NOVEL RADIO BUILT FROM TOY SET

Radio Record, Volume XIII, Issue 11, 21 August 1939, Page 3

NOVEL RADIO BUILT FROM TOY SET

Christchurch Man Devises Automatic Control Radio For His Amusement

@ Home constructors of radio sets in New Zealand have various ways of expressing their artistic yearnings. One man in Christchurch, for instance, has built a receiving set which is neatly hidden in the internals of a tall grandfather clock. @ it is his whimsy to inform guests that he is about to "wind the clock up." Instead, he twists a dial, and lo! out pours music from any station he fancies. @ Something a good deal quainter than this, however, came to fight, also in Christchurch, last week, _ through Mr. A. V. Butcher,

Cashmere Road, who has built a receiver almost entirely automatic in operation. lts appearance is along the lines of a modern model of the celebrated Strasbourg clock.

'HE heart of the receiver is a synchronous electrie clock, which gives the time in any. part of the world. This drives an automatic switching device which will switch the set on or off at any predetermined time and also operate specially-illuminated indicator plates showing the more important shortwave stations on the air at any particular time. A series of dial controls may be worked to give a whole evening’s entertainment from a number of stations. Once the controls are set, the apparatus does the rest.

Selects Stations

EE a special item is being broadeast from 3YA at 8 -p.m., concluding at 8.15 p.m.; another from, say, 2YA, at 8.20 p.m., and so on, the receiver will tune itself to these stations at the correct time for as many stations as have been pre-selected. Push-button, as well as ordinary manual tuning is. also provided for. The young constructor has also

perfected a remote-control tuning device through which he can sit at the fireside and have a choice of any four stations and control their volume at will. A length of flex links the apparatus with the set, and the remote device is small enough to fit the palm of the hand. One big feature of the whole set . is that it is built mainly of Meccano parts, Mr. Butcher having won several prizes awarded by the Meccano Co. for building original novelties. The apparatus is about five feet high by one foot wide, with a base of one foot six inches. There are over 30 controls on the front panel, and over 2000 nuts and boits in the make-up. Uses Four Motors FOUR electric motors control the various movements,

onentl = and there are about 20 electromagnetic relays. It took a year to build, and the sole object of the construction was personal entertainment and instruction. Mr. Butcher, who is only 20, is now in his second year at Canter--bury College, where he is taking a degree course in electrical. and mechanical engineering.