Absorption Wavemeter Model 696

This Absorption Wavemeter Model 696 sold for £62 recently on E bay. An earlier version of the famous Edometer and quite a find because it is considered to be quite rare. I think someone got a real bargain for such nice looking instrument. Housed in a standard die-cast metal box this handy device used eight miniature plug-in coils to give continuous coverage from 200 kc/s to 150 Mc/s. Originally two coil-stands were included to take coils not in use and individual hand-calibrated charts are supplied in a containing tube. The model sold shows only 6 coils and the seller stated it covered 1.25MHz to 150MHz. No mention was made of calibration charts so the purchaser would probably have to re-calibrate it. There was a later model 696/1 which was supplied with nine coils and covered the frequency range 200 kc/s to 200 Mc/s. Original price in 1954: £13 10s 6d equivalent to £335 now.