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Vintage Amateur and Military Radio Amateur/military receivers and transmitters, morse, and any other related vintage comms equipment.

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Old 29th Aug 2016, 10:09 pm   #1
Al (astral highway)
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Default 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings...

This Guardian report describes beach landings by Nazi spies during WW2. It says the spies had radio transmitters that contained '... valves that quickly burned out...'. Is there any evidence for this, or is it a fairly familiar woolliness and inaccuracy that can surround hurried tech reporting from so many years back?

I can't see that transmitters with battery heated filaments would have any difficulty in transmitting morse of even voice for extended periods, way beyond service duty, even in rugged conditions and without failure ...I have no information on the quality of batteries of the period, however...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...erman-executed

Very interested to hear what the experts think!

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Old 29th Aug 2016, 10:26 pm   #2
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

Sounds like nonsense. The article is a puff piece written around a press release to promote a book, so it will have been dumbed down twice - firstly by the publisher's press office, and secondly by the nonspecialist and probably very junior journalist responsible for 'Guardianising' it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism
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Old 29th Aug 2016, 11:17 pm   #3
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

What worries me about a lot of what appears in the media generally is that when they comment on something that one has knowledge of, it's all too frequently very easy to shoot it full of holes. The corollary is- can I believe or trust what they say about something that I'm not familiar with? Unlikely.

I suspect this story simply tallies with the usual urban truth that those old-fashioned valve thingies used to last about as long as mayflies, so it becomes part of the nearly unthinking spiel that is reflexively included in an article like this, thus adding to its perpetuation. Possibly batteries, rather than the associated valves, were short-lived?
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Old 29th Aug 2016, 11:20 pm   #4
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

That's probaly right Paul, I read the article earlier. However, the part that stood out for me was not the technical issue re valves and their durability but the pre-execution letters written to Belgium [not German] addresses that rather suggested a mistake might have been made. The attitude of Sir Donald is not reassuring. Despite the revocation of the Treachery Act in 1946, I understand that Capital Punishment [re Treason] is still an option now under at least two existing Statutes. I wouldn't necessarily support this [like the brave wartime jury that knew what it was actually fighting for] but if it had been pointed out a couple of years ago to people travelling abroad, a significant number of lives might have been saved. It's been said before, technology is neutral-people rarely are!

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Old 30th Aug 2016, 8:18 am   #5
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

Quote:
Originally Posted by turretslug View Post
What worries me about a lot of what appears in the media generally is that when they comment on something that one has knowledge of, it's all too frequently very easy to shoot it full of holes. The corollary is- can I believe or trust what they say about something that I'm not familiar with? Unlikely.
This the very reason why I stopped buying any newspaper decades ago!

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Old 30th Aug 2016, 8:52 am   #6
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

My experience with German WW2 bottles was that they were in fact, very reliable!
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 9:04 am   #7
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

"I get all the news I need on the weather report."
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 9:08 am   #8
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

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My experience with German WW2 bottles was that they were in fact, very reliable!
... except for the early production of valves by the Philips factory after Nazi occupation, which were famously subject to the very clever sabotage by contamination with trace quantities of chlorine that meant the valves passed initial tests but went on to fail after a few weeks in service.
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 10:00 am   #9
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

Never trust The Guardian with writing about wireless valves. Remember what they said about the valves at Droitwich that time? Tch...
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 10:09 am   #10
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

Some or the early German Spysets actually used British components such as Hivac valves and holders along with variable capacitors. These were purchased from England via the German Military Mission in Madrid. Source "Wireless For The Warrior Volume 4".

