Meccano Wireless Receiver

[Pacific231G]

I'm not sure what forum this topic belongs in as it's about Meccano but not its trains.

I've just found this  and it's something I'd never heard of before.

 

Note the various Meccano components used in the construction of both the ready made and the "constructional type" but also the price. An average weekly wage in 1925 was about £5 a week so this wouldn't have been a frivolous purchase. 

Why a "constructor's licence" shoud, have cost 50% more than a standard radio licence I have no idea, perhaps the possibility a badly built receiver interfering with others- though that's not something I've ever ever heard of but it makes the total cost of owning one of these, with a telephone earpiece £2 the same as the ready bult version with a licence and that could receive over a much widerfrequency range, though it couldn't pick up R4 LW (1500M)

 

Graham Farish were also in on the "radio craze" making components for home built receivers long before they got into model railways in 1948.  By 1932, when radio listening was well established they were offering a lightning arrester "makes listening safe in the worst of storms" and a "percolative chemical"earth. a poor earth being the major cause of bad reception .

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2020 by Pacific231G
new information (Grraham Farish)

[meil]

25/- is about £76 today. The cost of the components today £2 tops.

[Il Grifone]

The price didn't stop at 25/-.  One required a long aerial in the garden and a good earth as well.

 

The crystal set i had about 35 years later would receive the Home Service and Third Programme on Medium Wave (both together if the tuning was in the right place!) and the Light programme on Long Wave. No chance of Radio Luxembourg, though I did get Radio Moscow once, when the Light programme had shut down, as they did in those days (Propaganda about tractors IIRC - in English - my knowledge of Russian is/was extremely limited). A germanium diode ensured no messing about with 'cat's whiskers'.

Since valves were heavily taxed*, regenerative receivers were popular. These which used a valve as both radio and audio amplifier with the strong possibility of oscillation which would indeed mess up your neighbour's reception. For the more affluent/ real enthusiast, a superhet (supersonic heterodyne) receiver would also be prone to oscillation if not built properly.

* I've seen 27/6d quoted for a valve in the 20s. This would have made a radio wireless set quite expensive.

[Nearholmer]

My good lady bought me a very cheap and simple 'cat's whisker' set as a kit about ten years ago, and it was next to useless until inspiration struck: I made a new whisker from nickel-silver wire, filed and emeried down to a really sharp point, and by fiddling around for ages with positions on the rough old crystal supplied I was able to receive some stations using no more than wire strung-up around the sitting room and an earth to a radiator pipe.

 

My father was a pretty serious 'ham' for a while, creating sets using mostly valves that he had 'liberated' from captured German stores during the war, and which he sent home as "personal effects" to his mother to look after, packing them in biscuit tins with the lids soldered on! All the valves were Mullard ones, with swastikas on. We had a huge aerial strung from the oak tree at the end of the garden.

[45655]

51 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

My father was a pretty serious 'ham' for a while, creating sets using mostly valves that he had 'liberated' from captured German stores during the war, and which he sent home as "personal effects" to his mother to look after, packing them in biscuit tins with the lids soldered on! All the valves were Mullard ones, with swastikas on. We had a huge aerial strung from the oak tree at the end of the garden.

That's a fascinating story.  Mullard of course was a British company (albeit owned by Philips) so it's possible that those valves had been captured from the BEF at the time of Dunkirk.  I don't know whether Philips Eindhoven manufactured valves with Mullard branding but the ones they produced for the occupying forces were allegedly designed to have a very low MTBF...

[Nearholmer]

I am sure they came from Eindhoven, because that was definitely marked on them, but the other marking implies that they dated from the German occupation period*, so maybe I'm misremembering the manufacturer's name that was on them - our house was awash with valves and part-dismantled gear that was being re-cycled, so I could easily be confusing the two brands.

 

My father 'liberated' these particular ones from stores in North Africa or possibly in Egypt, where I know he worked at a concentration and re-distribution depot for captured radio stores. He served with 'Signals' in multiple places, including rambling about in the desert in a radio truck monitoring Arab League forces during the 1948 Arab-Isreali war, then going down into Egypt, where he was posted at the British Embassy (I think it was an embassy, but I get deeply confused about the status of Britain in Egypt at that date) in Cairo until he came back c1953. Our house was also awash with books about ancient Egypt, because he managed to visit all the great museums and many of the tombs on days-off.

