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Old 13th Oct 2011, 1:28 pm   #61
Sean Williams
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Ah, er yes, indeed, share research, I like that term!

Will keep you all posted - I feel this is going to be quite a long trail.

Cheers
Sean
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Old 14th Oct 2011, 5:56 pm   #62
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Well, fresh back from the National Archives.

The T1509 was designed in collaboration with the RAE, Farnborough, and "The Gramophone Company" (aka EMI) - this is proven by documentation that includes the initial devopment contract, and order for three units initially, then increased to ten.

Prototype costs were contentious - EMI had initially been granted £9000 to develop and deliver the 10 units for approval, this was approved by the Ministy of Supply, in that figure was a projected contingency of 100%, despite this generous contract EMI submitted a request via RAE Farnborough for the contract terms to be increased to £12,500 - there are several quite blunt and to the point letters sent from lofty places regarding this request..... this all occured towards the end of 1943, and into 1944.

Moving on slightly it appears that EMI were to submit the 10 hand built units for approval towards the end of Oct '45, sadly the archive is a little thin in this area, and more research needs to be done.

Around the end of 1945 a meeting was held at Hayes (the home of EMI) where several transmitter projects were discussed - the T1509 hit No.3 on the agenda, and the following orders were discussed, EMI were to produce 400 units, and A.C. Cossor were to produce 600 units to EMI's prototypes.

There had been a period of co-operation between these two companies for some time, no doubt due to the ongoing "War Effort" - as yet I have not found the contract for supply of these, but think this was made factual soon after the meeting took place.

The contract for design of the "Control Unit 310" was passed to A.C.Cossor, and it appears they were exceptionally quick off the mark witrh these - it was a matter of about 6 weeks between prototype request, and production model!

Onto Antenna Coupling Units.....

There was a request from the Antenna Rigging section of the RAF (with some paperwork from Henlow if you are reading Alf....) for some kind of matching unit.

EMI suggested that no single unit would be capable of matching from 1.5-20Mhz, while giving the impedance transformation from 43r to 600r that the design breif called for, so they proposed to use a selection of four different units, each covering a different band. RAE Farnborough pointed out that this would be a most uneconomical method - the T1509 was envisaged as a mobile station, and as such would need all four units to be shipped to allow the full range of frequencies to be catered for.

This discussion started in 1946, and was still ongoing in 1949 - at this time trials were conducted of two differnt tuners - one rated at 4KW power handling, the other more suited to the output of the T1509. The specification called for an integral "Artificial Antenna" - the 4KW unit could not manage that due to weight considerations, and it is unclear if the other tuner managed to squeeze one in.

To date, there is no mention of Marconi, or STC, so I think we can probably discount these two manufacturers......

So, a breifish resume of my findings today, as is usual with research, there are many more questions left unanswered, and many more added!, in all there is around 1200 pieces of information spread across 3 files I have seen today, with a further three to look at, from there on who knows - I have a lot of other places to go looking now!

To end with a question.....

What happened to A.C.Cossor's Archive, as well as the archive from EMI?

Cheers
Sean

Off to do some more reading, and empty a mempry card of images and documents.....
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Old 14th Oct 2011, 6:21 pm   #63
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Hello Sean that's very good work, you have done good, good luck with it all, I am sure this is all new to most of us and will greatly help in the understanding of the historical aspect of these matters.

Lawrence.
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Old 14th Oct 2011, 6:49 pm   #64
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Sean,
A splendid day's work! We'll be in a position soon where more is known of the T1509's development history than the other famous transmitters and receivers of that period!
Andy
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Old 17th Oct 2011, 5:55 pm   #65
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Sean,

I found while researching something unconnected with radio that some of this archival stuff gets donated to colleges etc. (great if a Cambridge one!) I wonder if this where it may reside now. Out of my comfort zone here but didn't Raytheon take Cossor over?

Andrew

PS: http://www.emiarchivetrust.org/
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Old 17th Oct 2011, 6:02 pm   #66
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Hi Andrew,

Yes, Raytheon did buy Cossor, I am currently looking down the EMI route, as well as planning some research through the RAF Signals archive as well.

I'm not too sure that any academic establisment local to me will have had this sort of stuff donated to them - it was considered classified, and subject to 30-50 year closure rules.

Thanks for the ideas though
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Old 17th Oct 2011, 6:14 pm   #67
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

A 4KW "Artificial Antenna" would have been mega size and weight.

David GM8JET

PS and i think that would have radiated somewhat!
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Old 17th Oct 2011, 7:52 pm   #68
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Not if you liquid cool it. Think electric shower sort of size- they happily do 10kW with an outlet temperature around 45C. For short term use (a few minutes to tune up) a couple of gallons of water or oil in a tank would suffice.
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Old 17th Oct 2011, 8:18 pm   #69
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Thank You for that,i am enlightened.

David GM8JET
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Old 1st Nov 2011, 7:38 pm   #70
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Had an interesting day today, went over to where the T1509 is living, and set about doing a spot of work.

First order of business was to get a mains lead connected, and evict the Solid State Relay that had been tagged inside.

This work done, we then replaced the missing HT smoothing capacitor, along with the amputated bleeder resistors, reattached the wiring loom, and gave it all a blowdown with the airline, The transmitter is actually quite clean inside, with no real indication of previous repairs.

A spot of lubrication on the tuning controls in the PA compartment, then straight out of the HCS school of repair work, apply the mains.....

Suprisingly the mains indicator lamp worked, and switching the LT on rewarded us with another big bright green light, as well as a nice loud hum and some glowing heaters.

Chris has a picture of the RF deck powered up.

HT was a slightly different story....

There is a clever relay in the power unit - it has a mechanical variable delay, this controls the application of mains to the HT transformer, and delays this by at least 30 seconds.

Seeing as HT appeared to be optional this was a good place to look, sadly the relay coil is not well, and will need rewinding (any takers?) Initially we tried a switch, this proved to be faulty!, so I shorted the relay out, this then met we had HT (about 1800V!)

At this point, the modulator was drawing 100ma, and the pa was drawing 200ma, both idle.

The oscillator valve seemed to be working, but the multiplier appeared lifeless.

This was traced to a lack of screen grid volts - one of the resistors in the divider circuit (7.5k) had gone O/C, Chris replaced this, and powered up again.

After some fiddling we had in excess of 200W of carrier, Chris doesn't have a meter that reads any higher, so power output will need to be checked sgain soon.

Plans from now include testing the modulator, and re checking output with my Bird meter, and a decent load, then on the air....

Nice when it goes your way eh?

Cheers
Sean
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Old 1st Nov 2011, 8:22 pm   #71
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Great stuff.

Lawrence.
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Old 1st Nov 2011, 10:04 pm   #72
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

813's with heaters powered up after a few years of collecting dust.
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Old 1st Nov 2011, 11:48 pm   #73
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Great result! What flavour of mains does it take? It looks chunky enough to want 3-phase...
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Old 2nd Nov 2011, 8:32 am   #74
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean Williams View Post
After some fiddling we had in excess of 200W of carrier, Chris doesn't have a meter that reads any higher, so power output will need to be checked sgain soon.
Cheers
Sean
Good result.You can expect 325 watts when it's working properly. Thats what mine produced into my 50 ohm dummy load. I've got the figures written down so I'll find them out for comparison.

Jim
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Old 2nd Nov 2011, 8:55 am   #75
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

No need for three phase, just good old fashioned 240v.

CHeers
Sean
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Old 2nd Nov 2011, 9:35 am   #76
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Quote:
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No need for three phase, just good old fashioned 240v.
That's very convenient, but just a little bit disappointing
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Old 2nd Nov 2011, 10:31 pm   #77
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

OK,

Project No 2 after the T1509 is completed.

A bit more of a challenge I think, Pic's of 1131 HF driver & output units ready for a little bit of remedial work .

I'm thinking it may not power up quite yet.

Onewatt
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Old 2nd Nov 2011, 10:40 pm   #78
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

All of a sudden i'm feeling quite ill.....

Perhaps this would be better in it's own thread.

I dont think it will be as easy to put on the air.....
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Old 2nd Nov 2011, 10:50 pm   #79
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

I'll start a thread when it's happening. Just thought you'd like a reminder what it looked like.
Do you remember it now?
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Old 2nd Nov 2011, 10:51 pm   #80
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Default Re: Transmitter type T1509A

Yes, it does ring a bell or two...... Doubtless it will be nearby tomorrow....
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