[Junk Box Nick]

I remember Raymart kits being available from Chas H Young (G2AK) on Corporation Street, Bham. This was the late 1960s. A schoolfriend had an SW valve receiver which was in similar style to the HAC sets but used more modern valves. We were under the impression that at that point Raymart was a Chas Young operation though we might well be mistaken.

Ray Withers didn’t get going with his business until the late 1970s. He lived on Stourbridge Road in Halesowen from the early 70s – I still remember the antenna above his house – but whether he was doing any business from there I don’t know/can’t remember. In the early 1980s he had a shop on Hagley Road West at Quinton (in the area locally known as ‘The Holly Bush’) where he was doing a lot of amateur stuff. I still have a tone-burst module I bought from there and never fitted! I remember Ray being generous with the coffee.

Later, I remember the Raycomm operation on the Wolverhampton Road, Oldbury though I never visited it. I passed the building yesterday evening and gave it a glance as I invariably do.