 

Which is all a bit OT - sorry!

 

* Having done a quick google, it seems that the Eindhoven factory was overseen by the German air-ministry at that time.

[Nearholmer]

34 minutes ago, 45655 said:

the occupying forces were allegedly designed to have a very low MTBF...

 

Well, the ones that got to our shed were still going strong in the 1960s! When a newly acquired defunkt TV or radio was acquired from a jumble sale, father would dismantle and diagnose on the dining table, then issue a "shopping list" of part numbers or types, and I would have to go down the garden, look through the stocks (often by torchlight) and bring back the required items. The "German" ones were still in their little square corrugated-card packing tubes.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Nearholmer

[roythebus]

Having just read a 1932 book The romance of the Underground, the rates of pay there were something like £4/18/6 a week for a top line controller, £4/16/0 a week for a driver, going down to just over £2 a week for a cleaner. So this would suggest a weekly average wage of about £3/10/0 a week not £5. This would amount to nearly 50% of the week's wages for a radio valve! It puts things into perspective.

[Il Grifone]

Mullard valves were always the best. Some we received from China really did have a low MTBF (as in between plugging in and switching on...).

 

Average wage includes the rich. It only takes one footballer on a million plus amid a hundred plebs to double the average. A better figure is the median (half earn less, half more) which is significantly less. Newspapers (etc.) always quote the former. The median disposable income is allegedly £29,400 in the UK (I wish..).

Edited December 9, 2020 by Il Grifone

[Nearholmer]

One of the things that makes all these income/cost comparisons confusing/meaningless is that "disposable income" is formally what a person "takes home", so before they payfor their essential living costs, notably housing, food, and clothing. The term that is used formally to describe "what's left over" (and might get spent on toys!) is "discretionary income". BUT, the terms do get interchanged, even it seems by Gov.UK sources in some cases, and are misused/confused in the popular press.

 

It gets even more complicated because most datasets are for household, rather than individual, incomes, and in some cases they also cite on "equivalised" figure, which attempts to sort out the fact that in a multi-person household living costs don't increase linearly with the number of people ...... there aren't multiple mortgages or rents to pay, or multiple gas bills, although both are usually bigger, but food costs are closer to linear by number of people.

 

If we were able to source good figures for genuine discretionary income going back in time for the UK, we could get a much clearer picture, probably one that would support the anecdotal evidence that "not many people had enough left over to buy fancy toys" (and possibly a fair few people still don't have).

 

Its frustrating, because such stats are quite easy to source for the USA - it is actually possible to see, for instance, how big the potential market for a nice Lionel train set was in 1938, whereas, as we've discussed before, trying to work out how big the potential market for a nice Hornby Dublo set was in 1938 with any accuracy is next to impossible. For the UK, even basic pay/salary datasets going back before the 1970s are really difficult to source, let alone "take home" and "discretionary".

 

How The Chancellor decided what tax rates the country could bear, or what the yield for a given tax rate would be, when no useful stats were available one can only guess - they probably did it by "dead reckoning", tweaking a bit from what had gone before.

 

This analysis of what we spend is probably more educational than many analyses of what we are paid - if only this existed for every year back to 'dot'.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/expenditure/bulletins/familyspendingintheuk/april2018tomarch2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Il Grifone]

You are asking for competence from politicians?

 

Tax rates seem to be set by their colour - red: tax  the rich, blue: tax the poor. (UK colours - the US, as always, does things the wrong way round...).

 

(Apologies for letting politics creep in.)

[kevinlms]

On 09/12/2020 at 05:24, roythebus said:

Having just read a 1932 book The romance of the Underground, the rates of pay there were something like £4/18/6 a week for a top line controller, £4/16/0 a week for a driver, going down to just over £2 a week for a cleaner. So this would suggest a weekly average wage of about £3/10/0 a week not £5. This would amount to nearly 50% of the week's wages for a radio valve! It puts things into perspective.

What's actually happened is that the cost of manufacturing goods has significantly reduced in recent years. 

Two big reasons, 1 the cost of labour in South East Asia is much less than Western countries. 

2 is that the production is far more automated, meaning that the product works at the end of the production line and also out of the box,  even though it costs less to make and get to market.

 

The downside is that there is usually no support or supply of spare parts.

However, manufacturers don't see that as a problem at all, as long as the product makes it to the end of the warranty period. Then it's your problem, not theirs. 

