From the President

Well here we go again, another newsletter,

The visit to the Aviation Museum was well excepted. I personally found the F111 a superb

example of engineering and could not get over the size of it. It was big. It was bigger than I

expected and 25 tonnes! It was hard to imagine it flying, let alone the speed that it flew.

The presentations at the September meeting appeared to be well liked. I felt that more such

presentations would be better than just having a talk, having something that you can put

your hands on. We could have one on radio alignment and I can arrange this if there is

enough interest.

Cheers

Chris Ratcliff

Coming Events

HRSA SOUTH AUSTRALIA Volume 27 No.2 Sep-Oct 2017

29th

October Auction St Cyprian’s Hall

8th

November Retiree’s Lunch…Buckingham Arms

26th

November Home Meeting/Show & Tell.. Tony Bell

2nd

December Christmas Lunch

28th

January Patrick’s Place

25th

February Auction

25th

March St Cyprian Hall (2 Presenters)

29th

April HRSA Sale Day

HRSA SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Everyone seemed to enjoy the museum visit and when I contacted the museum to thank them for

the visit, I received some very positive feedback on our members. To summarise they thought that

we were a very clever bunch who asked intelligent questions (one wonders what they generally get

asked) and encouraged then to spend some time researching the facts for what they were asked.

Below: The original console from Adelaide Airport.

I am sitting in front of my computer reflecting on the

last two months and wondering what would be fun to

read. I have had some positive feedback on the Ghost

Radio story and I have been asked for technical

articles, and of course more tales from Philips at

Hendon. I don’t have any long articles for you to read

this newsletter as I have not had much time to write

them, however I have included some interesting

material.

It was interesting to see the restoration process in the workshop and the public does not usually

get to see it. If you go to the Aviation Museum, you can download their newsletters and see what

they are currently working on and their planned projects for the future. The museum is currently

trying to get more young people interested and have taken steps to get them to fly the radio

controlled versions at their airfield as a stepping stone to the real thing. It may be a good idea for

our club to look at the idea of getting the young folk interested in making a crystal set.

The September meeting proved to be an interesting one. We had

Craig turning 80 with an interesting creation of a cake that we all

enjoyed. Craig has been a member of the club for 25 years and has

been married for 52 years. The cooking must be good. He explained

that he has a long standing history with Robby and brought along

some photos of Robby, taken out the back. You know, that mysterious

place that he would go to when he wasn’t in the shop having a chat

with you or making a deal. Below: The secret place out the back.

HRSA SOUTH AUSTRALIA

There were three presenters, Chris, Alan and Tony. Alan presented

the Novice guide to check out a radio before plugging it in using

your eyes, ears, finger and light globe. It was an interesting

presentation and most useful if you purchase a radio without

knowing it’s history. I think that most of us are hoping for some

kind of hand-out to appear at a future meeting so that we can

review what was being said.

Chris was next demonstrating how using the right measuring

equipment made a difference not only to the measurements, but

also to the effect it had on the equipment being tested. The higher

the impedance of the measuring equipment, the better the result. I

know that Chris has a bias to valve type testing equipment and it

makes you think before getting rid of the older and heavier test

equipment just because it takes up half of the workshop.

HRSA SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Finally we had Tony with his AWA Test Equipment. He gave us some history on how variance started

with punch marks and how the English went to letters. Tony showed us his war time absorption type

Wave Meter which uses coils to set bands. He showed us the Modulated Oscillator used by the

services and explained how AWA came up with the idea of a Beat Frequency Oscillator. Tony has a

good understanding of his test equipment and is a wealth of knowledge.

From The Hendon Files: Hot Fingers

One of the favorite apprentice pranks in the TCA division was to cut off a couple of inches of heavy gauge tinned copper wire, tin it on both ends and then melt it onto the end of a roll of solder of the same gauge. The unsuspecting victim would grasp the solder near the end and apply to a joint along with a hot soldering iron. Being tinned on the end, the fake section of “solder” quickly conducted the heat back to the victim’s fingers and triggered the familiar cry of “Bloody apprentices!” And the big bang: In the instrument maintenance section that serviced the radio & TV production lines was a technician who used to hang onto any defective cathode ray tubes for a special purpose. When certain people stood near the doorway talking, this fellow would quietly place an old CRO tube in the bottom of the large rubbish bin that stood just inside the door. He would then drop a hammer or similar tool into the bin to cause a violent implosion to scare the wits out of his intended victim

