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Old 3rd Jan 2009, 8:04 pm   #1
Racalfanatic
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Default Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Hi All,

Happy New Year!
For my 9th Birthday, in 1976, I received an "Edu Kit Major". This was sold by Radio Exchange LTD as advertised in "Everyday Electronics".
The kit was basically 3 chocolate blocks in a plastic case. The projects included several regenerative radio projects for shortwave and MW etc...
I built all projects but, in the end, I stuck with the 5 transistor radio as it worked well on SW and it used regeneration so I could resolve SSB on the Amateur bands.
Many hours were spent winding various coils for SW and I came across 80 Metres and top band.
This kit was responsible for my interest in Amateur Radio.
Here's a link to an article on the "Roamer 10" kit. My kit is at the very top of the advert shown on the web page.

http://www.richardneedham.homecall.co.uk/Roamer10.html
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Old 3rd Jan 2009, 8:19 pm   #2
cendoubleu
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Just received some Practical Wireless magazines from 1963. Apart from the articles which was the reason for buying them, its great to look at the adverts I remember from my youth (though a little later than '63!) such as Radio Exchange, Henry Radio etc. Mind you when you look at the prices compared to wages of the day, it just goes to show how cheap stuff is these days. I remember 'drooling' over the adverts on many occasions, but I never seemed to have enough pocket-money for any of the kits. Eventually I made a 1 valve regen from a book by Data Publications. I think it was 'Shortwave Receivers for Beginners' or some such. I do remember it had a purply-pink cover. For nostalgic reasons, I wouldn't mind getting hold of that.

Charlie
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Old 3rd Jan 2009, 9:07 pm   #3
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

I remember their adverts very well indeed from my early days of buying PW, late '60s/early '70s. The prices were off-putting to a round-about-ten-year-old when (for instance) a visit to the local auction could yield a 1930s suitcase portable for 10 pence or lead to an encounter with a chap who sold me a Bush SAC25 for £0.10 and an A22 for £0.50 because they were no longer worth his while to rent out My dad, though, built a Roamer Seven in about 1971 as his only ever venture into transistorised electronics: it just about worked, which seems to be all that they ever did, standards unlike at Heathkit etc. weren't such that the products could ever be confused with commercially-built sets. The Roamer Seven is still around here somewhere - I'll probably tidy it up as best I can when I find it - as is a Roamer Eight I bought from the local flea market not so long ago.

Paul
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Old 3rd Jan 2009, 11:31 pm   #4
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

I remember them very well. As a young teenager I looked longingly at the regular full page adverts in PW and eventually saved enough to buy a Roamer 6 kit(£3 19s 6d). It was an extreme disappointment. To have spent so much to discover it wasn't even a superhet led me to think I had been duped. The components were all surplus types, the transistors were red and blue spot devices, and assembly relied on gluing tagstrips into the plastic case. It just about worked on MW, and never did anything on the various shortwave bands. The audio quality was awful.
If nothing else it taught me to read advertisements very carefully
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 8:15 am   #5
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Hello Ian,

I built the Roamer 8 radio from a kit.
I still have it and it still works.
I bought it at the time to listen to the local Top Band AM net.

John
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 2:58 pm   #6
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

As a kid I used to long for one of these kits, too, but affording one was out of the question. Lucky escape, with hindsight! At a radio auction a year or two I spotted a Roamer 7 and snapped it up for a couple of quid without even bothering to inspect it. It was the first time I'd actually seen one in the flesh. When I got it home and opened it up, I honestly thought it had been got-at and someone had just used the case for some project of their own. Subsequently, I learned it was SUPPOSED to be like that, with the components just strung across a couple of tagstrips. There are no IFTs (because its a TRF - they carefully forgot to mention that in the advert). The case itself is cheap plastic-coated fibreboard rubbish ( imitating leather). Even the tuning scale is a badly-printed paper cut-out. And I could go on, but suffice it to say that everything has been done absolutely as cheaply as possible.