 

Don't like it, then don't buy it! Find an alternative supplier at whatever the cost is. 

 

I'm not suggesting I like it, its unfortunately the way it is.

[Chris Turnbull]

Rust Bucket is a good forum for Meccano.  You will have to join of course.

 

http://www.nzmeccano.com/forum/index.php

 

There was far more Meccano available before the Second World War and not everything was reintroduced afterwards.

 

Chris Turnbull

[railroadbill]

I've still got some silver and black meccano (must have been pre war), which once belonged to my grandfather, along with the later red and green parts, (but none of the plastic components) that were a present.   Just went and had a look for it, set no. 5 and gear set B.   Been in a box for years, every now and again I remember it and think about putting it on ebay, but never got round to it. It doesn't take up much space.

With meccano there were 2 ways to go, either follow the book of instructions and build a car or whatever (or level luffing dockyard crane if you had a really big set)  or use it to create your own models.  (Or just idly bold strips of metal together).

Lego is very much the construction toy of choice for my grandchildren. However, recently came across a series of small toys that made a plane or car etc. and used just a few metal strips that bolted together meccano style. No plastic! So wondered if there could be a come back for meccano.  Could it become "cool" for the grandchildren? Might be worth a try when they get a bit older.

[railroadbill]

Going back to the crystal set, I vaguely remember making one, that was housed  in an old wooden box.  The coil was a toilet roll inner tube with fine wire wound round it.  Must have had a germanium diode and some sort of  tuned circuit.  I had a pair of headphones with bakelite ear pieces, probably GPO surplus or suchlike. Think it sort of worked, aerial and earth was a problem.

There were some shops around that sold electrical components, surplus then later on new parts.  Must have been quite a popular hobby then.

Edited December 10, 2020 by railroadbill

[jchinuk]

Regarding valve sets, I can remember my Dad's first "hi fi" was a valve tuner / amplifier, which worked well enough.  He needed a new valve and we went to a shop in Tottenham Court Road that stocked nothing but valves, I was probably about 8 or 9, but I remember it as a bit like the wand shop in "Harry Potter", but obviously with valves, mostly from Eastern Europe, though equivalents of 'Western' items.

 

It's worth remembering valves persisted in military applications long after transistors dominated the domestic market, valves are far more robust in the case of the electro-magnetic pulse created by nuclear weapons, a bonus in the "Cold War" in case it got "Hot".

 

Valves are still used in hi-fi, though really for aesthetic reasons.

 

jch

[45655]

If you'll forgive just a little more OT rambling on the subject of Philips / Mullard, the late Fritz Philips' memoir (published in English as 45 Years with Philips) includes an interesting account of Eindhoven during the War.  This was published in 1978 but secondhand copies are readily available.

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, railroadbill said:

However, recently came across a series of small toys that made a plane or car etc. and used just a few metal strips that bolted together meccano style.

 

French Meccano is still going strong, and I've just bought a kit for a nephew for Christmas. It is very largely metal, with a few special-shaped bits in plastic. My son and I assembled one of an F1 car not long ago, fully motorised, steering, suspension etc., and it was a challenging thing for a 12yo, decidedly non-trivial. Not at all cheap of course!

 

The Meccano product has gone the same way as Lego - heavily in the direction of "kits", rather than standard parts and freeform build, but you can buy components and design for yourself if you want, and the kits can be assembled to give half-a-dozen different results, or you can freeform using the bits. http://www.meccano.com/product/778988618080/meccano-super-construction-25-in-1-motorized-building-set,-638-parts,-for-ages-10+,-stem-education-toy

 

There is also a Czech firm called Merkur that makes a huge range of Meccano-alike material, educational robotics stuff, and very high-quality tinplate 0 gauge trains - they've been going since 1920. There is a UK agent for the trains (Bruce Palmer, an RMWeb member), but SFIA nobody imports the rest of the stuff into the UK, which is a real pity, because the quality is superb. 

 

 

[railroadbill]

Sounds really good, Nearholmer,  I hadn't looked looked for meccano for many years so interesting that it's still going strong.   Just looked it up and there's a surprising amount available, as you say very "kit" orientated.  The little sets (motorbike, scooter etc)  are I think what I saw recently.

Some interesting robotic sets as well,  (8 and above it says, so not quite yet for grandchildren) so this will definitely need to be investigated!

Thanks for  the heads up on these.

