It is with great sadness we heard of the recent passing of Howard Turner, lately proprietor of Centre Electronics, Stockfield Road, Yardley, Birmingham. Howard has been part of the Eddystone enthusiasts scene for more than 40 years.  Specialising in Eddystone and Racal sets, he was a familiar face for many years at the Radio Rallies held around the country pre-Covid.  He was often accompanied by his wife Maureen who also helped him with the business. Howard was diagnosed with mesothelioma (a form of asbestiosis) earlier this year.

Howard’s funeral will be held on Monday 22nd November at 2pm at Saint Giles Church, Exhall, Coventry,  CV7 9GZ. The church is close to the M6/A444 Junction but from map it looks like it might be easiest to go via Coventry Building Society Arena where there is also a train station.

Flowers can be sent to Howard’s home or the church. If being sent to Howard’s home they must arrive by 12:00. The family are using: Shellie’s Flowers,  Arden Oak Rd.,  Sheldon, Tel 0121 743 3021

 Because Howard was so well known amongst Eddystone Users, we will be posting his obituary to this website after the funeral. RIP Howard.

There was a little excitement on the EUG groups.io forum this week when a member spotted a rare Eddystone S910/1 marine receiver badged as a Marconi HR101. It eventually sold for the amazing sum of £487 which shows both its rarity and the fact that it was hard fought over.  Graeme’s G3GGL QRG entry states that “this set is a double superhet with interpolation tuning of first IF stage. Very similar in operation to the 830- series but in general appearance much like the 730-series. Contains 16 valves, 6 bands; coverage 1.5-30Mc/s and 375-525kc/s. First IF 1350-1450kc/s; second IF 85 kc/s. Production run 200. Very rare” Graeme didn’t have access to a picture of the set for the QRG but the seller was kind enough to provide one in his sale offer. The seller Ray G4NSJ from Worthing stated that “the receiver works but is a little deaf. Also, SSB reception isn’t quite right so that will need looking at. It probably needs a good overhaul, alignment, replacing capacitors etc.” The set looks in nice cosmetic condition considering it is 60 years old. Bet someone on this forum knows where it has ended up. 

Chris G0EYO Admin

Ian Nutt M0ECQ, who has provided a “not-for-profit” spares service for the Eddystone User Group for many years, has advised me that he has quite a sizeable stock of component parts for the switch wafers commonly used on Eddystone receivers and has the necessary tools for forming the hollow rivets used to hold the various parts in place. Ian has recently made a replacement wafer for an EUG member which is shown in the photo. The new one is on the right.

Ian tells me he may be able to repair other switch wafers for Eddystone users, (but he can’t guarantee it will always be possible).

Ian proposes the following procedure for those interested in this service

• Interested persons should contact Ian by email ( iandcnutt@msn.com ) first and send him a photo of the wafer in question
• If it looks repairable or replaceable Ian will ask the person to send the wafer to him
• Ian  will then either make a replica from new parts or repair the old, whichever seems most appropriate, as long as this is possible from the parts he has.

Ian also has quite a few original NOS wafers in various styles including for some of the more modern sets, so it is worth checking with him if you need a replacement

Chris G0EYO EUG Admin

Victor Jenkins, who wrote the recent excellent article on modifying the AGC system on his S940, has also written of his experiences in solving a loss of sensitivity and a tracking error on the same receiver which he tracked down to an earthing problem. His investigation and solutions make a very interesting article which he has shared with us. You can find the article in the Restoration section.

Recent Forum discussions have covered tuning the AGC system on older Eddystone sets and Victor Jenkins has designed a modification which enables you to select a suitable AGC decay time for different modes, i.e. Off/AM/SSB. With encouragement from Gerry O’Hara, I am pleased to reveal that Victor has produced an excellent article on his modifications which, he assures us can be removed in only a few minutes to take the set back to original form. Victor did this work on the 940 but he thinks it could also apply to other sets. The article is in the Restoration section of the website.

The EC10 “Seaguide” variant has been the subject of much discussion in the Eddystone User Group over the years. It was a variant of the EC10 series of receivers but badged for Marconi Marine. Graeme doesn’t mention it in the “Quick Reference Guide” so we don’t know how many were made. There are a few sets, whose existence is known about, in collections and certainly Ben has one in the Military Wireless Museum. Richard GM0OGN kindly provided us with a copy of the Instruction Manual for this set and we have added it to the Service Manual list on this website. The set has a DF facility which can be used with either a rotating loop or Bellini-Tosi fixed loop and Goniometer type antenna system. The set covers the frequency range 150kHz to 22MHz in five bands.

Thanks to Alan Ainslie we have now added Sections 4 & 5 to the 1650/9 Service Manual in the Service Manual & Handbooks section of the website.

Interesting extract from a recent California Historical Radio Society Newsletter sent in by Gerry O’Hara VE7GUH concerning the radio room on the Queen Mary, now a ship hotel in Long Beach. One of the pictures shows the Stratton built IMR54 aka as the Eddystone S700. The article is about Nate Brightman K6OSC, whom the Radio Room on the QM is named after. Nate went SK in 2016 aged 99 years. Nate operated as K6OSC for nearly 60 years and served as president of the board of directors of the Associated Radio Amateurs of Long Beach. The Queen Mary club station W6RO started operation in 1979 and Nate managed it until his retirement in 2013. The picture of the IMR54 in the EUG Quick Reference Guide produced by Graeme Wormald G3GGL (SK) is attributed to Nate Brightman. The article is reproduced with kind permission of the California Historical Radio Society and our thanks to Gerry O’Hara for finding the article and obtaining permission to add to our website in the “Eddystones in Famous Places” section.

On behalf of the Eddystone User Group Admin and moderators, I wish all our friends a Very Merry Christmas. Without doubt 2020 has been a year without precedent. Last Christmas no-one could have foreseen what was ahead of us. This coronavirus has affected everyone, from mild inconvenience to the loss of income or even, sadly, the loss of a loved one. Many of our followers are of an age that is probably considered vulnerable and have had to be shielded from the rest of the world. This may have meant more free time to work on those old sets, for the website and the forum have been busy with requests for help which to a large part we have been able to satisfy. The For Sale and Wanted section of the website has been popular and we have been able to help a number of families move on loved sets.  Although our costs are very modest I am glad to say that generous donations from friends and enthusiast have helped us meet them. We all hope that 2021 and vaccinations will get the better of this dreaded virus and life can get back to what will no doubt become a new normal.

We wish you all the best and a Happy New Year but above all please stay safe.

Chris G0EYO EUG Webmaster and Administrator

An Eddystone user has come across this Escutcheon which has an Eddystone lighthouse motif on it so reasonably concludes that it must have come from an Eddystone set from the 20’s or 30’s. Research in all the usual places and request on the EUG Forum have failed to come with any information. Do you recognise what set this was used on. If so contact admin Chris G0EYO on g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk