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Old 4th Sep 2017, 8:02 pm   #21
Valvepower
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

Great pictures of the Z&I catalogue…. When I first started work I remember using one of the Russian oscilloscopes pictured in the catalogue on the soak bench. This also used a Heathkit AF signal generator (sadly can’t remember the model number) to drive the amplifiers.

Talking about Henry's Radio I clearly remember the PA25 and 50 modules being advertised in PW. From memory these were a favourite of F.C. Judd in his amplifier projects.

Terry
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Old 4th Sep 2017, 8:31 pm   #22
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

After Dad introduced me to the shops on Tottenham Court Road and Little Newport St/Lisle St in the middle 60s I was a frequent visitor during the school holidays. Unfortunately only had pocket money and so could not buy many of the bargains available but it was still fun to look and dream! I was 12 when we left London in 1969 for Liverpool and I was allowed one last trip to look around the day before we moved. Nobody was concerned that I was wandering around, on my own, in school time.
Fast forward to 1988 and I called in to Gee Bros in Little Newport St (first electronics shop in on the right from Leicester Square) just for old times sake. They told me they were closing within the next few weeks..... that was the very last electronics shop left in that area of London.
Very happy days, especially when I discovered Cheapside in Liverpool with Superadio etc.
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Old 4th Sep 2017, 8:37 pm   #23
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

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Originally Posted by G0HZU_JMR View Post
In my youth (1980s) when I lived near London I can remember walking up the Edgware Road. I can remember Henry's radio, Lee Electronics (mainly ham radio) and also the place opposite Lee Electronics. I think it was Arrow but I can't remember now.
Lee Electronics were at 400 Edgware Road.

Here, I've got a Datong RF speech-processor board [still working fine] and a "Communique" VHF transceiver [a Vertex/Standard radio, badge-engineered - still works but I can't program it to the current UK 12.5KHz 2-metre slots] both bought from Lee Electronics in the early-1980s. I also remember buying a couple of "Antenna Specialists" half-wave base-loaded 2-metre mobile antennas from them.

ASP393 - they were absolutely brilliant and their 27MHz CB-equivalent worked just as well.
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Old 4th Sep 2017, 8:50 pm   #24
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

My dad bought me a No.18 set from Lisle street. I couldn't afford a B40 which were stacked high in the shop at the time, I guess it was late 60's.
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Old 4th Sep 2017, 8:58 pm   #25
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

This is the kind of "Antenna Specialists" antenna I regularly bought from Lee Electronics on Edgware Road : the 2-metre version was a transformer-fed 1/2-wave, the CB version a base-loaded 1/4-wave.

I wish I could still get them today: fitted plenty of them on 1980s taxis and for the two-way VHF for the local vets/doctors. They were damned good!
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Old 4th Sep 2017, 9:05 pm   #26
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

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That's the Mashpriborintorg logo, prominently displayed on the stand behind the two gentlemen in the picture.
Hadn't noticed that - but given the historic Eastern Bloc tie-ups of Z&I it's not unexpected.

I just wish I'd kept my late father's ZENIT 35mm SLR camera.
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Old 4th Sep 2017, 9:13 pm   #27
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

On one trip I can remember catching the train to London, then getting the tube to Marble Arch then walking under the flyover and up the Edgware Road to Lee Electronics to review and buy a Standard C58 2m all mode portable radio in the 1980s. I didn't do any trips to Tottenham Court Road, I think the shops there mainly sold new stuff in the 1980s.

I think Henry's radio was a few doors up from Lee Electronics but I might be confused with another shop. But there was another electronics place across the road as well.
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Old 4th Sep 2017, 9:29 pm   #28
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

What an amazing road – Radio stores, Magic shops and the UFO club - Pink Floyd to surplus radio gear via Z&I valves!

It does make me wonder how much of the audio and visual equipment used in the UFO club was made up from bits and pieces bought in Tottenham Court Road. I suppose the bands playing in the UFO club wouldn’t have to have gone too far to get replacement valves for their amplifiers

Terry
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 12:43 am   #29
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

Typo.
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 1:36 am   #30
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

Hope it's OK to reminisce about London streets in general, but I can remember as a very small boy in the late 1960s and early 1970s my Mum would take my sister and I shopping in London several times a year. We would go on the train and it was all very exciting. For this reason I still get a tingle when I drive into London.

I can remember the smoke and smell from the wobbly metal ovens of the hot chestnut sellers who seemed to be on every street corner and there were fly by night Dell Boy types selling stuff outside the main shops in Oxford Street. I can remember there were loads of sellers calling out to attract punters. I also remember the huge and delicious peaches my Mum would buy me on Oxford Street. All gone now...

