Pye PF70

One of my early jobs in the labs at Pye Telecom was rebanding the PF70 to the band that included 2m. This involved optimising coils and capacitors. 

In the end I was in development for nearly 40 years before I retired. I used to come home and say my work was my hobby. Mostly it was great fun and I enjoyed it.

A piece of history

One of my first professional jobs at Pye Telecom was re-banding the PF70 to the band that included 2m. 

In those days crystals were quite inexpensive, so I made one with crystals for the fledgling GB3PI, 145.50MHz simplex and 145.55 MHz simplex. I think I added a 1750Hz tone burst as well.

They were bodyworn radios with a LS/mic. A handheld version was also made.

These radios are hard to find these days and batteries rarely work.

Pye Telecom/Philips - NOT amateur radio

Most of my working life was in design in the Pye Telecom days. Although Philips bought Pye in the late 1960s, it was very "hands off" for years. Eventually we badged some products Philips such as this PF85 shown here. It was a good product with some truly great engineers. After the late 1980s I think most products were badged Philips. The PF85 and the PFX shared many modules.

Pye Telecom - NOT amateur radio

In my working life I worked at Pye Telecom, later Sepura, retiring in 2008. You may be interested in Pye Telecom. Most of the products were PMR radios for the police and similar.

The photo shows my pass when I was at Philips Paging in California back in the late 1990s. I worked for Philips Paging for a few years. Unlike Private Mobile Radio, pagers were consumer products. We made more in one night than we made certain PMR products in a product lifetime. Every penny really really mattered as did the slightest of blemishes. We made pagers in Cambridge, Mexico and Singapore.

See http://www.pyetelecomhistory.org/index.html .

Pye PF1

Some managed to put PF1s on 70cm. 

When I started work a test was to convert the PF1 units to 12.5kHz channel spacing. The PF1's were widely used by the UK police.These were relatively QRP and the RX and TX were separate units. I think the police had to have base stations quite often. Still, it revolutionised policing in towns and cities.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/pf1

Pye - NOT amateur radio

For a long time in the last century, Pye was a very big name in the electronics world. Pye made a diverse range of products. Now there is a website and permanent exhibition to celebrate this.

See https://www.pye-story.org/

Pye Telecom PF8 - NOT amateur radio

Some years ago I was professionally involved in the design of this innovative transceiver. I am sure I mentioned this on the blog not too long ago.

Some people managed to find rare examples on the secondhand market and converted them to 70cms use. They are hard to find as not that many were made.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/pf8 .