Wireless Constructors Encyclopedia

[Terry_VK5TM]

Buried in all the noise of the World radio history site "New Additions"

An early edition of F J Camm's Wireless Constructors Encyclopedia - looks like 1930s era.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/T...a,%20The.%20Newnes%20Compressed.pdf

[Craig Sawyers]

Scanning through that gem, one tip stood out. You are soft soldering or brazing two parts together. How do you hold one part?

Answer - stick it into a potato. You can hold the potato in your hand safely while working.

That this is an early publication is the section on television, where all the examples are spinning disc types. Essentially variation on Baird's original idea.

Craig

[Reelman]

This looks like the same version I have, red covers and printed on what looks like blotting paper. I think this version was published in 1933 but already seems quite dated.

Seeing this reminded me that this was a present from my grandmother when I was about 11, a remanent from a church jumble sale she assisted at. Very welcome at the time.

Peter

[dave walsh]

I first came across the WCE when I borrowed a copy that my friends father had in his bookcase Peter. It would have been similar but a much later edition [without the elaborate front page!] I read it until it almost fell apart. I recall hooking up a triode from a dismantled set and showing my father that I had managed to create a faint oscillation in headphones.... on a 12v HT. I think I was eleven? I'd always assumed the later version to be 1930's but maybe not 1933 . It seems dated as you say.

Dave W

[Terry_VK5TM]

I think I saw (somewhere) that there were 12 editions of the Encyclopedia published from early 1930's through to 1957.

So far haven't seen any of the later ones.

[kalee20]

I've got an early one, which includes instructions on how to make a jelly electrolyte for your LT accumulator so it doesn't spill; how to punch holes in a metal disc to make a (mechanical) TV...