Pictures Illustrating Radio Interests of Tony, G3KTU,
from Schooldays to the Present.

At Home in Esher, Surrey (pre 1956). My father (Bob, G3LVM) used this room for his various hobby interests before he was licenced. It was part of the house but access was only by an outside door. There was a small lathe on the bench just out of shot to the left.

In Winterstoke House, part of Mill Hill School (about 1955). This was in my first study, shared with about six other boys. When I was first issued with a personal callsign (15C) to operate on the 'National Net' I used this equipment. At the top is the transmitter part of the army 18 set (bought in Lisle Street) with carbon mic plugged in. Underneath is the PSU (mains or 12v vibrator operation) and receiver of a 'B2'. These, with the TX (which I never had), were origionally packed in a suitcase with headphone, mic and key and could be droped by parachute for covert operation. At the lower right is an Acos crystal mic which I used with my home made Reel to reel tape recorder.

In the shack at home in Esher. This is the 1154 TX (from an Anson 'plane). Underneath is an 1155 RX in which I had added a 6V6 LS output amp. I think the RX was the LF version.

First picture on the right.I took these with my back to the loft ladders. The army 12 set, bought in Lisle Street, is on the far left. It is an HF transmitter just like the school signals section used. It is for CW or AM, supressor grid modulated! The centre piece is a Halicrafters Super Skyrider SX17 receiver with matching loudspeaker. Coverage of about 200Kc/s to 50Mc/s enabled me to demodulate the local BBC TV sound on 45Mc/s AM. It performed well on AM broadcasts and amateur AM and SSB on all the HF bands although RF sensitivity was poor on 15m and 10m.

Here's a close up of the pan adaptor on top of the SX17. It was ex American Navy so was well made and looked good. I hooked it onto the anode of the mixer in the SX17, enabling me to see activity right across a ham band. On top of it, just visible, is an LM14 frequency meter, similar to the BC221.

I took this picture from the top of the aluminium ladders (seen at top of page).

We had bought this Hartley 'scope, on top of the 12 set TX, as it was much better than my home constructed scopes to date!

The unit on the far right is a phasing rig I built using a lage number of 6SN7s. It started off operating straight through on 40m. I found this lead to RF feedback problems so later I changed it to 9MHz mixed with a VFO on 5.0-5.5 MHz for 80m and 20m. In the corner at the back is the tuning part from the 1154 which I tried to use as an ATU.

This shows the tempory 19 inch equipment rack made from wood by my father. Eventually we bought a proper steel cabinet. Rack units from top to bottom are: Top : PA 3.5-30MHz (double height unit) Driver (2x 807s) and PSU Unit with 2 meters: 9MHz SSB phasing method generator 5MHz VFO and doubler stages giving LO freguencies for all bands AM modulator 2x805s 1.5KV PSU for PA

Rear view of the PA showing the pair of 813s in push-pull. I later changed them to work in parallel operation into a PI (Collins) coupler on their output.