Building the Wireless Age: A Unique Marconi Exhibition

[crackle]

This Event has been bought to my attention by a friend living in Chelmsford and it may interest others on here.
http://www.chelmsfordses.org.uk/events/105#.Vu05_1J0vct
Mike

[Herald1360]

I think that takes care of Easter Saturday

Thanks for headsup!

[Herald1360]

Hmmm, interesting but not perhaps worth a 240 mile round trip. Without the "bonus" Titanic Radio Room replica display there was very little hardware.

There's rather more actual artefacts at the local museum about a mile away including an interesting wideband HF amplifier using about 16 4CX250s (?) in a distributed amplifier setup.

Some piccies to follow when I get home. (Coffee break at South Mimms at the moment)

[Herald1360]

Pics

[paulsherwin]

Most of the old Marconi collection is held by the Oxford University Museum of the History of Science, http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/. Unfortunately little of it is on display as the curators seem more interested in pre 20th century stuff. They are particularly keen on astrolabes and armillary spheres.

[Radio Wrangler]

That's a fine example of a distributed power amplifier. You'll find smaller ones in some classic Tex scopes. Invented by a Mr Percival in the mid 1930's, but they didn't catch on until a paper was published by the Stanford gang (just Google Ginzton, Hewlett, Jasberg and Noe.)

Distributed amplifiers are a means of breaking out of the normal gain versus bandwidth trade-off of a device and were quite a breakthrough. There are distributed amplifiers made on Gallium Arsenide substrates which amalgamate the transistors and transmission lines to make RF power over bandwidths of dozens of GHz.

Astrolabes... It sounds like those curators are still miffed at not being allowed to label everything in latin.

Things like the Marconi collection ought to be in public view. We need people to see that Britain can make and do successful things and that it's OK to get interested in technical things.

David

[trh01uk]

Originally Posted by Herald1360

Hmmm, interesting but not perhaps worth a 240 mile round trip. Without the "bonus" Titanic Radio Room replica display there was very little hardware.

Yes, sadly too many academics think its all about writing learned papers - presumably aimed at other academics. When they want to actually put on an exhibition they don't have anything apart perhaps from some pics. So they put up lots of posters and hope that will cut it......

For me, vintage technology has to be experienced. For that you need real hardware, that works, and the opportunity for a visitor to actually interact with the hardware. Clearly that's an ideal, and there are lots of difficulties with it, including the fact that if the exhibition is successful, queues form of people wanting to do "do the interaction". And of course, there is always the dreaded "health and safety" to take into account.

A useful alternative is for a skilled interpreter to demonstrate real working vintage equipment and talk visitors through what is happening, what they are seeing, and answer questions.

Where can you get that?

Richard

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by trh01uk

Where can you get that?

You get radio amateurs putting on special event stations but often they get it wrong. Very very wrong. You see a group clustered round a transceiver or two with their backs to the audience. They are presenting the event to the distant world, but are excluding the people at the event.

From the point of view of getting people interested, the distant ones using radios are already converts. It is the people AT the event who are most important.

Our club makes a big thing of Jamboree-on-the-air and the arrangement which has worked well is to have a group of youngsters around one radio with an operator. As a special event, they get a bit of mike time, but they need talking through shyness a bit. There is a lot of curiosity and enthusiasm unleashed. At the other side of the room there's another setup running with another group, and there's a Morse class running. To burn up some energy there are clues to a spy chase on wooden plaques attached to buildings, trees and anything which doesn't move (much) sprinkled around the scout camp - all written in Morse, of course, there's displays running showing who's where and maps of contacts.
Taking along some old gear always gets a lot of interest.

Dunfermline used to have (sad loss!) a hobbies exhibition in Pittencrieff park, which has a large exhibition hall with restaurant, bar etc. All the local and not so local clubs and societies would put on a stall showing what they did. You had Gilbert & Sullivan societies, model aircraft, Meccano clubs, Amateur Opera, Am Dram inside while model boats were available to try on the pond, radio controlled car racing outside, Sugar craft, all manner of sewing sorts of things. And the Dunfermline Radio society had antennae up outside and slung from the trees leading to a stall near a window and a power point. We got a lot of interest from doing it. A few new members, but a lot more people in the area understood what we got up to.

I think the hobbies exhibition weekend died out when things changed in local government. It's a grave loss for many many interests.

I think we ought to put some emphasis on local exhibitions.

Academics are measured on what peer-reviewed papers they emit, and where those papers get cited. It makes for an inwards-looking viewpoint and a closed world. They still want money, food, light and heat from the outside world, of course.

David

[Dickie]

Originally Posted by trh01uk

Where can you get that?

The Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The guys there are only too keen to explain what and how Colossus ( and other exhibits) does with working demonstrations.

Also an interesting contrast on the same site mirroring David's post: There is an amateur radio station cum exhibit in a different building and guess what? The chaps operating it are hunched up over the gear with their backs to the audience, and barely notice anyone who ventures in to see what its about.

[Dickie]

And "hat's off" to Herald1360 for visiting the exhibition and giving us a review on the forum. Perhaps the BVWS Bulletin editorial team could consider adding reviews of vintage wireless related events to the bulletin.

[Radio Wrangler]

I know that "in a different building" I was down for the EME2012 event and one of the day trips was out to Bletchley. The amateur radio display in its hut had three generations of older stations, a 1920s era breadboard and open construction rig, then a Labgear LG300 with Eddystone Rx representing the late fifties, and then I think it was a KW2000 station representing the beginning of the transceiver era.

After these three exhibits, the visitor went round a corner into a less brightly lit area and saw an operating table with the full spread of ALL the top of the line models from one of the big-3 manufacturers, all lit up and looking like it cost millions. This was the operational gear. At the time I was there it was idling, lit-up, but not being used. Any ordinary person walking into that display was going to be put right off. It would look far too complicated for any mere mortal to understand, and far too expensive for anyone without a nice caribbean island to afford.

I assume it was very kind of one of the suppliers to have donated a show station, but I think it's doing the opposite of what must have been intended. I think it's perfect for scaring people off.

David

[hamid_1]

Thanks to Herald1360 for his honest review. To be fair, it was only meant to be a temporary exhibition. I think it's unreasonable to expect the exhibits to be seen working. Doing this requires someone with knowledge to set up and maintain, as well as spare parts to allow for wear and tear, and in the case of transmitters, a licensed operator.

There are some museums where there are working vintage items. In the last year I've been to 3 of them:

Milton Keynes museum, mentioned here:
Has 3 working automatic telephone exchanges - Strowger, Crossbar and TXE2 - as well as manual switchboards and lots of old phones to play with. Great fun! Also there's a Victorian house - when I visited just before Christmas they were celebrating Christmas Victorian style with oil lamps and mechanical music (cylinder phonograph, polyphon etc.) all working, plus you can make your own toast on the stove!

Amberley Museum in Sussex covers a number of 20th century industries on its vast site. Something for everyone, including vintage buses and trains that you can ride on, printing, electricity and telecommunications (like Milton Keynes, it's part of BT's Connected Earth museum network). There was a Radio and TV building, but sadly nothing working in there. I understand they have amateur radio demonstrations a few times a year - check their website for details.

And of course, the Vintage Wireless and Television museum in Dulwich, London. When I went last autumn, they were putting together a new television display, which I was able to see mostly working. The museum is normally only open by appointment - you need to contact them before visiting.