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AVO multimeters - which one, and why?

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awemawson:
Stout and robustly made, and if in the leather case able to be used port-ably on site.

I carried an Avo 8 (of various marks) for probably 25 years along with a Tektronix 'scope visiting customers sites and resolving problems. As a cost saving exercise we tried many other makes but none stood up to the rigours of life on the road.

There are good reasons why the services and  GPO / BT chose Avo's in vast numbers. Longevity along with accuracy are hard to achieve, but Avo did it !

Pete W.:

--- Quote from: awemawson on October 10, 2020, 12:22:23 PM ---
SNIP!

There are good reasons why the services and  GPO / BT chose Avo's in vast numbers. Longevity along with accuracy are hard to achieve, but Avo did it !

--- End quote ---
 

When the 1939-1945 war broke out, AVO Ltd. agreed to supply large numbers of AVO meters to the RAF (presumably via the Ministry of Supply).  However, AVO Ltd. were cute enough to include a clause in the supply contract which prohibited the Services from releasing these instruments onto the Surplus Market in large numbers when hostilities ceased.

There were various consequences once Peace broke out.  One story is of AVO meters spread edge-to-edge and one AVO deep on a patch of airfield runway about the size of a tennis court while a happy serviceman drove a crawler tractor over them crushing them to smithereens.  At other disposal establishments, personnel were tasked to take hammers to the now surplus AVOs.  The personnel adopted a policy of never hitting two successive AVOs in the same place.  The debris was then sold as surplus by weight  *, conveyed to Lisle Street in tipper lorries and tipped down into certain cellars.  In the cellars, 'instrument mechanics' would rebuild, making one functional AVO from the debris of many.  These Frankenstein AVOs were then offered for sale by the various Government Surplus shops.

*  If I remember correctly, the rate was seven shillings & sixpence per hundredweight!   

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