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Old 9th Sep 2020, 6:56 am   #1
crackle
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Default Brimar

Please can someone remind me of the reason for the Brimar name, what it stood for.
I am sure I had seen the reason somewhere but for the life of me I cant work it out now.

Mike
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Old 9th Sep 2020, 7:02 am   #2
Nuvistor
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Default Re: Brimar

BRItish Made AmeRican type valves if I remember correctly.
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Old 9th Sep 2020, 7:37 am   #3
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Default Re: Brimar

British made American range
BRItish Made American Range.
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Last edited by greg_simons; 9th Sep 2020 at 7:44 am. Reason: clarification.
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Old 9th Sep 2020, 8:16 am   #4
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Default Re: Brimar

A plant was at Brimsdown, near Enfield, but that name predates Brimar.
Strange coincidence in the name.
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Old 9th Sep 2020, 9:11 am   #5
crackle
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Default Re: Brimar

I thought it was British Made American something but couldn't the R at the end to fit.

Thanks
Mike
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Old 9th Sep 2020, 9:54 am   #6
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Default Re: Brimar

I found this via google


Brimar was part of STC group and founded in 1933 to manufacture American pattern valves for the British market. Brimar stood for "British Manufactured American Radio" (valves). ... Brimar valves were produced and sourced from various factories across the world in later years.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 3:04 am   #7
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Default Re: Brimar

“British Made, American Range” (or similar) does seem to have been a feature of Brimar’s advertising in the 1940s and early 1950s at least:

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Having American types central to its range created an interesting situation for Brimar. For example, its standard AC/DC valve range had 150 mA heaters instead of the 100 mA that was the post-WWII norm in the UK and Europe.

Nonetheless, Brimar did need to include non-American types in its range in order to meet British and European requirements.

For example, its clone of the Osram Z77 was the 8D3, soon renamed as the 6AM6 after Cossor had done the American registration of the type. Brimar sometimes used its own designation series for non-American types, and at other times went directly to an American-registered designation.

Brimar’s 6BW6 was essentially a noval version of the 6V6GT. The 12AH8 triode-heptode, with no American counterpart was a necessity in UK/Europe, as the American 6BE6 pentagrid and its ilk were much less acceptable. Interestingly, Brimar said of the 12AH8, in its application report: “4.3 High Frequency Performance: The 12AH8 is very suitable as a frequency changer for broadcast type receivers in the V.H.F. 88 to 108 Mc/s band. Its signal to noise performance precludes its use from V.H.F. communication type equipment and television, but it has very definite possibilities for low and medium priced receivers for broadcast reception of FM or AM stations in the international V.H.F. band. Details of a suitable circuit and performance figures are given later in this report.”

I suppose that was not so surprising given that Brimar had followed the American precedent for the 6BE6, offering it for FM as well as AM applications. So it was probably logical to do the same with its triode-heptode. I think that there was some use of other European triode-hexode/heptode types, such as the ECH42 and ECH81, in early German FM practice, and the triode section of the ECH81 was also designed to work as an autodyne FM frequency changer. But there was at least one British example in which the 12AH8 was used as an FM frequency changer, namely in Lowther’s first FM tuner of 1953. (This appears to have been based upon the RF section of the 1951 BBC/Spencer/Wireless World FM receiver, which used an X81, later X79 triode-heptode frequency changer.) During the 1950s Brimar released the 20D4 triode-heptode, more-or-less a “souped-up” ECH81, but it did not seem to gain much traction.

At times, though, Brimar did deviate from the American prototype narrative. It was early to introduce the noval double triodes to the UK:

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In respect of the 12AT7, in its application report Brimar said: “4.3 Frequency Changer: 4.31 The valve is designed to perform efficiently as a frequency changer in receivers for short or ultra-short waves. It has the advantages of a low noise factor and a high conversion gain, this is particularly so when high intermediate frequencies are used in order to achieve wide band width or good second channel ratio. It is not suitable for this application when the signal frequency is of the same order as the intermediate frequency, as on medium or long waves with an IF of 465 Kc/s.”

That actually contradicted the American position. GE had introduced the 12AT7 in 1947, with emphasis on its suitability for use as an FM and TV frequency changer. However, it also released application circuits for its use as a combined FM-AM frequency changer. Presumably, it saw that the setmakers wanted something better than the 6BE6 or 6SB7Y pentagrids for FM, but were reluctant to abandon the combined frequency changer approach. Zenith was an early adopter of the 12AT7 combined FM-AM frequency changer, and used it for about a decade or so. GE itself did a little differently, using the 12AT7 as such for FM, but for AM, using half of it as an AM oscillator the first pentode in IF chain as a mixer on AM, but an amplifier on FM. Hitherto RCA had pushed its pentagrids, 6BE6 and 6SB7Y, and a little later the 6BA7, but perhaps in response to GE’s action, released application data for its established 6J6 used as a combined FM-AM frequency changer. That was an interim move; RCA’s definitive position came with the release of its 6X8 triode-pentode in 1951. Primarily this was intended to be a VHF TV frequency changer for the then-new “40 MHz” IF, but it was also specified from the start to serve as both FM and AM frequency changers. In the FM case the pentode mixer was specified to be operated as such, or strapped as a triode where lower noise was paramount.

Evidently Brimar had decided that it wasn’t going there (12AT7 as AM frequency changer) and so made the non-suitability statement in an unqualified way. I suspect that some in the US could have argued the negative on this, but the Brimar position was probably aligned with the UK setmaker viewpoints.

Brimar chose the other of the two early American VHF TV triode-pentodes, namely the Tung-Sol 6U8. It also introduced a 300 mA heater variant, the 9U8, which did not have an American counterpart at the time. Later, the 9U8A (with controlled heater warm-up time) was introduced in the USA, when 300 mA and 450 mA series -string valves were added to the original 600 mA series.


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Old 11th Sep 2020, 9:08 am   #8
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Default Re: Brimar

Quote:
Originally Posted by robinshack View Post
A plant was at Brimsdown, near Enfield,
Rob
I thought that was the address of Mazda.
Brimar was in Footscray Kent. I lived a few miles away and used to cycle past the factory gates.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 9:43 am   #9
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Default Re: Brimar

Afaik Brimar became part of Thorn - AEI in 1960/61. A data book of Brimar dated 1966 has Brimsdown address. No doubt there were more manufacturing locations like Footscray.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 9:55 am   #10
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Default Re: Brimar

I also lived not far from Brimar at Foots Cray. They made KB TVs there and as we were agents I sometimes visited. I think the whole site was labelled 'STC'.

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