30 Jun 2019

Eddystone EC10 RX

When I was younger, I always wanted one of these. In the late 1960s they retailed for £48. They were, I think, the first transistorised communications receiver Eddystone made. The RX used OC171 germanium transistors and a low IF. Actually they were useless! The only good thing was the wonderful Eddystone dial.

A friend of mine had a dad who worked for Eddystone and he managed to get me a pre-production Mk 1 EC10. The entire 10m band covered about 1cm of dial and the image rejection must have been almost non-existent. By today's standards it was a useless RX. Mine was mainly used on 160m and 80m and as a tunable IF for 2m.

Even today I think they still command good prices on eBay, although this must be for collectors rather than performance.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/ec10
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousSun Jun 30, 10:56:00 am GMT+1

    Prices are not as good as they used to be I sold a working but tatty EC10 at the Newbury rally the other weekend for less than £50.

    Regards,

    Martin - G8JNJ

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSun Jun 30, 06:00:00 pm GMT+1

    I was loaned an EC10 many years ago. I wasn't impressed. Nice case and nicely built so perhaps and it would make the basis of a good receiver but as it was it must have needed a full size antenna. A simple regenerative gave me better results.

    ReplyDelete
  3. KeithSun Jun 30, 08:18:00 pm GMT+1

    Ah yes - “Calling CQ 2 metres and tuning high to low for a call”.... The days when people had a crystal for “their” frequency and woe betide anyone else who chose the same frequency!

    I too worked for Eddystone in the early 1970’s. By then the EC10 Mk II was still in production, but was being replaced by the 1830 and 958 for serious applications. There was also a “broadcast” version of the EC10 with no BFO - the EB35. If I recall correctly, it also included the FM band.

    Regards,
    Keith G0RQQ

    ReplyDelete