Any radio equipment taken from German spies would have been technically evaluated by British experts to determine its capability, reliability and any weakness, such as a radiating local oscillator, which could be exploited. The reports produced may have survived and be lodged in a museum or archive somewhere. It's possible that the book's author may have read such a report when doing their research and this is the source of the comment about valves quickly burning out. Many such books have a comprehensive list of reference sources at the back.
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 10:25 am   #11
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

Very interesting comments, indeed. I remain curious as to the exact origin of the comment in the subject line of my OP...I had imagined German WW2 electronic engineering to be of a very elevated standard indeed.
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 10:34 am   #12
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

It's a shame that the sort of detail from posts #8 and #10 didn't find their way into the original story, even briefly. If spysets (and other devices) were compromised by deliberately short-lived valves- and surely even a few scattered and anecdotal incidents would leave a lingering and widespread air of "just what is going on, and what next?" A tale of skulduggery that goes onto detail counter- and counter-counter- skulduggery would have been captivating. But then, journalism can be shallow and ephemeral in nature and surely it's not just me that suspects that the papers aren't "what they used to be"- possibly not a particularly high bar, anyway- and are being squeezed ever harder by the instant, anarchistic cacophony of the internet.
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 10:42 am   #13
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

The way the media portray valve equipment it's a wonder the electronics industry ever got beyond the crystal set. In BBC dramas (such as that Watson-Watt effort), every time valve apparatus is energised it flashes, bangs and emits smoke which the hapless actor camply fans away. When one thinks of the equipment which functioned very well for long periods in many categories, (radar, radio, colour & b/w TV, transmitters of all types and some very high power, the early computers, amplifiers etc etc) the mere fact these equipments existed proves what utter tosh this journalistic 'revision of reality' is.
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 10:53 am   #14
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

All major newspapers are under a lot of pressure because of declining sales and advertising revenue, and all are cutting staff and resources. Journalists have always based some stories around PR material (the BBC do it a lot) but it's becoming increasingly common with less local analysis and fact checking. The Graun is no worse an offender than anybody else, and the story under discussion is actually quite interesting, despite the occasional dubious claim and its obvious origins as a promotional press release.
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 11:00 am   #15
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Thumbs up Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

Quote:
Originally Posted by turretslug View Post
. . . the papers . . . are being squeezed . . . by the instant, anarchistic cacophony of the internet.
Brilliantly put! Sharp, succinct, efficient and relevant.

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Old 30th Aug 2016, 12:26 pm   #16
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

Maybe papers are also being squeezed by people realising that much of what papers contain is nonsense, or mere opinion dressed up to look like fact? I still remember many years ago being interviewed by a local journalist who was doing a brief report on my sister's wedding "Local girl get married in Wales" or something like that - why he didn't simply phone her I don't know. It was only a picture and one paragraph, yet almost every factual statement in it was incorrect.

I remember reading recently that a "Scientists discover . . . " story (in the Telegraph?) was based on a press release put out by the press office of a learned institute (psychology?) based on a student Masters project. The student herself was quite angry when she discovered what had happened; her tentative findings from a very limited survey were being presented as the latest amazing fact. Of course, this has to be taken wth a pinch of salt because it was another paper (Indy?) which reported this. My account here may have been garbled by my poor memory so don't attach too much credence to it either!

I believe there is a market for good reliable journalism, but people don't know where to find it. Rather horrifyingly, even Google won't be much help in finding facts because it tailors its search results according to what use you made of previous results. If it knows you are, say, left-of-centre it will preferentially show you left-of-centre results from searches, so you will only read what you already agree with.
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 12:46 pm   #17
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

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'The Graun is no worse an offender than anybody else...'
Very probably. There comes a point when esoteric technical nuances have to be promulgated to a wider audience and quite understandably, something gets lost, or is incorrect, because of editorial misunderstanding. But the media should never underestimate that audience.

I note that newspaper articles of forty, fifty, eighty, ninety years ago were far more verbose (if a little more flowery) in their prose. The media will claim that this wouldn't work with today's viewers / readers who prefer 'bite-size' nuggets of info. Give it a try, I say!

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'...and the story under discussion is actually quite interesting, despite the occasional dubious claim and its obvious origins as a promotional press release.'
Indeed it is.
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Old 30th Aug 2016, 1:48 pm   #18
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Default Re: 'Valves that quickly burned out...' Guardian report on WW2 Spies beach landings..

Discussion of journalism, politics and bias (of the non-electronic type) are not appropriate for these fora.

Despite a request to stay on the vaguely appropriate topic the blue pencil must descend.
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