaning the lack of electronics education back then too.

Reminds me of being a kid, making my first shortwave rcvr. What a thrill! I still remember the first thing I heard: "Ding, Ding, Ding, This is Radio Q uito" I knew from geography Quito was capital of Equador. I was amazed, the re's voices in the air you can't hear!

Illegal of course since they are still copyright but I doubt anybody cares.

Take a look at the Oct 1945 issue. AC Clark on geostationary satellites.

Looked at a 1913 edition. No circuits in it at all.

NT

So, it was entirely wireless then.

--
  \_(?)_

AC Clarke wrote lots of hard SF based on this sort of analysis. One of his neater ones was the orbital tether. Havent seen that come to pass yet, nor nuclear rockets.

Interesting statement in that article that the Germans though it might be 50-100 years before we got satellites, but the Russians did it in less than 15 years from then, using German technology and knowledge.

Okay, so the 1948/07 issue has a "London Central Radio Stores" advert on page 20 with this on offer:

VIBRATORS. 2 v. input. Self -rectifying type. Output approx. 200 v.

600 mA. 7/6

I take it that the price (7 bob and sixpence) would be something like a few pounds today?

But anyway, 200V at 0.6A out- so the thing draws 60A? What kind of application would that hav been used for? Perhaps a munitions fuse or something?

--sp

--
Best regards,  
Spehro Pefhany 
Amazon link for AoE 3rd Edition:            http://tinyurl.com/ntrpwu8 
Microchip link for 2015 Masters in Phoenix: http://tinyurl.com/l7g2k48

Oh, and thanks to researching pre-decimalization British currency, and the wonders of the internet, I now understand what the phrase "cracking thrupenny bits" means.

--sp

--
Best regards,  
Spehro Pefhany 
Amazon link for AoE 3rd Edition:            http://tinyurl.com/ntrpwu8 
Microchip link for 2015 Masters in Phoenix: http://tinyurl.com/l7g2k48

From

BTW, "bob" was used for whole shillings, but "7s 6d" would

been said as "5 pounds nineteen and eleven". 3d was "thruppence", 2s 6d was "half a crown" or or "two and six" or "two and sixpence" - but crowns weren't used.

The monetary and imperial units meant that schoolchildren under 11 were taught to do arithmetic in base

2,3,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,22,112 and I'm sure some others.

And since calculators were mechanical monsters, you were also taught some multiplication short cuts valid only in certain circumstances. Mercifully I have forgotten those.

by my reckoning 7/6 was 0.375 pounds

has it at 13 pounds some today.

120W - audio amplifier? some sort of transmitter? Someone posts links to munitions fuses here periodically, they're all low power devices. powered by wet cell batteries or impeller driven generators.

--
  \_(?)_

Okay, so a fair chunk of change.

2V would be a single lead-acid cell. There was a lot of ex-RAF stuff on their shelves. I can't remember seeing anything in my lifetime that ran off of 2V (I'm well post-WWII but there was still such surplus available when I were a lad).

I'm thinking short run time @60+A because otherwise they'd use a number of cells but maybe that's not solid logic.

Maybe a manpack or walkie-talkie radio that would have healthy transmit power while virtually idling for receive, but the ones I've found in a brief search all used more than one cell for the power (or A/B batteries for filament and B+).

--sp

--
Best regards,  
Spehro Pefhany 
Amazon link for AoE 3rd Edition:            http://tinyurl.com/ntrpwu8 
Microchip link for 2015 Masters in Phoenix: http://tinyurl.com/l7g2k48

That's only one measure of inflation, and probably not the best in this discussion. Based on how easy it would have

From

Perhaps both.

Old AM transmitters consisted of a high power class A/AB audio amplifier feeding the modulation transformer primary.

An other amplification chain amplified the carrier to a significant levels into a class-C output stage. The modulation transformer secondary was connected between the plate supply and the RF output tube anode. With 200 V plate supply, the RF stage anode voltage would vary between 0 and 400 V and hence the PEP (Peak Envelope Power) would be 4 times the carrier power.

The 200 V sounds a bit low for anything more than 10 W in either audio or RF-chain and 600 mA a lot even for the audio+RF stages even with push pull.

Indirectly heater audio and RF tubes usually use 6.3 or 12.6 V heater voltage needing a 3 or 6 cell battery. Why use a single 2 V cell to generate 200 Vdc ?

Perhaps this is a typo, the input might be 12 V ?

Interpreting the output specification as 200 V _AND_ 600 mA out might be a marketing statement. Perhaps more to the point 200 V _OR_ 600 mA, in the worst case 200 V unloaded idle voltage and 600 mA short circuit current :-)

With these specifications it might make sense for a 10-30 W mobile AM transceiver perhaps used in military or police etc. vehicles.