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Old 28-05-18, 21:26
Chris Suslowicz Chris Suslowicz is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Dunlop View Post
74 years on from the introduction of the 52-Set, a key piece of missing documentation to those of us now attempting to restore one of these sets today, is the detailed repair and rebuild information typically found in the Second to Fourth Echelon Work Instructions published by the military. An Issue 1 Canadian Army EME Manual, dated February, 1945, does exist for this document, but it is only 84 pages long, and apart from a dozen or so pages dealing with a general inspection and alignment procedures for the set, the bulk of this document deals with building and specifications for all the coils and chokes used throughout the Wireless Set No. 52. Unlike the 300 plus pages of the similar document for the 19-Set Mk III, nothing at all on repair and rebuild of any of the components for the 52-Set. Odd, considering this wireless set served into the early 1960’s in Canada. Maybe there were enough spare components in stores that broken sets were simply replaced and the duff ones tossed.
The EMER set is almost certainly complete, and is all there ever was. Fourth echelon maintenance was "Base Workshops" who would have had the full complement of spare parts (as listed in the Identification List) available and were entirely capable of reducing the set to its component parts and rebuilding it from scratch. (This was done, post-WW2 when sets were rewired with PVC insulation, tropicalised, and reissued - particularly 19 sets that came out of Newark (near Nottingham, UK) with new paint and "NEW/mmyy" date markings on the (refinished) front panels.)

The lack of detail in the WS52 EMER is most likely because it used parts (such as the Condenser Drive assembly) common to the WS19 so there was no point in duplicating that - workshops would be completely familiar with it.

Various components were also supplied as sub-assemblies, e,g. the WS19 PA tuning mechanism as a complete unit from the flick mechanism back to the mica capacitors mounted to the rear of the tuning capacitor. That would save a lot of time if one had to be changed due to severe damage.

The coil winding details are in the 2nd-4th echelon repair EMER because that was a relatively simple repair job, and they had the equipment to do it. (They also had the equipment for rebuilding dynamotor armatures (rewinding and varnish impregnating), though I suspect that was an "only when there's nothing else going on" task.

Chris.
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