The bottom line is that this set (and I suppose the rest of them, too, by extension), were a complete rip-off. I really do think I had a narrow escape as a kid, and anyone who actually bought one has my genuine sympathy. They weren't even particularly cheap! How on earth the company stayed in business for as long as it did is a mystery.

Incidentally, you can find the circuit and layout of the Roamer 6, together with a 1965 Radio Exchange advert, here:

http://www.vintageradio.me.uk/kits/roamer6.htm
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 3:31 pm   #7
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Thinking back to the early 1970s there were a lot of extremely dodgy companies selling kits. Living near Southampton there were stories circulating that one of the companies used to buy every reject transistor from Mullard & then (after retesting?) use these for their kits. Can't for the life of me remember which one it was. Probably a good thing as it is probably libel anyway.

Also shows just how much deflation the semiconuctor industry has experienced in the last 40+ years.

Phil.
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 3:50 pm   #8
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Here's my mute, inglorious Roamer 8 The bit of cardboard at top right may well have been an addition by the builder once he found that the Floating Wire secured to it tended to float around to an undesirable extent if not afforded some support...

I can't altogether agree with Neil's verdict - components weren't cheap back then, cases though not of top quality must have cost something to make, full page adverts in PW had to be paid for too, and all in all the business for all I know may have been a sincere enough attempt to market a range of home constructor radios in unfavourable economic conditions. I couldn't deny, though, that many a purchaser must have felt sore disappointment at how far short of normal commercial standards the sets fell: and if actually listening to short wave stations were the desired end, anybody would have been far better served by saving up the £9. 19s. 6d for a Convair "Russian miracle"

Paul
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 6:45 pm   #9
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dickie View Post
The audio quality was awful.
If nothing else it taught me to read advertisements very carefully
I'm not surprised the audio was poor. I've just looked at the Roamer 6 circuit with the link provided in post #6. http://www.vintageradio.me.uk/kits/r...roamer_cct.jpg

The audio stage appears to be a normal class B push/pull circuit, until you get to the speaker, which is mysteriously wired across one half of the output transformer primary, instead of being driven from the secondary.

Wired in this way, the speaker could have only responded to half of the audio waveform, which wouldn't have sounded too good! The OT secondary is just used for providing a small amount of negative feedback to the driver stage.

I've compared the schematic with the layout diagrams and they all tie up, so it's not a schematic drafting error. What were they thinking of, as push pull class B output stages were quite normal practice in those days.

Ron
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 7:10 pm   #10
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

I remember them all too well.... I built up a couple of Roamer 7 kits for myself and my brother and still remember the disappointment of discovering that the air-spaced, ganged tuning capacitor they slyly featured in the advertising did NOT mean superhet- one of the first instructions was to parallel up the sections. They worked OK (sort of) for ordinary broadcast receiving, my brother's one actually sounded quite a bit better than mine , I guess its O/P devices may have been better matched.

R&TV (Acton) Ltd offered much better kits- the Elegant 7 was quite good (and a superhet)- mine even grew a homebrew mains PSU and served as my mother's kitchen radio for several years. It may even still exist if it didn't get thrown out after my sister's house was drowned in 2007.

Chris
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 9:30 pm   #11
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

I wondered about those kits and thought about saving up for one. Then a schoolmate built one of the cheaper Radio Exchange kits in about 1968. I think it was the Pocket Five. Looking at the ads, they were about £2.50 all in. Quite a lot of money back then.

At the time a big transistor radio from a major brand would be £15 - £20 and 6 transistor superhet pocket sets about a fiver from Woolies or cheaper at the market.

It worked but it wasn't impressive. I'm pretty sure it was built on tagstrips. I've got the impression it was horribly crude. Seeing one in the flesh killed the idea of buying one as it seemed rather a rip-off.

