05-12-2015, 08:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-12-2015, 08:25 PM by Murphyv310.)
Hi.
There were many "multimeter's" in the loose term available prior to WW2. I have a perfectly good AVO7 from 1944 and it is a derivative of the "AVO Multimeter" from 1923.
Many of the bigger service departments would be well equipped with AVO's and other test equipment form Signal generators and oscilloscopes. A trip to the manufacturers the likes of Ekco & Murphy would be full of test equipment, the engineers would be highly trained in being able to read and understand the results. At the other end of the scale would be the small independent shop, often it would have one meter shared by two or three engineers, the most used item would be the wet finger!
Practical Wireless and other electronic journals would often have constructional details of simple multimeter's, they served a basic purpose but were inaccurate mainly due to skimping on multiplier resistors by using 20% carbon versions. These meters would be usually be found in the home of the hobbyist!
After the war and increased sales of Radio & TV even the small repair shop would sport an AVO7 or Multiminor for the field man, there were plenty of ex WD meters about, also there were VVM's and standard multimeter's by Taylor and other manufacturers.
Advance made a decent range of signal generators and good secondhand Cossor Scopes were available.
There was of course the Valve testers of the time, The AVO Twin panel tester goes back before the war and can still hold its own today, its utterly reliable with only the bases being its weakness.
The amount of Pre War test equipment that still exists is incredible, often due to engineers insistence that the job cannot be done properly without it!
There were many "multimeter's" in the loose term available prior to WW2. I have a perfectly good AVO7 from 1944 and it is a derivative of the "AVO Multimeter" from 1923.
Many of the bigger service departments would be well equipped with AVO's and other test equipment form Signal generators and oscilloscopes. A trip to the manufacturers the likes of Ekco & Murphy would be full of test equipment, the engineers would be highly trained in being able to read and understand the results. At the other end of the scale would be the small independent shop, often it would have one meter shared by two or three engineers, the most used item would be the wet finger!
Practical Wireless and other electronic journals would often have constructional details of simple multimeter's, they served a basic purpose but were inaccurate mainly due to skimping on multiplier resistors by using 20% carbon versions. These meters would be usually be found in the home of the hobbyist!
After the war and increased sales of Radio & TV even the small repair shop would sport an AVO7 or Multiminor for the field man, there were plenty of ex WD meters about, also there were VVM's and standard multimeter's by Taylor and other manufacturers.
Advance made a decent range of signal generators and good secondhand Cossor Scopes were available.
There was of course the Valve testers of the time, The AVO Twin panel tester goes back before the war and can still hold its own today, its utterly reliable with only the bases being its weakness.
The amount of Pre War test equipment that still exists is incredible, often due to engineers insistence that the job cannot be done properly without it!
