THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG — mullard

In January of 1948, a group of engineers at Mullard Research Laboratories, Salfords were given the brief to design and bring to production within two years (24 months), 'a valve testing apparatus suitable for use by dealers and service engineers'.  The aim was to showcase this exciting new post war development at the British Industries Fair Radio Show in late 1950 at the Castle Bromwich, Birmingham halls.   The target was met and sure enough, on Mullard's stand at Site 64, the 'valve testing apparatus' was proudly presented to the waiting market. The design brief and the problems in meeting this requirement...

Well, the war was over and 1946 dawned. America had cut off Lend-Lease money to the UK and materials for home and export production were in short supply. There existed a massive surfeit of military surplus electronics which was growing at an alarming rate as war supplies were withdrawn from various theatres of operation. At this time, the great military surplus gravy train was about to commence where not only radio equipment and componentry were available for knockdown prices but military vehicles and even aircraft – and ex RAF pilots to fly them – typically those that did not possess...

Mama Mia!  An e-mail from Vigata in Sicily enquiring about when certain valve bases were introduced.   I know a valve dealer from Sicily you know, he's from Messina and ever such a nice chap but I digress........ There exists a whole raft of valve bases, however, I shall deal with only the most commonly seen bases and their dates of introduction in the following table:- Year of Introduction Valve Base Type Descriptive notes 1916 B4 Introduced by French valve manufacturer Duclos-Fivre 1927 B4 + side screw Introduced for indirectly heated cathodes 1928 B4 + top cap VHF/ UHF anode top...

Ho ho ho, it's that time again, to the loft I was sent by Mrs Mullard Magic to get the tree down so we can put it up.  Thereafter came a sequence of huffing, puffing, muttering and sighing which was a wonder to behold as you can see from the photo below: - You see, our (vintage) serially connected christmas lights had ceased to work. Mrs Mullard decided enough was enough and we went on a fraught foray to our local shopping centre to get some new whiz-bang lights.  Of course, the ones I wanted were NOT SUITABLE, can't think why:-   Just...

Following on from my recent lighthearted posting in my capacitor sales section, I had a customer anxiously enquiring where he could buy the featured capacitor : - "It's a bead condenser, model AB 619. It has a breakdown voltage of 33,000 volts. A diamond drill won't touch it. It comes from a mysterious vendor called Electronics Service, Unit No. 16. There's no charge and no return address. The catalog pages are made of some kind of metal." These famous words are of course from the landmark sci-fi film, This Island Earth from 1955 directed by  Joseph Newman & Jack Arnold.   Based...