UK Published Thermionic Valve Theory Books - Publishing Styles!

[Chris55000]

Hi!

Can anyone tell me why a lot of the better and easier-to-understand UK literature in book form covering thermionic valve theory is spoilt by crappy little diagrams and hand-written lettering?

Illiffe, the lot who published Wireless World, produced excellent clear drawings in Wireless World but unfortunately this didn't migrate to Spreadbury's R & T books - I find the drawings too small and cluttered!

Chapman & Hall and Pitman were another two notorious offenders - try reading "Timebase Circuits" by O.S Puckle, K. R. Sturley's books or Emerys Williams's "Thermionic Valve Circuits" for example - you need an electron microscope to read some of those clearly!

Odhams, who published "Radio, Television & Electrical Repairs" and were Gordon King's publisher weren't too bad but their happy custom of illustrating too many of their circuits minus typical component values isn't very gratifying!

The best, in my opinion, for clarity and consistency are the Third (1963) Edition of Cecil Albert Quarrington's "Radio & Television" set in the red covers - the drawings in that are very Newnes-esque but the book was in fact published by Caxton!

Members Opinions welcomed, and if anybody can suggest any other well written and well-drawn UK (NOT American please!) Thermionic Valve books (not necessarily R & T but all spheres, Test Equipment etc.,) I've not already mentioned here I'd welcome suggestions for my collection!

Chris Williams

Chris

[Skywave]

Most - but not all - ccts. and books written by M.G. Scroggie were - and still are - well-presented and fairly easy to understand.

One point he was insistent upon was having the cct. diag. component reference and its electrical value each stated on the cct. diag. next to the component in question. His viewpoint was that that saved the reader from having to scan a separate list of components (R1, R2, R3, etc.) to determine just what the value of, say, R2 actually was. For example, the diag. would show R6 47k. He was also insistent in uniformity of those electrical values and would avoid unnecessary data. For example, he would insist upon 0.01 µ without the 'F' being written, since because the item was clearly a capacitor, the 'F' for farad was unnecessary clutter on that cct. diag.

The one cct. diag. feature that I have always found really irritating is the practice of showing 0v. / earth connections not being drawn directly to that 0v. / earth line, but drawn and connected to other lines that then go to earth / 0v. My personal style is to draw a short line perpendicular to the line that goes to 0v. / earth and label that short line '0v. / earth' - using the classic 'earth' or chassis symbol as appropriate. That way, when the cct. is being analyzed, you can clearly and readily see that that connection is to 0v. / earth / chassis. And it reduces the number of horizontal lines on the diagram, thus reducing 'drawing clutter'.

Al.

[GrimJosef]

I take it you have a 4th edition of 'The Radiotron Designer's Handbook' by Fritz Langford-Smith (nearly 1500 pages !). If not then I can't recommend it highly enough. There's a PDF scan a little over half way down this page on Pete Millett's site http://www.tubebooks.org/technical_books_online.htm.

Cheers,

GJ

[Radio Wrangler]

There is a very simple principle: A book is written once, but (hopefully) read many times. So it makes sense to put effort into doing a good job of writing it in order to make things easier for the reader. Similarly with the design of material goods.

But common sense is anything but common.

David

[David Simpson]

Very interesting thread, Chris.
Luckily, I have the original 3Vol. set of Quarrington's R & T Books. Black Hardbacks, I guess about 1940 . It shows a picture of a Cossor 3339 which he calls a "Modern Double Beam Oscillograph".
I found his valve chapter very helpful when I modified my pure DC Valve Tester to do dynamic testing. I also use a couple of mid 60's Illiffe big red valve data books, plus a couple of wartime Military Valve AP's.
His later chapters on Oscillographs, Puckle timebases & Ganging Oscillators were a great help when completely rebuilding a trashed Cossor 3339, and renovating its partner the 343 G/O.
My introduction to repairing scopes started at RAF Cosford in the mid 60's - a stones throw from you. Hartley 13A's & CT436's which were regularly being wrecked by electronics students. I have close family ties to your part of Salop, and can remember regularly passing Hartley's factory in Shrewsbury as a child.(With a promise of an ice cream at Sidoli's if I was a good boy).

Regards, David

[emeritus]

In 1965-6 I was a member of the last intake of students to be taught conventional thermionic valve theory by Prof. Emrys Williams: that module was dropped the following year, although specialised thermionic devices such as the Reflex Klystron continued to be covered in the Microwaves module in the final year.

I have a copy of the last (4th) edition of his "Thermionic Valve Circuits" book, as well as his book on filter design. It is true that the illustration are rather small, but then the pages of the books are small by modern standards, although fairly normal for that era. Having said that, I do recall another of our lecturers contrasting the excellent quality of the illustrations in US-produced text books with those of the usual domestic offerings.

[Chris55000]

Hi!

"Practical Wireless Service Manual" and "Everyman's Wireless Book, together with "Practical Television Circuits" by R.E.F, Street (1968 Ed), in my eyes, are the standards that all such books should be written to!

It's a pity that Newnes never published a full Radio, TV and Electronics theory & fault-finding volume in the 1960s standards in a good clear readable size - all the available material seems to be scattered over many smaller books by numerous publishers or is of much, much older date!

(I am aware of Newnes 1500-page "Radio and Television Reference Book" from `1963 and have a copy but just try reading that at my age (54!))

Me thinks I'll have to write something like this myself one day!

Chris Williams

PS!

I'm adding "Electronics" by Philip Parker (Arnold, 1950 and later reprints) to my collection - I'll see how that looks when it arrives!

[tri-comp]

I there any particular reason why you don't want US-published books ?
You know there's really a lot of excellent tube/valve literature published over there.
Obviously publishers McGraw-Hill springs to mind.

I'm willing to post a pdf-listing of my book-collection, that also holds UK published material, for inspiration, if desired.

Oh, and if Sqn Ldr 'Cathode-Ray' Scroggie is interesting to someone, I have 15 articles, mostly theoretical works, by him, all in pdf.
Taken from Wireless World spanning 1937 ~ 1962.
He really did write in an understandable way !
I could include the article-list in case anyone wants an article-copy.

rgds,

/tri-comp