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Old 26th Feb 2023, 11:01 pm   #61
Maarten
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

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I wondered if anyone had encountered the tin whisker problem in radios from the Far East dating from the 1950s/early 1960s.
I would be very curious as well. So far, it seems only all TO-1 and TO-7 cases from the Philips group were affected. I wonder whether Matsushita was also affected, as they sometimes used Philips patents and second sourced Philips transistors. Maybe others as well. Though I think Hong Kong types never came in TO-1 cases.
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Old 27th Feb 2023, 2:11 pm   #62
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

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In the 1980's one of my neighbours was working for Ferguson at the time they were acquired by Thomson. He mentioned that, to save costs in the manufacture of the small b/w TVs they were making, the assemblers were not supposed to bother aligning them accurately: however, as the operatives had been doing it for years, they were still able to do it without much time penalty out if pride for a job well done.

He also gave me a boxed Airfix electronic train set controller (the type where you fitted a unit in the engine and energised the track with AC) that they had been making for Airfix. Airfix had gone bust and they had a stock of Airfix-branded stuff that hadn't been collected (or paid for) and didn't know what to do with. They didn't have any design info as it wasn't needed for manufacture. I thought the DIN plugs and curly leaded hand-held controllers might be useful but eventually gave it to my children to play with (knobs to turn, switches to flick), and it ended up in the electronics waste container at the local tip.
Later on Humbrol bought up the Airfix brand, but only kept the self assembly model kits in production, dropping all the other product ranges.

I assume the creditors didn't consider it worth it to collect & sell off the subcontracted equipment.
Funnily enough, later that year one of the Parents & Trade Marks law reports published a case dealing with virtually the same situation, where a manufacturer was left with unpaid-for goods bearing a trade mark they did not own after bankruptcy of the company the goods had been made for. In that situation the manufacturer was held to be entitled to dispose of the goods bearing the original trade mark.
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Old 27th Feb 2023, 11:30 pm   #63
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

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Originally Posted by emeritus View Post
In the 1980's one of my neighbours was working for Ferguson at the time they were acquired by Thomson. He mentioned that, to save costs in the manufacture of the small b/w TVs they were making, the assemblers were not supposed to bother aligning them accurately: however, as the operatives had been doing it for years, they were still able to do it without much time penalty out if pride for a job well done.

He also gave me a boxed Airfix electronic train set controller (the type where you fitted a unit in the engine and energised the track with AC) that they had been making for Airfix. Airfix had gone bust and they had a stock of Airfix-branded stuff that hadn't been collected (or paid for) and didn't know what to do with. They didn't have any design info as it wasn't needed for manufacture. I thought the DIN plugs and curly leaded hand-held controllers might be useful but eventually gave it to my children to play with (knobs to turn, switches to flick), and it ended up in the electronics waste container at the local tip.
Later on Humbrol bought up the Airfix brand, but only kept the self assembly model kits in production, dropping all the other product ranges.

I assume the creditors didn't consider it worth it to collect & sell off the subcontracted equipment.
Funnily enough, later that year one of the Parents & Trade Marks law reports published a case dealing with virtually the same situation, where a manufacturer was left with unpaid-for goods bearing a trade mark they did not own after bankruptcy of the company the goods had been made for. In that situation the manufacturer was held to be entitled to dispose of the goods bearing the original trade mark.
OK thanks for letting me know.

Airfix had a complex history, being owned by General Mills for a time before being sold on to Humbrol.

The model railways were sold under Palitoy brand for a time, before other the toy lines were consolidated under the Kenner - Parker brand & sold by General Mills to Tonka, who were then bought by Hasbro, just to make things more complex!
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Old 28th Feb 2023, 10:46 am   #64
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

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Not a lot of interest but I worked during my gap year '70-'71 in the PCB dept at ITT-KB in Ponswood Industrial Estate, St Leonards. I learned a bit about screen printing and making up the screens (steel box section frame with stainless steel mesh for the high volume boards) using a room sized camera and photosensitive resists.
I also learned a lot about boring repetitive work, the worst job in the department was feeding the etching machine- each (sometimes many small PCBs in a step repeat pattern) board had to be visually inspected for etch resist screen print defects and touched up by hand if necessary before it went in. You couldn't even daydream which made running a screen printer (blank onto registration pegs on vacuum plate, hands out, push button for print cycle, prise board off vacuum plate with stub of hacksaw blade wrapped in insulating tape for a handle (this was much quicker than turning off the vacuum to remove one board and place the next), place printed board on trolley rack, repeat......)

