25 Jul 2015

Historic adverts?

Thanks to Phil G4HFU (see earlier post) I have been reacquainted with the old PW adverts that got me dreaming over 50 years ago. I wonder if other blog readers can point me in the direction of old UK magazines and adverts? I was first interested in radio and SWLing in the early 1960s.

Back then, the world was a very different place. The Beatles were still in the future.  We lived under the constant fear of all out nuclear war (I was terrified in the 1962 Cuba crisis) and most amateur DX was by CW or AM. Although RTTY was around, most digital modes were not. Magazines like Practical Wireless, Radio Constructor and Short Wave Magazine were filled with goodies I drooled over, but could not afford. Even now I do not like parting with money for amateur gear unless there is a good chance of getting very many years of good service from it.

7 comments:

Phil S said...

Hi - Me again!

Those Henrys Radio scans came for a handful of old magazines that I picked up at a rally. You can also find lots of old Practical Wireless magazines for sale on eBay. The old magazines do bring back memories!

If you search the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/ for "Practical Wireless" you will find a half dozen copies of PW from the sixties and seventies which you can read online or download.

Finally, there is a Canadian guy on eBay who sells a big Practical Wireless collection" on DVD, although I am somewhat dubious about the copyright position even though most of the magazines are over 50 years old so I haven't provided a link here. He also sells a Radio Constructor DVD.

Enjoy the memories!

Phil
G4HFU

Roger G3XBM said...

Thanks Phil.

Bob G3WKW said...

Pretty sure I built one of the Ranger Series. To get the Top Band or shipping band you had to withdraw the ferrite rod and hence lost sensitivity so you ended up using an antenna anyway, except back then we used to use aerials instead. Proops was another great store to browse back in the day.

Roger G3XBM said...

I remember Proops! I think they were still there when I went to the Intrinsically Safe meetings (boring as hell) near Leicester Square. This was a national committee, filled with boring old f**ts. Thank goodness I am out of all this nonsense now.

Anonymous said...

Have you been asleep Riger ?

This link has been doing the forums for several years now ;-)

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Radio_Constructor_Magazine.htm

Anonymous said...

Riger ? Who's Riger ? ;-))

Roger G3XBM said...

I knew who you meant! Looking for link suggestions - and thanks for reminding me of this one.