Happy New Year 2018

I can hardly believe that my last blog post was in February 2017, almost a year and two months ago!

I've been meaning to post more radio repair and restoration activities on here, but as often happens, life gets in the way.  It became obvious quite early in 2017 that I wasn't going to get many projects done before the summer's busy period, and this was pretty much how the year continued right up to Christmas.

This time last year I was looking forward to getting my WW2 R1155 receiver sorted. At first all seemed to be going well, with just a bit of re-wiring needed, a few capacitor replacements and some new connectors, all of which I had managed to source.

Unfortunately as I began to dig deeper into it I found some burnt components and wiring that had gone unnoticed in my initial investigation, a discovery that effectively turned a relatively straightforward task into a very much bigger one. By early March an increasing shortage of spare time forced me to abandon the job and put the set back on the shelf for another year.

It wasn't all doom and gloom though. In September, some friends and I were invited to run an Amateur Radio station at a 1940s event held at an Airfield Museum. We didn't really know what to expect from the event and had very little time to prepare, but we did manage to make a few contacts  across Europe on 40 Metres using my 1943 HRO-MX as the receiver. We've been invited back again for 2018, this time with a better location and plenty of time to put together a better range of equipment.

'Y'Service re-enactment with HRO-MX

In the autumn I managed to get my hands on a Wireless Set No. 19, an HF transmitter/receiver that was used extensively in British Armoured vehicles and Jeeps during WW2.  I've wanted one of these for years but they are getting quite scarce now, and even very poor condition sets change hands for silly money. It does look like I've been lucky to get a good one for a sensible price, but I'll save the details for a future blog entry.

I've yet to make up my mind whether to do the R1155 or the WS19 first. Either way, January in the Radio Recycling workshop is going to be interesting.

Keep listening!