One set I vaguely remember boards for was the CVC-5 I think. There were boards for various other TVs and record players etc too.
OMG, I worked there from 67 to 69. We were making PCBs for the Post Office and had gold plated contacts.
That was my Saturday O/T, my weekly work was in ‘air check’ on radiograms and record players. Last product I remember testing was 037 with drum speakers.
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Old 28th Feb 2023, 2:37 pm   #65
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

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Originally Posted by Maarten View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrStrangelove View Post
I wondered if anyone had encountered the tin whisker problem in radios from the Far East dating from the 1950s/early 1960s.
I would be very curious as well. So far, it seems only all TO-1 and TO-7 cases from the Philips group were affected. I wonder whether Matsushita was also affected, as they sometimes used Philips patents and second sourced Philips transistors. Maybe others as well. Though I think Hong Kong types never came in TO-1 cases.
Curiously I read somewhere on the interweb that AF11x marked "Made in Holland" weren't afflicted in the same way as the UK versions.
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Old 28th Feb 2023, 4:45 pm   #66
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That is my experience, Dutch made Philips AF1xx were ok, so far. Who knows in 10 years time. . I have this mentioned before on this forum.

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Old 28th Feb 2023, 9:01 pm   #67
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

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Originally Posted by Maarten View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrStrangelove View Post
I wondered if anyone had encountered the tin whisker problem in radios from the Far East dating from the 1950s/early 1960s.
I would be very curious as well. So far, it seems only all TO-1 and TO-7 cases from the Philips group were affected. I wonder whether Matsushita was also affected, as they sometimes used Philips patents and second sourced Philips transistors. Maybe others as well. Though I think Hong Kong types never came in TO-1 cases.
Curiously I read somewhere on the interweb that AF11x marked "Made in Holland" weren't afflicted in the same way as the UK versions.
While "Made in Holland" was only printed on export transistors, we certainly see lots of whiskery Philips transistors over here. Probably mostly also made here.
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Old 7th Mar 2023, 10:58 am   #68
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

I went for an interview for a technician or engineer post with Decca at their Bridgnorth factory and was offered the post. I decided to stay on at Radio Rentals to complete my City and Guild course. It was a very interesting day out with a tour of the factory where they were making the 70 and 90 chassis TV's at the time.
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Old 9th Mar 2023, 2:35 pm   #69
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Not really TV manufacturing but I worked for a while for Canatron transformers in Newbury they used to make line transformers for various manufacturers we even had a TV chassis set up to test the transformers and you guessed it we used to get distracted watching kids TV in the mornings all good fun
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Old 12th Mar 2023, 11:33 am   #70
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In the mid 80s ialso was at a small sub contractor by the name of GB Electrical services Goodmayes in east london.
They supplied company's like Plessey at Ilford and many others. They,re products were small RF coils , and chokes mains chokes and mains transformers, they also made up switches for i think BT , i remember sitting at the machine putting contacts onto the switch strips of steel then they were assembled by the women , kind of hard to explain the procedure and what those switches look like.
Remember putting together the I and T sections with the i think elephantine paper insulating , i think that was the name , printing out the bakelite tops for the mains tap voltages etc etc .
The smell of the potting room was unique , a hot brown liquid for dipping the transformers in .
The smell at lunchtime was also unique it was the girls curry , they really nice people and a real laugh virtually all asian , they would bring theyre food in small stainless tin pots an put them on or in the ovens used for production to heat up, but there were all sorts there.
Sadly there was some friction in the upper management going on there not sure what it was, Remember one day the MD came down to the tool room and told the engineer to drop what he,s doing and do that job then he came down again and told him to do something else, the machinist freaked out and said what do you exactly want, the other machinist had already left !!!!.
I think it was about completing orders and customer satisfaction , jobs were stacking up.
Sadly i think Plessy was bought out dont know by who, same story in British industry bought out by foreign company closed down , site sold , for house development, and unemployment up ie thousands of local jobs lost , sub contractors fold up , then the country starts buying in cheap foreign imports , you could see the domino's going down in the 80s , how to destroy a country , buy em out shut em down sell em imported cheap crap then repeat several thousand times over , ive seen a whole engineering industrial estate with highly skilled engineers reduced to car washes, double glazing merchants, bed supplier, hair saloon products etc etc . Truly sad ending to British engineering !!!.
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Old 12th Mar 2023, 11:03 pm   #71
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

