I got this wave maker class C No 1 off eBay in the UK. Another bit of kit for the coffee table! I'm running out of room.
The last picture is Mike's Aussie set for comparison.

paint
 

nice............you will have to give it a coat of black crackle paint . any dates on it?

Mike, mine was made in London and yours looks like a near exact copy. Check the above pictures.

This is a C8 or F8 in the foreground. You can tell by the space between the locker and the cab.
That's definitely an 11 set and the charging switchboard is the right size to be the No 1. Nice find on that pic!
The power supplies are both in place to the right of the set. You can see the top edge of the plotting board behind the operator.
I wonder why there's no chore horse or spare tire.
The second truck looks like a Dodge.

yes
 

yes ..... I agree . The antenna base looks like the 'battle' British base with the rubber rain shield and the 7/8" rods

What is the rectangular box to the right of the 11 set ? Its the charging switchboard ?

The charging switchboard is to the left of the radio. It's mounted on the front of the body. This is the only picture I've seen where you can see the switchboard.

Dave did you mean 'Canadian'? I posted pictures from this instructional series when we were discussing the switchboard. I've also got this other poor quality excerpt from I don't know where. Ron

Charging
 

If that is a charging switchboard No. 1 , it is the first and only pic I've seen with it installed in a C8/F8 .

The factory pics of the C8/F8 only show the operators light , nothing else .

Is there a Canadian built Charging switchboard No. 1 ?

It looks to me, those Kiwi's have pinched a British wireless set and accessories , maybe salvaged from a wrecked British 8cwt .

Mike, I think all the Canadian 8cwts would have had 11 sets. There weren't really any other options in late 39 and early 1940.

Ok
 

I have always wondered if the Canadian signal corps used the 11 sets widely . Apparently the Canadian built 11 set was only built in small numbers by Marconi . Where are the pics of Canadian 11 sets in use ? Was the Canadian 11 set manufactured in 1940 ? The C8 and F8 were certainly built with the 11 set in mind , you can see the FFW fitments are copied from the British original setup.

If any British 11 sets were imported to Canada there would be a few surviving somewhere ?

My Canadian remote unit A is serial # 44 and dated 1940.
My Canadian low output power supply is serial # 200 and dated 1941.
It's obvious the Brits must have used their 11 sets after assembling the trucks in the UK. By the time the Canadian sets were in full production the 11 cab 8cwts were out of production after a run of several thousand. Some of the early Canadian sets likely made it into these trucks though.

yes
 

Yes that would be correct .

I think some of the C8/F8 were shipped directly to North Africa .

I got this key off ebay for parts. It's a ZA3145. What wireless set is it for? I saw one on the net and the brass mounting plate said ZA4500 which is for an 11 set. I'm assuming the plate had been swapped. I used the plate and finger rest on my other key.
The third picture is the strap on assembly that I thought was a No4 assembly but it has a US J37 key in it. I thought the cover looked a bit too wide and a bit too shallow. The seller said it was for a 19 set.
I included the flashlight in one picture just because it's kinda cool!
I was looking for a different wire than the red and black one I have for my Morse key then I looked at the blue yonder page. He says red and black is original! Who'da thunk it??? Now I just need the slide ZA4381.

This sounds like bad news for me then! Ron

Not sure about the ZA.3145 key, as it's not in the 1940 Z1 vocabulary but must be fairly early. It probably is original, and may be for the WS.2 or WS.3 since it's got the finger guard to protect the operator from high voltages on the key.

The one with the J37 key is a US or Canadian Key & Plug Assembly No.9 for the WS19, possibly made by Westclox - there may be a name stamped on the cover or base. (Actually, it's most likely American manufacture.)

The Flashlight is the standard "Lamp, Electric, No.1" with its blackout shutter and red filter (to avoid ruining your night vision). It's a pity the "800" cycle lamp batteries are no longer available.

Chris.

board
 

here is one like yours Brent 9.25 on the movie

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F05239/

nicely spotted Mike, thanks ....great to see the kit in use....
love that kick start on the genset!