HRSA SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Phil Taylor is a retired ship’s radio officer and a member of

the BVWS who lives just south of London, and has an interest

in collecting, researching and trading in valves. He visits his

sister who lives in Adelaide every couple of years. As Tony

was the Secretary of the HRSA at the time, it became his role

to entertain Phil and continues to do so. In 2015 Phil and

Tony visited the National Military Vehicle Museum, the Janes

and the Hoskings. Then in the Southern Suburbs the Reigers

and the Hollands. This October it was time for the Eastern

suburbs, but could only find Alan Taylor. Alan, John and Tony

took Phil out to lunch at the Ear of Leicester, after which they

found themselves at the Keith Ellison Museum with Keith

Ellison. Following the visit at the museum, the gathering had

a coffee at a great little bakery on Duthy Street after which

they dropped into Aztronics where Phil loaded himself with a

load of valves to take back to England.

Above:

Phil and John examine the Bland

school public address system at

the Ellison Museum.

Below: some interesting little gems that I found while researching:

Above: The Aerial Electric

Company produced this crystal

set. The coil of wire is raised or

lowered to tune in the stations.

Left: The Steam Punk Amp.

HRSA SOUTH AUSTRALIA

THE MULTI WAVE OSCILLATOR

Engineer, scientist, author and inventor, Georges Lakhovsky invented the Multiple Wave Oscillator (MWO) in the early '30s and said it could revitalize and strengthen the health of cells.

Two modern day scientists and inventors, Paul Babcock and Dr. Peter Lindemann have continued this research. Babcock located a non-working model of the Oscillator and brought in Lindemann to help him make a copy the device, made of parts bought off the shelf. Lindemann said that the device "evolved out of Lakhovsky’s understanding of cell oscillation" and broadcasts many frequencies at once in order to help the cells in an organism "find a frequency in that spread of frequencies that matches it’s own." In this way, Babcock and Lindemann claim, the machine revitalizes the body.

Both inventors say that the device has helped them to feel and look younger, and commented that it seems to "roll back the aging process." They described Lakhovsky’s work with doctors in Europe who were using the device to treat so-called "helpless" cases with compelling results. When Lakhovsky died in the U.S. in 1942, his son Sergei continued to build and test the MWO, but with the advent of antibiotics after WWII the device fell out of favor.

Lindemann pointed out that nothing cures every disease every time, "but the results were spectacularly positive" for the Oscillator over many trials for about 30 years. The technology for the MWO was basically lost before a group of researchers published detailed descriptions and instructions in 2009. It was soon after this that Babcock used these plans to build his own device.

Committee

Members of the public are requested to direct all enquiries, including those regarding membership, information on

radios (wireless sets) and the estimated value of radios (wireless sets), to the Group Secretary please.

President – Chris Ratcliff – ph 0419 834 502 pres@hrsasa.asn.au

Vice President – Antony Bell – ph 08 8269 4095 vicepres@hrsasa.asn.au

Secretary – Alan Taylor – ph 08 8344 6708 m 0417 859 074 sec@hrsasa.asn.au

Treasurer – John Crawford – ph 08 8344 4978 treas@hrsasa.asn.au

Newsletter Editor – Victor Besz – ph 08 8336 4206 m 0414 620 544 editor@hrsasa.asn.au

Shop Keeper – Rob Olding – ph 08 8365 3168 shop@hrsasa.asn.au

Web Manager – Peter Hartung – ph 0401 692 057

Valve Bank Manager – John Crawford – ph 08 8344 4978 vbm@hrsasa.asn.au

The MWO pictured above was made by my mentor and removed from the house only a few days after

his passing. I tried to track it down however was not successful and unfortunately is lost. I do however

have a portable version that he has made later in his life that uses flat printed coils and runs on a 6 volt

lead-acid battery that has since dried up and is no longer serviceable. At some point I will dig it out of

the shed and bring it to the club. Although I never tried it myself I have heard convincing stories from

his friends who have used it. The principal is quite simple. You produce a high frequency high voltage

from a small tesla coil or even a car ignition coil and feed it to a set of concentric copper tubes with a

gap in each ring. I do not know how critical the gap is or even the size of the rings. If this interests you,

a simple google will yield loads of data. �