Post Office TFT, (Trainee Factory Technician 1972)

GPO TFT, (Trainee Factory Technician 1972)

I look back today with fondness about how lucky I was to pass the entrance tests to become a GPO TFT 

Imagine today a young 16 year old traversing the 27 mile round trip  to work and back home via 3 buses to get there and 3 or sometimes 4 buses for the return trip home on a college night, which was made worse by finishing college at 9.00 pm and finally arriving home at 11.30pm, only to leave home at 6 am next morning for a 7.45 am Factory start

But the training was worth it and first class

32 young people from all over Birmingham were in a line on that September morning waiting at the gate house, some of which have remained good friends to this day.

What’s photographed below is not special, far from it everyone in that Training School made the same items

Below is just a sample of the work that I made nearly 50 years ago .

 

 I hope what follows rekindles memories 

Tool Box

My Tool Box was formed from sheet steel, spot welded and soft soldered on the corner gaps to ensure all rads were smooth

The box was then painted in the works paint shop

All the internal tools and even their retaining clips and front clasp were hand made by me

 

                                                                           Layer  One

                                                                           

                                                                         Layer Two 

Each TFT had their worked marked by experienced trainers  

 

 

Buzzer Box

This was a functional continuity tester in a sheet steel box

 

                                                                     Internal View 

Somewhere hidden in the depths of my loft hides an empty 5 tray cantilever tool box I made there too
I might photograph that to during the lockdown

         Source:- My own collection

G8AEV 2 Metre Converter Mk2

G8AEV 2 Metre Converter Mk2

A VHF 144MHz in, 28MHz and others out

 

This Transistor Tuner/Converter described below was a good and cheap way to listen to the 2mt band back in the late1960’s early 70’s  

Designed by the late John Hartley, G8AEV who passed over October 2005, it’s a very good design with only a few sprog’s and what there present are of a low level and even by today’s standards its sensitive and well ahead of its time using FETs for a quite a low noise output.

Back then most Amateurs operated on the HF Bands, with Top band (160Mts - 1.8 to 2.0 MHz) being used as 2 Metres is today as the local chat Band,  so all Hams had an HF receiver .

The cheap way to receive 2 metres was to connect a 2mt in,  HF out,  converter to the Ariel input  to your shacks HF receiver and listen away

2mt AM, and FM (using slope demodulation) could be resolved and also SSB to, if your HF receiver had a BFO,  AM was the norm back then as few Hams had SSB equipment.

The Manual  G8AEV 2 Metre Converter

 Page 1,

 Page 2 including the circuit

 Page 3

Page 4

 Note 

TV manufacturers in the late 60’s were in the changeover from Valve (tube)  front ends in their TV receivers to the new RF Bipolar transistors  which were still in their infancy,  so the use of  40604 duel gate Fet with a 100 MHz conversion gain of 23 dB typ,  was indeed revolutionary

 

 

Source:- My own collection
Donated by a very good  friend, now sadly silent key G0DQO Bill