I kind of expected to see a few chestnut sellers in those old images of Tottenham Court Road but maybe this was a thing of the 1960s rather than the 1970s.
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 5:22 am   #31
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

This thread is bringing back a lot of memories for me. I've always lived in London and going to the Tottenham Court Road or Edgware road was a treat for me in my younger days. In the Tottenham Court Road I remember Proops at number 52, and can still remember some of the things I bought there (not radio specifically, things like old telephones, Jones connectors, obscure valves, etc). I visited the Heathkit shop once (I couldn't afford their kits as a schoolboy) and fell in love with the H11 computer (their version of the PDP11). Never got one but I do have many real PDP11s now. I never really got on with Z&I though.

In the Edgware road I remember Henry's Radio of course. I remember when they had 4 shops -- I think components, surplus, hi-fi, and disco equipment. Only the first two really interested me though. And at different times I remember Electro-tech, HL Smiths (a lovely dusty shop piled high with bargains and a good source of valves), Marshalls (good for transistors and ICs), Technomatic (where I got most of my microprocessors, memories, etc for homebrewing computers in the early 80's), T Powell (with bags of resistors at low prices) and a couple more. There was a shop just off the Edgware Road near the tube station that sold transformers and relays and a few other bits.

Happy times... I wish there were places like that now.
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 7:43 am   #32
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

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Happy times... I wish there were places like that now.
Happy times indeed. I only knew of those places through the adverts in the usual magazines.

In order to exist, they needed a source of surplus stuff, government surplus form the war segue'd into manufacturer's over-runs and stuff from failed projects. This means there has to be a large scale electronics industry nearby.

In order to exist, they need customers and enough of them. People with the mind-set of building things they couldn't otherwise afford, or building things as a way of learning.

Both of these factors have diminished in Britain now and are below the level which will support interesting shops. Town centre rents are too high for marginal businesses so all we get are yet more shoe shops and phone shops. Component sellers live on the internet and operate from their sheds.

Manufacturing business has become more efficient and less is surplus except when firms close down or move to low labour cost economies.

Suplus shops still exist, where the supply and demand are better, but even south of San Francisco where it is still considered perfectly acceptable to have technical interests, they are shrinking.

We need to take holidays to Fry's, the Akihabara, or to China.

David
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 8:00 am   #33
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

The history of Lisle St. and its wireless shops.
http://www.retinascope.co.uk/lislestreet.html
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 8:23 am   #34
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

Remember on one trip up 'the road' I came away with a Sinclair Z12! A power amp ready assembled using 2N 3055's.
Still got it somewhere in the loft.

Alan
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 8:23 am   #35
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

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The history of Lisle St. and its wireless shops.
http://www.retinascope.co.uk/lislestreet.html
Long time since I've been to your site, Albert. Thanks for this page.

Living in Tonbridge as a boy, I didn't get up to London much to actually visit these shops, though always took the opportunity when it arose. All I remember is that Henry's took an age to send off my posted orders for components (two or three weeks), whereas Home Radio (in Mitcham) were much more efficient.

Steve
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 8:39 am   #36
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

I, too, remember going to london quite often, to Edgeware road, and buying things from the likes of Henry's, RTVC, and the other shops mentioned in some of these threads. Additionally i used to buy things from Home Radio. In Praed Street was the 'Modern Book Shop', which, amongst nbooks on many other subjects, stocked those concerning Electtronics and radio. Haven't been into London for years so don't know what Edgeware road is like now, or whether the MBS still exsists.
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Old 5th Sep 2017, 11:57 am   #37
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

In 1967 I had my first ever job interview in a radio shop in Tottenham Court road, I dont recall the name but had a narrow frontage? Anyhow I didn't get the job but instead ended up working for a company called John Street, assembling radio grams for Curry's, not quite the career in electronics I'd hoped for

Lisle street, me and my buddy bought a pair of 88 sets from a shop there, which worked we were assured but had the PTT cut off for some legal reason we were told, but the shop also sold the the snipped off switches separately, so it wasn't too difficult to get the sets working
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Old 11th Sep 2017, 9:06 pm   #38
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

>There was a shop just off the Edgware Road near the tube station that sold transformers and relays and a few other bits.<

Samson's -- of blessed memory. They had some fantastic transformers back in the 1970s, usually for phenomenally low prices.
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Old 11th Sep 2017, 10:53 pm   #39
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

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Originally Posted by alanworland View Post
Remember on one trip up 'the road' I came away with a Sinclair Z12! A power amp ready assembled using 2N 3055's.
I had one of those, but I'm sure it had Germanium outputs, OC25's.

I can't remember if it was Pos or Neg earth, check first if you try to get yours working...
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Old 12th Sep 2017, 8:26 am   #40
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Default Re: Radio shops in Tottenham Court road.

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Originally Posted by 'LIVEWIRE?' View Post
In Praed Street was the 'Modern Book Shop', which, amongst nbooks on many other subjects, stocked those concerning Electtronics and radio. Haven't been into London for years so don't know what Edgeware road is like now, or whether the MBS still exsists.
It was the Modern Book Company but apparently it closed in 2004. When I worked for Westminster Libraries we used to buy lots of technical books from them.
Does anybody remember Dennis Trickett's shop in Bell Street, just off the Edgware Road, a treasure trove of ancient electronics from Leak to Quad to RCA?
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