What's a "Fireball" Tuner Unit?
 

Please excuse my ignorance on this matter.
I take it that it was merely a tradename.
Cheers,
Ian

Re: What's a "Fireball" Tuner Unit?
 

Not quite

The "Fireball" was made by AB Metals, and used in quite a large number of sets, around 1960. My Ferguson 636T (606T with FM radio) has one. It differs from other tuners by having the coils mounted radially on a disc. This made the tuner much shallower than the conventional turret. They were VHF only.

Jason also used one in the design of a wobbulator.

ALAN

Re: What's a "Fireball" Tuner Unit?
 

Hello,
A couple of pictures of a 'FIREBALL' tuner I took for an earlier thread.
This was removed from a scrap Ferguson 406T.https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=16554 (Post 28)
Hello Trevor, I don't remember the coils on the Fireball getting trapped but the small Pye incremental tuner certainly suffered from this ripping the band one coils from the wafer switch. Oh what a fiddle to put them back! Regards John.

Re: What's a "Fireball" Tuner Unit?
 

I found the Fireball tuners quite reasonable and reliable.
There was an HT feed resistor - 5k6? that used to go O/C. The contacts were easy to clean - just remove the cover and one nut. Naturally, the field engineers left the shakeproof washer out and did not tighten the nut properly, so another call was imminent.

Re: What's a "Fireball" Tuner Unit?
 

I too quite liked the fireballs. As I recollect, they were used mostly on certain slimline sets of the later 50s as they took up considerably less space than the earlier 'conventional' turret tuner. They were consequently sometimes mounted in inaccessible places but they were easy to clean and, I believe, quite robust. I'm not sure their performance quite matched the larger turret types.
-Tony