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Remember putting together the I and T sections with the i think elephantine paper insulating , i think that was the name , printing out the bakelite tops for the mains tap voltages etc etc .
"Elephantide" is the name, obviously a pun on "elephant hide". It's still available and there are various different types.
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Old 12th Mar 2023, 11:27 pm   #72
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Elephantide Grade 4, interesting how it is made
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Old 13th Mar 2023, 5:20 am   #73
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

NASA ran into the "Whisker " problem, and it was a very big deal, as shuttles did not yet exist for repairs.
Myself, I have seen Germanium transistors of all makes fail from the tin whisker shorts.
I ran into a Ford car radio that had 3 of the 5 xistors shorted with the whiskers.
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Old 13th Mar 2023, 7:08 am   #74
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I used to work at Burndept, St Fidelis Rd, Edith as QA/Production Manager, was a nice company to work for, building base stations, mobiles and hand portables for the police, fire brigade etc, also SARBE.
All gone now, just a housing estate..
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Old 13th Mar 2023, 8:06 am   #75
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Default Re: Who worked at a radio/TV factory?

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Sadly i think Plessy was bought out dont know by who, same story in British industry bought out by foreign company closed down , site sold , for house development, and unemployment up ie thousands of local jobs lost , sub contractors fold up , then the country starts buying in cheap foreign imports , you could see the domino's going down in the 80s , how to destroy a country , buy em out shut em down sell em imported cheap crap then repeat several thousand times over , ive seen a whole engineering industrial estate with highly skilled engineers reduced to car washes, double glazing merchants, bed supplier, hair saloon products etc etc . Truly sad ending to British engineering !!!.
The basic story being that UK production of mass produced goods was uncompetitive on the world stage, such a common event across British manufacturing industry from the 60s forwards. It's a cyclical phenomenon around the world. A country becomes a manufacturing leader, it gets richer and in time it's once low paid workers demand higher wages and production costs go up making them less competitive. Meanwhile another, cheaper manufacturing country comes to the fore and the cycle continues. Japan being the last 'boom and bust' example.
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Old 14th Jul 2023, 9:07 pm   #76
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I started work in the mid 1959s at Decca, in Brixton Road London.
Started on the assembly line screwing transformers and a choke onto the chassis, went from there to pre test fitting the CRTs to the chassis and roughly turning the pre-sets and then sending the chassis' through to picture test where I went on to, spent quite a long time in that section, before going onto testing radio grams, the 555 to be exact, then I went over the road to the export radiogram section testing those for a short while, from there I went back final test working with TVs this was where the chassis was placed into a cabinet and from there it was boxed up and sent out to the dealers.

Most of the televisions worked was the DM4/C, this was a 17" model with VHF radio built in.

The demise of DECCA was with the DM35 etc this TV had loads of WIMA capacitors in it and quality suffered, to get over the problem DECCA went to BRC and did a deal buying masses of the 850 series a pretty good chassis though by now I had left DECCA, after some period of time BRC pulled the plug on allowing DECCA to use the 650 series and this left DECCA without a series of televisions to sell, the rest is history.

From DECCA I went to British Relay Television as a service engineer where I spent 18 odd months until I went into the RAF as a ground wireless mechanic where I spent 18 months in ADEN now known as the YEMEN ( you think it is hot here, go there between July and August and you will see what heat is),
When I came back to the UK I went back to British Relay Wireless, after a couple of small jobs I started work with a Government department and stayed there for 33 yrs until I retired

Bill

Last edited by bill knox; 14th Jul 2023 at 9:12 pm.
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