THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG

My 7 year old niece Ellie was bemoaning the fact that the family telly only had one remote control and isn’t it a pity that she couldn’t switch channels using her ‘tablet’ !@£$.     There then followed a “kids of today speech” where both nephew & niece were astounded that tellies were black and white, had an 18-inch screen only three channels and no such thing as a remote control back when I was their age.  This little dialogue got me thinking and so led to this blog entry on the subject of remote control in general as well as remote...

My 11-year-old nephew Mikey was smiling at the array of master and slave clocks in my shack.   Mikey did once proudly tell the curator at the Malta National War Museum at Valletta that “Uncle Steve has an RAF sector clock” but this time his interest was piqued by my ship’s radio room slave clock pair which are a Seiko QC-6MS and a Citizen TX5 5S being driven by the Power Station Synchronome master and he was asking why these clocks had different sectors to the RAF clock so as I was telling him why, I realised that others may appreciate the...

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...

Ello peeps, well, I'm back from my travels and am in a good mood so, I thought I would share this radio related radio joke with you, anyhow, here goes............ An elderly couple are listening to a preacher on their Atwater Kent breadboard radio when the preacher tells the listeners "If you need healing today, I want you to place a hand on the part of your body you need healed, then place your other hand on the radio's output valve and you will be healed!"    The old man slowly places a hand on the power output valve then  inches his other hand  firmly...

The fabulous 50s was a wonderful time for the radio enthusiast as most towns had a surplus store selling contains of ex military kit and if you were in the big smoke, well Lisle Street and immediate environs were your oyster.  The 50's were also a time of scientific optimism where we had fanciful ideas like using atom bombs to excavate tunnels through mountains and build roads and then there was the look skyward to the heavens. Early 1957 was particularly noteworthy and the Sputnik launch on 4th October 1957 changed the World forever.  First we had the agog astonishment that...