Archive of Radio info.

[Radio Fixer]

I have put this here as it is directly related to radio restoration. But Mods please move if you wish.

I have been thinking of putting all the info. circuits (many drawn by me), layouts, photos of before and after, articles etc on some small storage medium that can be put inside the radio for future custodians. Of course paper is still the best but when old radios go for sale, at auction, this never gets included or I have never seen it happen.

So I have been thinking of SD card but what is the expected life of those? Are more expensive brands better than the cheap ones?

Another alternative is CD but dye ones written by this PC may not have a long life either and they take up more room than an SD card.

I imagine there is no difference in life between SD and USB memory sticks ?

I suppose to put something in them is better than nothing but what do others think is the best medium?

thanks Gary

[Yorkie]

SD cards have the merit of being small and flat, and being solid state, would I think be less vulnerable than CDs and could be taped or clipped inside the set. The unfortunate thing is that storage media is now so cheap that there seems to be no benefit in manufacturers making anything less than 8GB - a massive amount of space. I recently tried to get some 1gB USB sticks and got laughed off the face of the planet. "Why would I only want 1gB ones when 8gB are only a fiver and even they are slowly but surely going out?" they ask. Well it's just for passing documents between woodturning Club committee members rather than paper and in days gone by, a 1.44mB floppy would have done nicely.

I wouldn't have thought that SD cards or USB sticks would either fail or become unreadable for many years.

[Refugee]

The way I would go is to add a small metal tube clipped to the chassis with a paper scroll inside it. SD ram looks good now but data formats are short lived and it may become difficult to read in a few years due to this. CD can loos its data in 2 or 3 years depending on the brand of media.

[pwdrive]

Gary, if I read your post correctly then I would print the details out on decent paper and put them in a simple plastic wallet attached to the outside of the back or underneath the radio, ventilation permitting, any file photo's can be printed out on a decent glossy paper, my other half has a seperate small inexpensive file to photo printer (HP) they come out like real photo's.

Lawrence.

[EDIT: (Withe ref to above) Attach a sticker to the wallet to say "Please remove before using this radio, store wallet in a safe place for future reference"]

[Nick]

Gary, if I read your post correctly then I would print the details out on decent paper and put them in a simple plastic wallet attached to the outside of the back or underneath the radio, ventilation permitting, any file photo's can be printed out on a decent glossy paper, my other half has a seperate small inexpensive file to photo printer (HP) they come out like real photo's.

Lawrence.

[EDIT: (Withe ref to above) Attach a sticker to the wallet to say "Please remove before using this radio, store wallet in a safe place for future reference"]

I'll vote for that - electronic media formats change rapidly - SD cards are pretty "old hat" now and in maybe 20 years when someone wants to re-restore this radio, reading a CD or SD card may be problematic.

I'd do as Lawrence suggest and use acid-free or similar high quality paper and either place it inside somewhere not too hot or in a plastic sleeve on the underside (though that may affect the aesthetics).

Hopefully eyes will not become technically redundant during the extended life of the radio

Bit like Dr. Who - how many times can a radio be "regenerated"?

[Radio Fixer]

I hope that any of mine will not need restoring in 20 years time Nick. May need the odd shot of switch cleaner. Of course they may do if they don't find a proper home and go back into the damp shed for a while. But I take your point.

I could just do schematics on good acid free paper and the rest on an SD card. I wouldn't find the time to put all the stuff on paper and print it. But just dragging items onto an electronic media is quick and I could probably get around to it. So it may be a case of this being better than nothing.

For SD cards, as I get the impression that they are considered more reliable than CD, are 'cheapos' likely to be as good as more well known brands or do they all come out of the same chip factory?

thanks Gary

[pwdrive]

Maybe there's no need for too much comprehensive paper documentation Gary, just some notes to say when the radio was restored and to say which capacitors/resistors etc have been replaced/restuffed etc, you could then put that brief paper summary along with your electronic storage as a "better than nothing" backup.

Lawrence.

[Joe]

Certainly for the sets which have had Bulletin write-ups it would be easy to put a label inside giving details of the issue.

I agree that modern storage formats will become obsolete far quicker than god old paper. If we were talking about this twenty years ago we'd be on about floppy disks and reading those is getting ever more difficult, especially 5¼" ones. Besides the media there's a very good chance that the data format will difficult to read in the future. All the old 'Standard' programs that I initially learnt about - WordStar, SuperCalc, dBase &c - are no consigned to the history books and who's to say that Word, PDF and JPG won't go the same way.

- Joe

[Yorkie]

My elder son wrote his dissertation for his degree back in the late 1980s on a Sinclair QL and stored it on microdrives. How dodgy was that!?

I can recall the suite of programs that came with the QL - 'Abacus', and 'Quill' were two of them. Not bad in their day.

What I marvel at is the rate of advancement of storage media and powerful software packages. Not so long ago teams of comptometers and punched card operators were required to work out payrolls etc, and what used to require a team of IT specialists in a huge room with banks of valves on hard wire boards needing constant attention, and large reels of magnetic tapes can be slipped in the pocket and costs just a few pounds.

In the same vein, I recall visiting Papplewick pumping station near Mansfield - a museum with a wonderful working beam engine water pump. Someone asked the unaskable question ' How is the water pumped nowadays'? The curator said 'Well you're stood on it', and lifted a slab about 18" square, under which an electric pump was quietly whirring away. I felt quite sad for the engineers who designed and built the station and the wonderful beam engine, both the engine and the building long since rendered redundant in the face of 'progress' but thankfully preserved for future generations to marvel at.

(I do still have a 3.5" floppy drive in my desktop PC, but I don't think I've ever used it).

[Radio Fixer]

I think Lawrence's suggestion fits the bill. Minimal info, say any self generated schematics and layouts + any other significant pointers on good paper.

I will reference the Bulletin of any articles Joe but in years to come it may be of no help or interest. The BVWS does not have an archivist (no one volunteered to take it on ! ). The really early stuff, much of it very interesting, is available on CD and is given to new members. Hopefully later Bulletins will get put onto an easily searchable medium.

thanks Gary