New boy here.

[pwdrive]

Fav part of pit work was when I was on salvage noseying round old districts, I loved the quite & stillness, other blokes thought I was crackers.

I'm afraid I wasn't a real Pit man, just an amateur from Bretby.
I agree about the old workings, although it had its downside. I was coming out one day and the Belts weren't running, which meant we had to walk. However, the bloke I was with said he knew a short cut through the old workings, which was potentially fascinating. The problem was I'm 6' 2 and he was about 5' 8", and that 6" made a lot of difference most of the way. That was followed by a ride on the Coal Belts - 'keep down it's a bit low in places' he said. I was very glad to see the light of day and my back recovered in a couple of days

Alan

6ft 2", same here Alan and same problems, sometimes I was roped into doing tramming, electric loco plus 10 to 15 waggons pulling dirt from the stope chutes back to the ore pass grizzly, the stope drives and main crosscut were low and narrow in many places, had to watch out for them pesky L pegs supporting the water and compressed air pipes other wise it was stars and headache time.

Lawrence.

[colly0410]

I'm only 5 feet 2 so didn't bang my bonce all that often.

[Old Sparky]

Welcome too, from me, Colly. The people on here are friendly and helpful, as others have said. I actually worked as an ICE (Car radio) service engineer for over 23 years, so, hopefully, I still know a bit about the radios from the 60s to the early 90s!

[Nick]

Whole mix of people here (mostly harmless) - very friendly.

I wouldn't have said that the mods are redundant, but I agree that 99% of what happens is forum maintenance/admin, not modding per se.

BTW. Secretly, some of us do a bit of sold-state and even, dare I say it, embedded & uP stuff...

[standunmj]

sorry mods , hope i did'ent cause a avalanche, maitiu.

[colly0410]

Been having a look through the site, some interesting reading. I'm about 1/2 way through general chat pages now..

[colly0410]

Hi,

Now for the fun bit; as I say this belt really did move but jumping on in the well lit hopper area wasn't too much of a problem; the engineers would jump on and lay flat; the hopper guy would wait a minute then dump our tool bags on the belt and away we would go; getting off the belt though posed a real health risk because to judge it wrong we could have ended up being loaded into a tub; as we approached the pit bottom we could see the cap lamps of the team at the conveyor head and at this point we would rub a spanner across the bell wires; the belt would immediately start to lose speed and when judged slow enough we would jump off but the old wooden sleepers were always willing to trip us; if we landed OK then all was well but I've bounced from the wall a few times; back on our feet we would give another signal with the spanner then the belt speed would increase; the guys at the conveyor head though used to give us some stick as we waited for the tool bags to arrive; these tool bags were always very heavy filled with big spanners and wrecking bars etc.

I live to tell the tale and I had some good times at the pit; happy memories of the sixties.

Kind regards, Col.

Most belts down Hucknall were dual coal/man rider belts. I was coming up the Black Shale/Deep Soft intake drift on the high speed belt & there were a load of blokes on the getting off platform & I missed it & went through the safety bar. The belt started to slow down very slowly & I thought I was going in the bunker, when it eventually stopped I was way up in the roof girders & had to crawl out backwards  as no room to turn round. Blokes further down the standing belt were calling me names, the belt restarted & all was well. They were still chuntering about it in the baths...

[Alistair D]

Just found this forum after Maitiu Standun put a link on Dublin Ireland vintage radio site, thanks Maitiu. Always been interested in radio TV & electronics & wanted to do it as a career but slight colour blindness put the kybosh on that. Worked down the coal mines till they were closed, then taxi driver & driving instructor till my left eye conked out (detached retina). Hosptal ancillery worker now. I'll have a trawl round the site later, off out line dancing with Mrs now, all the best, Steve..

Could you post a link to that site? 

I am currently working on an other fora spreadsheet and it could be a welcome addition.

Thanks
Al

[Terry]

A quick Google brings up the Irish Vintage Radio and Sound Society and the  intriguingly named Hurdy Gurdy Radio Museum.

And here's an enthusiast with his collection in his Dublin home.

His name is Matthew Staunton - just a coincidence - or what?

[colly0410]

Hi,

Now for the fun bit; as I say this belt really did move but jumping on in the well lit hopper area wasn't too much of a problem; the engineers would jump on and lay flat; the hopper guy would wait a minute then dump our tool bags on the belt and away we would go; getting off the belt though posed a real health risk because to judge it wrong we could have ended up being loaded into a tub; as we approached the pit bottom we could see the cap lamps of the team at the conveyor head and at this point we would rub a spanner across the bell wires; the belt would immediately start to lose speed and when judged slow enough we would jump off but the old wooden sleepers were always willing to trip us; if we landed OK then all was well but I've bounced from the wall a few times; back on our feet we would give another signal with the spanner then the belt speed would increase; the guys at the conveyor head though used to give us some stick as we waited for the tool bags to arrive; these tool bags were always very heavy filled with big spanners and wrecking bars etc.

I live to tell the tale and I had some good times at the pit; happy memories of the sixties.

Kind regards, Col.

Most belts down Hucknall were dual coal/man rider belts. I was coming up the Black Shale/Deep Soft intake drift on the high speed belt & there were a load of blokes on the getting off platform & I missed it & went through the safety bar. The belt started to slow down very slowly & I thought I was going in the bunker, when it eventually stopped I was way up in the roof girders & had to crawl out backwards  as no room to turn round. Blokes further down the standing belt were calling me names, the belt restarted & all was well. They were still chuntering about it in the baths...

Another pit story.... I was on the belt staff down Hucknall pit & someone had put a jack on the bottom belt of the Black Shale seam to Deep Soft seam drift belt & it was jammed in the return end, we reversed the belt & it un-jammed, removed jack & belt resumed running OK. We decided to make a bottom belt plough so it didn't happen again. We found a length of angle iron & started to construct a plough. Now common sense tells you to stop the belt & lock in out, but none of us had any common sense that day & we left the belt running. We lost control of the angle iron that went into the return end & ripped a gash about forty feet long in the belt before we could stop it. The overman (a gaffer) then went berserk & ranted & raved for 20 minutes threatening to sack the lot of us, me being an idiot didn't help the situation as I burst out laughing which enraged him even more, I always laugh when I shouldn't...