Wireless sets No. 19 MK ll - 1942

Hanno Spoelstra · #1 02-12-06, 09:27

I have been offered the following:

"Wireless sets No. 19 MK ll - 1942
P.C. 92049 C
Northern Electric
Montreal Canada
Serial No. C 12823"

I know next to nothing about radio sets, so I would be very pleased if someone could give me some clues as to whether this set is worth having.

Thanks,
Hanno

Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP) · #2 02-12-06, 11:02

Jon Skagfeld was in the Signal Corps when they still used the bloody things. He still uses the one in his basement now... need I say more?

Mike Kelly · #3 02-12-06, 12:26

Hanno ,

This web site has everything you will ever want to know about 19 sets ....

http://www.qsl.net/ve3bdb/

It is a Canadian based web site that you will enjoy .

Your set is worth saving , 19 sets were ubiquitous , they were manufactured in UK, USA, Canada and Australia during WW2 . The sets are rather common , but the big problem is finding all of the accessories for them e.g., control box, leads, headphones .

Primarily a AFV set . The set has three systems in one box .

A set .... HF set used for 10-15 mile range with rod antenna
B set ..... short range VHF set , range 500 yards if your lucky , used for inter squadron chatting .
Crew intercom , a telephone system that enabled the tank crew to speak , e.g., driver to commander .

The sets were mass produced and they were barely adequate for the job . Quite often the A set would jump off frequency as the tank gun was fired . The VHF B set was pretty well useless in actual field conditions, it was a crude super regen thing based on a single valve . The A set tuning was very coarse and you never really knew what frequency you were on . After the war many hams used them , but in a stable location with a standard freq. meter in hand . In a moving , jolting environment like a tank , the set must have been limited in its effectiveness .

I have owned around six of them over the years . If you look at a contemporary German WW2 tank radio , its like comparing a Morris Minor to a Rolls Royce ....

Mike

Bruce Parker (RIP) · #4 03-12-06, 00:39

19 sets were not that bad!! Yes, they used the shotgun approach to tuning and may have had a slight tendency to bounce off frequency, but all and all took a lot of abuse and kept working. The advice in the manual is to 'search boldly' for an incoming signal (lest you spend a lot of effort trying to make sence of a weak side signal) and that, I think, is advice for anything you do in life.

In WW2, there was apparently only one trooper per battalion who truly understood how to net the sets (i.e., get them all tuned to the same frequency). It was that poor schmucks job to hop from turret to turret before every action to get things working.

I concur, saving a set is great. The date would imply it is an 'English only' version rather than the later 'English/Russian' ones. That alone is quite rare. If you would like an independent, Canadian evaluation of value, price, etc., P.M....

Does it look like this? This one is dated 1942 and is Serial No. C127.

Jon Skagfeld · #5 03-12-06, 09:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Parker
19 sets were not that bad!! Yes, they used the shotgun approach to tuning and may have had a slight tendency to bounce off frequency, but all and all took a lot of abuse and kept working. The advice in the manual is to 'search boldly' for an incoming signal (lest you spend a lot of effort trying to make sence of a weak side signal) and that, I think, is advice for anything you do in life.

In WW2, there was apparently only one trooper per battalion who truly understood how to net the sets (i.e., get them all tuned to the same frequency). It was that poor schmucks job to hop from turret to turret before every action to get things working.

I concur, saving a set is great. The date would imply it is an 'English only' version rather than the later 'English/Russian' ones. That alone is quite rare. If you would like an independent, Canadian evaluation of value, price, etc., P.M....

Does it look like this? This one is dated 1942 and is Serial No. C127.

Bruce: Check that serial number. I think you dropped some numbers.

Hanno: I'd highly recommend two things;

1. Get it!

2. Navigate the site given to you above. You can "register" your set there, much like Keith's Old CMP site.

That Mk II is a fairly "rare" piece of kit, if only because of the fewer radios produced. The one offered to you is a C 12000 serial number. In comparison, my Mk III is in the C73000 range. There would appear to have been far less MkIIs built than MK IIIs.

