OT: R1155 and R208 radio receivers

[Ramsman]

I know this is probably not the correct NG, but I don't know where else to ask. I found rec.antiques.radio+phono, but that seems to be mainly USA.

An acquaintance* who was once an RAF radio mechanic on Lancasters died recently. Among his hoard of possessions were an R1155 and an R208. I have no idea whether they work or not, but they seem to be in a reasonably good physical state. As a favour to his daughter I offered them to the Duxford Radio Society, but they didn't need them as they have already run out of storage space.

Would it be worth putting them on eBay, and if so what would be a realistic asking price, considering their condition is unknown? If not, then what should I do?

*Our younger daughter's partner's maternal grandfather.

[Syd Rumpo]

I had an R1155 years ago, it's a well made piece of kit and they were once quite sought after as an entry to short wave listening.

Sadly, it's not worth much, they made a lot of them. Personally I'd ebay it with a £100 reserve and hang on to it if it didn't sell.

Cheers

[Martin Brown]

There are several other air museums that might be interested in them. eg.

[Brian Gaff]

I'm surprised that the museum could not have suggested other collections that might like them. I'm sure there was one in Scotland. The guy that used to repair these things is now pretty old, and used to be involved with Bletchley Park, David White was it? However I think they are chucking out a lot of the radio gear at the moment themselves.

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Are Air Products still in business. One of the issues with cylinders of unknown history is safety of course and they may feel its just not cost effective to test them and reuse. Brian

[charles]

There's certainly on Orkney

[jrwalliker]

I have a couple of R1155s too. A few years ago they would fetch around £

150 on eBay in good condition, but £100 is more common now.

The main problem with them is the capacitors which generally failed a long tome ago. I replaced all mine about 45 years ago, so they may have failed again by now.

In case anyone is interested I do have schematics and an old Wireless World article on conversion for civilian use.

John

[Ramsman]

Transport becomes a problem with heavyish items like these, and Cumbria's a bit far away. I offered them to the DRS because it's only 32 miles from me and I go to the IWM at Duxford several times a year.

[Ian Jackson]

In the late 1950s, for both shortwave listeners and newly-licensed radio amateurs, the war-time R1155 was at the 'budget end' of the market, and priced at around £7. There was also the matching transmitter - the T1154

- at around £10. Even at the time, neither were really 'high-performance'. I bought the somewhat better R107 receiver (£13/10s, plus £1/10s carriage - and still have the bill). I've still got it, in essentially the same condition that I received it, sitting about 3' away from me.

Even more up-market were receivers like the CR100 and the HRO (£20?). Then there was the 19 Set transceiver (or, more accurately, a transmitter and receiver in one case). The R208 was manufactured somewhat later (late 40s?), and never was really popular.

In its day - when a good weekly wage was £10 - this sort of equipment certainly wasn't cheap. Later, from the mid-60s onward, a lot of much more modern 'specifically radio amateur' gear became available (some UK made, some from the USA - and then loads from Japan). At the time, you could hardly give the old 'war surplus' stuff away. However, a lot of this gear are now very tasty collectors' items, and the closer they have survived in 'as made' condition the better. Some now attract what seem silly prices - but allowing for inflation, essentially cost the same as they were in the late 50s.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Ebay is really an auction and although you can have a BIN, that stops it making perhaps more. So just have a sensible starting price. Arrange for the auction to end late evening on a Sunday. That seems to give the best chance of a good price. Take some decent pics and describe them accurately. Also don't set the P&P charge unreasonably high - that puts many off.

Unless you're very unlucky, they'll find their true market value, as most collectors check Ebay these days.

[Graham.]

Here is mine. £15 from N.W Electrics, Gt. Ancoates St. Manchester (G3MAX)

My table here is just as messy as that bench :-)

[Graham.]

Just a little background for those who never got to play with this stuff. The unit sitting on top of the R107 receiver is a class "D" wavemeter. Actually a frequency meter with a resolution of 1 kc/s which was more than adequate for amateur purposes.

Another, more sophisticated instrument was the BC221 which, being American, was described as a frequency, rather than wave meter.

[Ian Jackson]

In message , Graham. writes

Call that messy? You should see mine!

But as they say, "A tidy desk is a sign of a sick mind".

[Ian Jackson]

Mine was from Harris, in the Grays Inn Road.

I made do with a 100kHz crystal harmonic oscillator, and a very simple a home-made absorption wavemeter (which were certainly sufficient to ensure that I was within the bands I used),

When I later bought a US navy TCS10 transmitter (£7/10s from Relda Radio

- and which I still have, but it's extremely tatty), I calibrated the divisions on the 'logging scale' (on the frequency knob), and drew a graph of logging scale vs frequency. That meant I could set my frequency accuracy anywhere to better than 1kHz.

Hens' teeth territory for most young amateurs. I eventually bought one in the late 60s (£15), but I have to confess that I've only ever used a couple of times in earnest. While some WW2 war surplus receivers and transmitters can command prices of over £100, BC221s are typically only £10 to £15.

>

[Bill]

In message , Ramsman writes

If you join

[e-mail]

you should get more info than you can manage, they are a bit "geeky" about such radios. It can be quite amazing what they find interesting if there are any tools from that era they may show an interest in those as well.. Don't worry about the 19set in the title, they like 1155s and R208s too.

[damduck-egg]

A lot of old radio equipment is only of interest to those who used it in their lifetime and those who have an interest further aren't around in enough numbers to justify exhibiting shelves of dusty funny smelling old boxes full of wires that mean nothing to most people. It's not confined to radio equipment, people offer museums stuff because they haven't the heart to throw it away themselves so in their minds they have done a good deed. Once a museum has a reasonable number of exhibits anything else is junk that takes up space that can be better utilized.

G.Harman

[Andrew Mawson]

Philistines then !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These sorts of ephemera are a bits of our heritage that enabled those same people to have freedom of expression today due to the sacrifices of their forebears

Andrew

[Bill]

In message , Brian Gaff writes

I will tell him that he is "pretty old" next time I see him! :-)

A lot of museums get inundated with offers of old kit and unless it is new and in the box they aren't interested as they already have more than enough examples.

[Ramsman]

That's the problem that the Duxford Radio Society has. They're already running out of storage space and have a 3-1/2 ton trailer full of stuff coming in. They can afford to be picky.

[damduck-egg]

But you only need a couple of examples of something not the contents of loads of lofts that are emptied as people die. And when people die the interest often goes with them except for few who may have a particular hobby. WW1 is in vogue at the moment and people are rediscovering their Great Grand fathers ration tin etc. We here nothing at all about the Boer war a few years earlier. That an earlier conflicts are now the realm of Historians as WW1 will be soon and WW2 in about 30years.

My personal feeling that nostalgia for items from the past lasts about

75 years after before it stops being mainstream and becomes a curiosity maintained by a few. Hence at the moment there is still a healthy interest in running steam trains. Far less people run a stagecoach.

G.Harman