Brent

It seems odd that the morse key originally had a red and black wire to hook it up when everything else used that drab greenish colour. Here's my key with those wires attached. They're about 2 feet long which is what they call for.
The wave meter had those two spare valves with it. The bigger one is the same as one in the set but the smaller one doesn't have a counterpart unless it's for the vibratory unit that I don't have. It fits in the spare valve case. I'm missing the lid too.
The correction chart has Oct 1, 1940 on one side and March 30, 1943 on the other side. Seeing as how the 11 set was the most modern unit this wave meter was used with, I guess the Brits were still using them for training in 1943.

reading through a 'www Royal Sigs etc' doc;
"Key WT 8Amp worldwide survey results" circa 2006.

ZA 3145 shows WW2 lineage....various uses and makers including;
in RCU 'E' for WS19
in YA 8414, Sigs Training Unit
as the key in Key & Plug Assembly No 9.
as the key in Key & Plug Assembly No 2B ZA 4500.

some with some without the finger-plate/skirt.

so you may have your WS11 key just requires the brass plate?

Brent

So the ZA4500 used more than one key then. Four at least! Any of the 11 set period pictures have a key like my original one. I thought this one on an old ebay listing had had the plate changed but I guess not. I guess I have two 11 set keys now but I'll go with the ZA3145 unit.

I'm no expert on keys David, merely passing along info...
but on the face of it, yes certainly more than one WT8 amp key utilised in the ZA 4500 set-up....
the keys were technical progressions on the previous ones, so if one failed it stands to reason a more 'up-to-date' unit would have been swapped for it?

and after 70 years its sometimes difficult to sift the fact from fallacy.

best,
Brent.

I picked up this hammer off ebay. I think it's the right one, but the handle seems a bit short.

I don't know about short, it looks far too thin!

Chris.

Here's a British Wavemaker Class C beside an Aussie version. The cases are the same size and it looks like the guts would fit in either case. The catches and strap holders are different and the compartment on the left is laid out a bit different. The British chart is made of plastic and the Aussie one is metal. The spare valves are different so most of the guts is likely different too.

fast
 

That was fast...must have been a supersonic aeroplane

WS11 Aerial Coupler on ebay now... not mine...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WW2-11-Set...0AAOSwMNxXXCF7

Item number - 112024468145

Appears complete... £80 starting price - 2 days to run.

Tim

Aluminium
 

The British version appears to have a ALOOOOOOOOMINUM box

The Aust. made stuff has steel boxes . The geologists of WW2 apparently had not discovered the Bauxite deposits up North :confused

On the wavemaker instructions line 7 it mentions an adapter that stores in the lid for using an HT battery . Here's a pic of the lid with the clips to hold it but what does the adapter look like? Also what would the wire and plug in that picture be for? In the last picture what kinds of end would the wire to the LT battery have? And what would the LT battery look like?

connectors
 

The battery connectors may have been the Aust. standard Niphan plugs, or, more likely, just large alligator clips that clamped onto battery posts . It depends on where or who used these wavemeters . In the field, the Niphan plugs were useless if the appropriate battery was not available , sometimes , the Niphan plugs were cut off and replaced with generic alligator clamps

The HT battery adapter is a bakelite block - a socket similar to the one on the vibrator supply but with screws to connect the HT battery to. (I have one in my wavemeter but everything is inaccessible due to an imminent house move.)

Other accessories are a crystal calibrator that fits in the space normally occupied by the spare valve tin. I have one somewhere (but no idea where it is - I will probably find it during the move).

The power cable will probably end in either a Niphan connector, or possibly a 2-pin bakelite push-fit plug to mate with the early accumulator sockets. I think the push-fit plugs were polarised (by having different pin diameters) and restricted to the correct battery by the pin spacing. The LT battery for the wavemeter was probably the 6 volt 16 amp-hour unit that had a wooden case, a niphan socket on the front, and a bakelite socket on the side - that was still in service in the 1960s, I think.

There were all kinds of oddball accumulators: I have the wooden box of a 10-volt 16AH unit (tapped to allow 4 or 6 volt supplies) but the socket has been removed as well as the contents & wiring. That was intended for early sets with 4 and 6 volt valve heaters, and also for the Lamp, Daylight Signalling, Long Range that required the full 10 volts. (I have the lamp, which is why I bought the battery box despite its condition.)

Chris.
(Up to my ears in cardboard boxes.) :giveup