Who invented what?

[Doctor Drivel]

No through the air.

[jg.campbell.ng]

's_law_of_eponymyJon C.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Broadback saying something like:

The humble rock.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "nightjar" saying something like:

And in rural areas with no mains electricity. A huge step forward for many people.

[The Medway Handyman]

But how do they get those letters all the way through?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

What did they run it on? Surely mains gas was even rarer and bottled gas a later invention?

[nightjar]

I can recall gas lit streets and electricity supplies that would just about run a light bulb, although my aunt used a meat safe, rather than a fridge, and that was in a fairly large town.

Colin Bignell

[Dave]

[Andy Hall]

Completely true.

When I was a teenager (and we are talking up to about 1970 here) street lamps were gas and as a stipulation for a mortgage we were required to obtain a meat safe. Basically they couldn't find any issues with the house. We bought a fridge instead and they never checked anyway,.

Nowadays lenders of money to buy houses are falling over themselves to sell their money. However, some of the building societies still haven't quite caught up and believe that they are doing their customers a favour.

[Dave]

Speaking as someone who knows quite a lot about 'through the air', at what frequency, modulation mode, deviation, power level did he do that? What sort of aerial was used for the send side and what sort of aerial was used for the received side? And did he use the same frequency to send the audio signal?

Dave

[Dave]

Ah, that moves us on to velcro that allowed quick removable clothes ;-)

Dave

[The Medway Handyman]

Gas street lamps? In 1970? Where did you live? Presumably north of Watford.

I grew up in London, I was born in 51 & I have never, ever seen a gas lamp outside a museum. Trams yes, gas lamps no.

[clot]

Oh dear, them suvverners! T'was a shock to me in I think late '68 when I lodged in Leeds to see gas street lamps, but yes, they were real and working!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There was a terrace of cottages on the second main road in Aberdeen when I was a kid still lit by gas. Used to see that going to school during a large part of the year. ;-)

But I was thinking of rural areas not served by electricity - would they ever have had gas? Wasn't it limited to large towns?

My parents didn't have a fridge until the '60s - my mother bought fresh food every day, and nothing was wasted. The house was built with a larder though.

[Andy Hall]

No, this was in Berkshire.

[Bill Taylor]

There still are operational gas lamps in London. Queens Walk on the eastern edge of Green Park is (sort of) lit by them.

[nightjar]

Although the Southern Railway adopted electricity for traction quite early, at least one of its former stations, on the edge of a town where supplies had long been available, only got an electricity supply in the late 1960s. Until then, the lighting had been by oil lamp.

Colin Bignell

[nightjar]

The Town Improvement Acts of the 19th century required even quite small places to provide street lighting and, after about 1830, usually specified gas lighting. There were hundreds of gas companies taken over at nationalisation and most of those had taken over smaller, local, companies after the invention of the gasometer made it more sensible to centralise production. The early plants were sometimes small enough to supply a single large factory building. Any small place that has gas today probably had it installed in the 19th century.

Colin Bignell

[Huge]

I saw a tram on Tuesday. And not in a museum; a real working tram.

:o)

[LSR]

There were plenty of gas lamps in the streets of South Tottenham / Seven Sisters in the late 50's. And trolley busses.