I'm a stickler for having my master clock set to the correct time. After an all-too-frequent power outage, I find that my 60+ year old 19 set's sensitivity is far superior in pulling in a time signal than is a commercial HF receiver sitting next to it.

BTW, Dan Caldwell has about four Mk IIs and could be a future source of info for you.

John McGillivray · #6 03-12-06, 14:13

My mother worked at Northern Electric in Montreal during the war. There is a very far off chance that she might have had a hand in making that radio. So there is another reason to buy it.

Bruce Parker (RIP) · #7 03-12-06, 14:52

Jon, I checked the serial and, yes, it's C127. I've been trying to find an earlier example, like say C1 or C2 but haven't had any luck....

Mike Kelly · #8 04-12-06, 13:46

I have a friend here , who is a radio tech by trade , and an avid, fanatical even , collector of WW2 radios . Some years ago he took a 19 set to his workplace to test it out on a hugely expensive spectrum analyser .

The results would have your local radio inspector having fits .

The main problem with them is , the PA tuning is so coarse , its so easy to tune the PA dial to the wrong side of the actual freq . you are after . The mixing process in the chain of stages before the final 807 , produces quite a few different products and you can easily transmit 455 khz away from where you think you are. By moving the PA dial slightly ( about 1/16" ) you are actually moving a whole lot in terms of resonance . You get false dips all over the place on the PA current .

The mk2 set draws about 140 watts with everything on , you get around 4 watts of RF carrier on average from the A set . Not that efficient really .

The designers, PYE UK , admitted the set had shortcomings from the start . It was put into service in a hurry during a period when the war was going badly . Get em out , and into the lines .

Here the MK 2 version is the most common , mk3's are rather scarce . The mk 3 was an attempt to improve the efficiency in terms of power consuption . The Canadian Mk3 has the vibrator RX supply , whereas the British Mk3 has 2 seperate genemotors , one for tx and one for rx. The set has gained a reputation , more by word of mouth than anything else . Basically , there were so many of them made

In a shack , resting on a table , with a freq. meter with you , they are OK to use . Try netting out in the field with no freq. standard ...... big problems await you .

Iv'e had enough of them ......

Mike

Mike Kelly · #9 04-12-06, 13:46

I have a friend here , who is a radio tech by trade , and an avid, fanatical even , collector of WW2 radios . Some years ago he took a 19 set to his workplace to test it out on a hugely expensive spectrum analyser .

The results would have your local radio inspector having fits .

The main problem with them is , the PA tuning is so coarse , its so easy to tune the PA dial to the wrong side of the actual freq . you are after . The mixing process in the chain of stages before the final 807 , produces quite a few different products and you can easily transmit 455 khz away from where you think you are. By moving the PA dial slightly ( about 1/16" ) you are actually moving a whole lot in terms of resonance . You get false dips all over the place on the PA current .

The mk2 set draws about 140 watts with everything on , you get around 4 watts of RF carrier on average from the A set . Not that efficient really .

The designers, PYE UK , admitted the set had shortcomings from the start . It was put into service in a hurry during a period when the war was going badly . Get em out , and into the lines .

Here the MK 2 version is the most common , mk3's are rather scarce . The mk 3 was an attempt to improve the efficiency in terms of power consuption . The Canadian Mk3 has the vibrator RX supply , whereas the British Mk3 has 2 seperate genemotors , one for tx and one for rx. The set has gained a reputation , more by word of mouth than anything else . Basically , there were so many of them made

In a shack , resting on a table , with a freq. meter with you , they are OK to use . Try netting out in the field with no freq. standard ...... big problems await you .

I've had enough of them ......

Mike

Bruce Parker (RIP) · #10 06-12-06, 04:36

..

Hanno Spoelstra · #11 10-12-06, 21:45

Thanks all for the replies!

The radio is offered to me by my uncle, one of my cousins got it from a neighbour when they used to live in Oosterbeek decades ago (always made me wonder if it was a remnant of Operation Market Garden. . . ).

A friend of mine has tons of No.19 stuff so I'll ask him what is needed to complete it.

More later!

Thanks,
Hanno