If you look at the ads, they laid it on with a trowel - 7 stages, five transistors and two diodes, tuning condenser, moving coil loudspeaker.

I knew someone who built an Elegant 7 as a present for his son. He was a telly fixer and radio enthusiast - ex RAF radio operator. He was impressed with it and I had the impression that it was a lot better than the RE offerings.


Pete.
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 9:55 pm   #12
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Well, Ronbryan, the speaker would actually get driven by both halves of the waveform, owing to auto-transformer action in the primary. Having said that, transformer losses would conspire to make the halves unequal, so you're still onto something!

A mate at school had one of the Radio Exchange kits, and, as others have commented, it was a disappointment...
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Old 4th Jan 2009, 9:55 pm   #13
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Yes, there's no comparison really: by the looks of the Elegant Seven, building one would have been a pleasant if undemanding occupation. Clearly I've done nothing much with this set as it's still suffering a PP3 conversion by some previous hand, but to its (and the Hi-Watt battery's) credit it worked immediately just now after standing around for however many years. I think though that the Elegant Seven had gone from the market by the late '60s, while the Radio Exchange kits hung on for quite a few years more.

Paul
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Old 5th Jan 2009, 9:26 am   #14
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Yes "Radio Exchange" weren't they the people who had visitors to the "door behind the shoe shop" in Bedford?
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Old 5th Jan 2009, 9:38 am   #15
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

I remember them in PW as kits for various models in the era of red & white spot transistors - horrendously expensive (late 1950s). IIRC they were marketed as "Reco" something. I never built any myself.

One was the "Reco Middy" that always seemed to have connotations with a rural toilet!

I did repair a few when various school pals built them and they did not work - supplemented my meagre pocket money.
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Old 5th Jan 2009, 3:10 pm   #16
MALC SCOTT
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Hi, i used to drool over their adverts when i was at school. I could never afford one. Going off what has been said about them, it was a blessing in disguise!!
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Old 5th Jan 2009, 4:56 pm   #17
XTC
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul_RK View Post
I think though that the Elegant Seven had gone from the market by the late '60s, while the Radio Exchange kits hung on for quite a few years more.

Paul
I've only got a few 60's and 70's PEs and PWs. RTVC were still advertising the Elegant 7 and the Dorset in September 71. RE were still doing the full range of radio kits and had an edu-kit.

By October 74, RTVC had dropped the tranny radios and were doing mainly hi-fi and disco stuff. with some kits including a car radio. RE were offering a few more edu-kits.

By April 76, RE were still offering all the radio kits plus more edu-kits.

RE wasn't mentioned in the Feb 78 PE.

RTVC were still advertising in Feb 1992. They were still doing the odd kit and components, but mainly ready-built equipment. They seem to have moved towards in-car equipment.

I get the impression that RTVC was (is?) a serious company, but RE ("Callers side entrance Barratt's Shoe Shop") was a wing and prayer outfit.

RTVC always seem to have offered amplifiers, tape-decks etc., and the kits were a side-line.


Pete.
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Old 5th Jan 2009, 5:25 pm   #18
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidw View Post
Yes "Radio Exchange" weren't they the people who had visitors to the "door behind the shoe shop" in Bedford?
Hi,
Yes they were in Bedford behind a shop.I built a five transistor offering,and agree it was a disappointment.Similar small pocket kits offered by Henry's radio were much better.
Doug
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Old 5th Jan 2009, 5:30 pm   #19
Paul_RK
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Default Re: Does anybody remember Radio Exchange LTD?

Quote:
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RTVC were still advertising the Elegant 7 and the Dorset in September 71.
Thanks, Pete: glad to be corrected there. It must have been around 1970/71 that my father (with me as consultant ) bought and assembled the Roamer Seven: I'd assumed little else was on the market by then in the way of home-constructor radio kits, but presumably we chose the Radio Exchange offering on grounds of the promise of all those wavebands!

Paul
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