Wireless of the Week - week 15

[Bruce MacMillan]

Originally Posted by Bruce Parker

Er, quite enough for people who want the basics (my target here) without being electronic whizzes....

Especially with an audience of pongos, zipperheads & dropshorts...

The Fullerphone was not without faults. Here's an extract from a 1919 report by Lieut. W Arthur Steel, 4th Canadian Div. Sigs.

"In February 1918 another interesting fact was brought to light through a listening post. It was discovered that under certain conditions fullerphone messages could be picked up by amplifier sets. This was fully investigated and it was found that if one of the instruments in a circuit was faulty then all instruments, whether good or bad, could be picked up by the amplifier. All the instruments from an affected circuit were returned for testing. One type F and one type D were found to be defective when on the send-receive position.

On the type F set it was found the lead from the common side of the condenser to the right contact point of the send-receive switch was broken, leaving the circuit open. The type D set also had a similar issue with this part of the circuit. The solution was to check and test all sets before deployment."

The monitoring of communications by our own security people wasn't popular but necessary.