The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
Racal RA17 re-born : A trip down Memory Lane
seadog:
Very nice. I've never heard of that rig before.
Will_D:
--- Quote from: awemawson on May 01, 2019, 03:56:59 AM ---But then, in the CCF signals section at school we had a C52 transmitter that we regularly netted with other school CCF's, and the aerial for that TX would kill any careless sparrow that put a foot wrong
--- End quote ---
I ended up as signals sergeant in our CCF. Our call sign was 4Charlie (Llandovery College in Carmarthenshire).
We used a 19 set but with some extra booster/amplifier. We managed QSL contacts with a lot of public schools even oin Scotland.
We also had a mobile system - a 19 set and some very large lead acid batterys mounted on a large hand cart. A couple of junior ranks had to push this round the back roads around the school. That was c/s Foxtrot4Charlie.
I bought a 19 set with PSU etc and managed to bring it home on a double decker bus and carry it the last half click to my parents house. I built a mains power supply for it in the old rotary converter box and so another F4C was alive in Abergavenny. I took it to Salford when we bought our first house and somehow lost it!!
Thanks for the memories Andrew
awemawson:
One memorable CCF camp was at a place called 'Whiteworks' on Dartmoor - down a very long track just opposite the prison. One day on exercise I had to establish 'base camp' on top of a local 'high bit' called 'Gutter Tor' - iirc I had an 18 set and the other platoons were using WS38's. Managed to erect an aerial mast and got everyone 'netted up' - all was working extremely well until some other 'mob' broke in on our frequency. I (aged probably 15 or 16) ripped into them questioning their forebears and pointing out how they had totally ignored standard operating practice (ie listen before swamping people). I Assumed they were another school CCF platoon.
Oh no - they were regular Army :bugeye:
Didn't stop their CO flogging all the way up Gutter Tor to make an abject apology :clap: :clap: :clap:
Then the thunder storm broke and he helped me strike the aerial mast - oh the power of the spoken (irate) word.
. . . . I suppose I was bolshy even then :lol: :lol:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteworks
https://getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/local/gutter-tor-west-devon
Will_D:
What were those little mobile sets called? Were they 88's?
They used a 22v and 1.5 dry battery combo and fitted into two belt pouches
awemawson:
Yes WS88 - there were two variants usually differentiated by the lower 4 channel sets being painted green, and the higher ones were black iirc Very nicely made and crystal controlled.
Post WW2 they were more Korean War vintage - totally immersible hermetically sealed and they floated! I had several pairs of them back in the 1980's. When demobbed they had to be made inoperable so they cut off the pressel switch that was on an umbilical cord which was used to switch from receive to transmit. Every now and again the pressel switches turned up in the junk shops in Old Compton St and Little Newport St so you could re-unite them :clap:
My first home made inverter was to power those sets - as you say 1.5 volts for heaters and (not 22v) 90 volts for the anodes. I could never get the invertors to be electrically noise free so the set whined !
*** Later edit, that must have been late 1960's not 1980's :bugeye:
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