Hudson handset
 

Firstly I am not sure if this is best suited here or in the telephony section.

Currently one of my longer term projects is the resurection of a late 50's / early 60's Hudson AM108 "Radiophone". I have found a handset that appears to be of the right style. However, there always seems one of those, the curly cord is no longer curly and I wonder about whether it is possible to re-coil it and if so, the best way to go about it.

The second point is that it came without the mouthpiece inset, although the supplier kndly found one that fitted and sent it on afterwards. Now time for another however; however, there is a thin black wire that goes nowhere and a threaded insert with nothing in it. I also doubt the efficacy of the insert as well; whish is anther matter. Any comments chaps?

Thank you for any help forthcoming.

Regards

Ian

Re: Hudson handset
 

I think the wire is off the microphone. Some inserts had a terminal on the side, some just pushed in and had a spring connection.

Re: Hudson handset
 

Thank you Bill.

Ian

Re: Hudson handset
 

I have an AM108 somewhere in the workshop, no microphone sadly


Peter

Re: Hudson handset
 

I had read your earlier post with interest
Hudson help
I have 1½ 108s, I'm pretty sure they are boot-mount FM, and if I can find it I had a cabin control and speaker unit. I worked out the power IP connections and if I can't find my sketches I can do it again. Let me know if you want any units or parts

Re: Hudson handset
 

My apologies, I can only find the 'half' and I vaguely recall passing the complete set on to a PMR collector some years ago, apparently with my sketches.

Looking again, these were really rather wonderful units, with lots of relays and RF test points. Looking carefully at your photos we can see there is no PTT switch on the handset as these were fully talk-through, can't think of the proper term. This required some serious front-end filtering, even for mid-band. The 455kHz IF filtering was a big 'block' filter except these you could open up, probably even retune.

My memories of buying these are similarly vague but I remember how keen the guy was for me to take 'the lot' or at least several more; at the time everyone was buying Cambridges for 4m

Re: Hudson handset
 

I meant 'full-duplex'

Re: Hudson handset
 

Thank you everybody; I am sorry for the somewhat delayed response, unfortunately acting as a de-facto carer means do not allways have much time to myself and this has been one of those periods.

The handset I have does have the PTT bar, although black on black with worn writing does not make it the easiest of things to spot on a low resolution image!

I did manage to find a manual only for it to be "lost" by the courier (the radios in the same consignment turned up on eBay, but that is another sad frustrating story) so I only have a very poor scan to work with. I have had to replace all the black Hunts capacitors as every one had a cracked case and the inverter struggled, it became happier the more I changed.... I have just manged to free of the cores, which were locked with some of fosilised wax that had become hard and brittle.

I do have a remote control unit as well, but this radio appears been re-worked with an engraved insert on the front panel along with all the local controls, so for the time being I am concentrating on getting it working as local control. It makes for an interesting comparison with the Pye Ranger of the same period; and despite being a bit of a Pye fan I have to say I think I prefer the Hudson, but then again I have not actually got it working yet.

I suppose whilst away from home the next task is to see if I can find a way of re-coiling the handset lead.

Regards and best wishes

Ian

Re: Hudson handset
 

I believe GEC were the first to get long lasting coils in their handset cords, I don't know if there's a way of rejuvenating them other than replacement.

Re: Hudson handset
 

Bill;

Thank you for that. The problem is I have as yet to find a source of suitable coiled leads; these are quite heavy duty compared to "normal" handset leads.

Regards

Ian

Re: Hudson handset
 

Some of the 1980s Pye "MOULD" civil-defence radios had impressively-heavy-duty curly handset-cables - you might be able to repurpose one of these for your Hudson.

[The MOULD handset-cables were good-enough to be used at mains-voltage for soldering-irons. Rumour has it that at least one found its way to being used by a Pye technician's girlfriend as an early 'extending dog-lead' for a Yorkshire Terrier!]

Re: Hudson handset
 

If I remember correctly the Pye handsets were made by Ackerman (spelling may not be 100%)

Fred

Re: Hudson handset
 

Once again thank you.

I suppose I will have to keep on looking. I seem to remember in my under-graduate days trying to coil an ordinarly screened lead by warming it around a former - it was partially sucessful and sufficed for the temporary duty it was required for, although would probably not have lasted too long. I suppose that in the back of my mind was the thought that can the coils be re-formed by heating; or is that just wishful thinking?!

Cheers

Ian

Re: Hudson handset
 

The 'official' curly-coil handset cables made by the likes of A.P.Besson/S.G.Brown had a spiral Nylon spring-core around which the individual 'tinsel' wires were grouped before being encapsulated in the outer rubber/PVC jacket. the problem with these sometimes getting 'reverse' twisted over part of their length and thereafter taking a 'set' so always wanting to reverse-twist even if you repeatedly corrected this - was never really solved - and the issue persists on telephone handsets to this day!

[In times-past, if someone complained that the curly-coil on their expensive Cisco VoIP-phone's handset was reverse-twisting, I used to dismiss it as 'being caused by high levels of local Entropy']

Re: Hudson handset
 

Ackerman handsets... been thinking on that Fred. It has taken a few days to come back.
Radiophones based on FM900 and such surely used those. I still have some. They can work on an FM900 for use on Amateur Bands but you have to carry the function of the "odd" keys in your head.

They had very strong rubber coiled cables. Quite unlike the smooth PVC type which accompanied Whitehall and similar - more like telephone handset quality.

Rectangular Pye Westminster Mic also had good quality hard rubber but it wasn't immune to getting the dreaded reversed turns. CCC becoming CC8CC

Re: Hudson handset
 

Found this while looking for something else

Re: Hudson handset
 

I am sorry for not responding sooner, life makes it a tad difficult at present.

It least I now know there is no point in trying to re-coil it, that saves hijacking hairdryers and such like...

Julian, that looks remarkably similar cable wise, do you happen to know what it belonged to? I suppose its back to searching the usual sort of shark infested water online! Caveat Emptor and all that. At least the rig is slowly coming on, time to search for HC6U crystal holders, they used to be simple to find, but then again thats another story.

Once again thank you

73 Ian

Re: Hudson handset
 

What did it come from? Dunno, maybe a Hudson 108 :)

Any use to you? Drop me a PM

Re: Hudson handset
 

PM sent! 73.