"Non-Association" Cable

product - and at the same price?

Google turned up this - don't know if it's relevant given the time difference:

you consider that this took place two weeks before the consecration ceremony on

So it looks as though it was some sort of cable standard, whose use was at the discretion of the specifier.

Chris

Rubber cable pre about 1948 was largely made by a group of companies who formed the CMA (Cable Manufacturers Association) and fixed prices, standards and supply quantities. Cable from non members was a cheaper and lower quality "Nonazo" (non-Association) cable which was only considered to be good enough for "ordinary" installations. Both CMA and Nonazo were superceeded during WW2 by "war emergency cable" and I believe production of Nonazo stopped in about 1948.

One wonders whether Nonazo was really of lower quality, or just cheaper because it wasn't as overpriced as the market leaders.

Much in the same way as a non-Heinz baked bean is cheaper than but not necessarily inferior to a Heinz one.

AFAICR CMA was available in two grades, measured in insulation, and Nonazo was only made in the lower grade - 600 MOhm (per mile)?

Owain

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

Okay so the book is dated 1931. These scans might answer the question.

HTH

Only the last scan mentions the Non-Association cable but I showed all three pages for those who may be interested

Perfick. Thanks Adam.

My 1936 "Sunco" trade catalogue lists their VIR cable as "Association Quality", and their Cab Tyre Sheath (CTS) merely as British Made. There are two types of VIR listed - "S.C.V." 600 Megohm grade rated test pressure 1,000 volts after 24 hours immersion in water at 60F, and "S.C.X." 2,500 Megohm grade with similar test pressure. The CTS is merely shown as 600 Megohm grade. All are allegedly made to I.E.E. specification.

Manufacturer's associations set up to maintain product quality were not uncommon before the establishment of British Standards. They followed in the tradition of the medieval Guilds.

As with British Standards, you could be sure that association products met a certain minimum standard. Non-association products would be cheaper because they were not inspected or tested to the same standard and, therefore, there was no guarantee of the quality.

I've never found one that was not.

Colin Bignell

CTS is here

Is this where the expression "CTS gland" comes from, I wonder?

Yes.

So was it a gland made out of CTS or a gland for CTS cable?

It was made for CTS cable.

Silver beats it, apparently:

I_beg_to_differ.