Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

I almost forgot this little bit of electronics history.

Back in Post #303 about the sole upgraded/replaced component in this Sender, I neglected to mention the odd looking yellow component tucked in below the capacitor. It looked like a resistor to me but the markings were nothing I had ever seen before.

I took a photo of it and sent it to Jacques Fortin for identification. I received his reply last evening in which he confirmed it was indeed a composite resister with a pre-WW2 Colour Code. In the Sender, it is R46B in the PA Circuit for V7A, the 813 Power Amp. The resistor provides the keying bias.

Armed with that information, I went looking for its partner in the Sender, R46A, located in the V5D (6V6G) Screen circuit, where its job is to provide voltage dropping. When I found it, it sported the more conventional coloured ring code. Both resistors are original installations, with no signs of replacement on either.

The earlier code used a full body colour on the resister to identify the first rating digit. A wide band at one end was the second digit and the ‘Multiplier’ was a third band or blob in the middle of the resister. The Gold, or Silver, tolerance rating (if applicable) was applied at the opposite end from that for the second digit.

This older resistor coding pretty much disappeared in the 1940’s, but when I checked my Amateur Radio Handbook from the mid-1960’s, a detailed explanation of this older coding system for resistors was still provided. The information was completely gone from the handbook for my Amateur Course a few years ago.

Jacques also sent me the attached photo of some of these old resistors he has on hand. Colourful little suckers,

David