 

Re Merkur which has a wonderful vintage vibe....

 

https://www.tinplatetimes.com/Modern tinplate/Merkur/merkur.htm

[Chris Turnbull]

I occasionally dabble in Meccano as  light relief to model railways especially during lockdown when I found it most therapeutic.

 

Here's a taster some that I have made:

 

 

 

 

 

Building them is not difficult but getting them to work properly is another matter.

 

Traditional Meccano is still available from at least two sources that I know of.

 

https://www.meccanospares.com/

 

http://meccanoman.co.uk/catalog/

 

And all Meccano Magazines are on line at

 

http://meccano.magazines.free.fr/covers.htm

 

Chris Turnbull

[Il Grifone]

Meccano was one of my first toys (post Hornby 0 gauge, pre Hornby Dublo and well below the 8 years old stated in the post above), so it always was a favourite (my parents were good customers of Frank Hornby!) I have been steadily rebuilding my collection* - I still have a robot elephant to build** - despite SWMBO's laments (ignored of course!).

 

* Outfit number 6 in red/green - nearly there! plus a load of more modern stuff - I missed the dinosaur set though (https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/meccano-dinosaurs-10-model-set/6000195397120 - my only connection with Walmart is being an Asda customer). It was on offer some years ago at Toys'R'Us, but, when I went to buy it (top secret mission of course), all they had were a few sets of Meccano, a couple of Hornby train sets and loads of Lego (ignoring Barbies, Bratz (horrible!) and other girly objects of zero interest) - their failure was well deserved IMHO.

 

** Meccano Motion System 8540 - £2 from the local charity shop .   There were a few parts missing, but nothing serious (weird purple colour though). There's one on eBay.it at the moment at rather more than the sum I paid    https://www.ebay.it/itm/Meccano-Motion-system-8540-/202777989117

[Il Grifone]

3 hours ago, jchinuk said:

Regarding valve sets, I can remember my Dad's first "hi fi" was a valve tuner / amplifier, which worked well enough.  He needed a new valve and we went to a shop in Tottenham Court Road that stocked nothing but valves, I was probably about 8 or 9, but I remember it as a bit like the wand shop in "Harry Potter", but obviously with valves, mostly from Eastern Europe, though equivalents of 'Western' items.

 

It's worth remembering valves persisted in military applications long after transistors dominated the domestic market, valves are far more robust in the case of the electro-magnetic pulse created by nuclear weapons, a bonus in the "Cold War" in case it got "Hot".

 

Valves are still used in hi-fi, though really for aesthetic reasons.

 

jch

 

 

Valves are supposed to sound better (allegedly). Theoretically they are more linear, but this is compensated by transistors supporting higher levels of negative feedback. There is a theory that feedback is 'bad', but conspiracy theories require proof to rise above the level of bulls theory.

 

Military valves were made to a high quality specification. They were even available wired for permanent installation. I bought some of the latter once 'surplus' (4057 equivalent to ECC83/12AX7 IIRC), but they must have been rejects as they failed to operate correctly microphonic IIRC - it was a long time ago.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Il Grifone

[dhjgreen]

3 hours ago, jchinuk said:

Valves are still used in hi-fi, though really for aesthetic reasons

Not about aesthetic reasons for these people; note the price is only for two matched valves!  Have a look at the amplifiers, no prices listed.

https://audiocounsel.co.uk/product/audio-note-4242e-valves-pair/

[Il Grifone]

13 minutes ago, dhjgreen said:

Not about aesthetic reasons for these people; note the price is only for two matched valves!  Have a look at the amplifiers, no prices listed.

https://audiocounsel.co.uk/product/audio-note-4242e-valves-pair/

 

Gulp! and £349 for loudspeaker stands seems a tad OTT, but Hi-Fi Fanatics are prepared to spend enormous sums in pursuit of the ultimate fidelity. I've stopped with a second hand NAD  CD player and amplifier and B & O loudspeakers. I have a B & O record deck and amplifier as well, but the latter is in dire need of new capacitors.... A Quad 33/303 awaits a service. It's fine when it works (plug-in modules are never a good idea IMHO).

Edited December 10, 2020 by Il Grifone

[railroadbill]

Do have a pair of Celestion bookcase speakers (on the book case obviously) :-)  the kind the Beeb used, still in use, but  actually a pair of small Infinity speakers plugged into the laptop seems to be enough these days.....