How to place your components

[SurreyNick]

Probably most relevant to home brewers, I came across this article in the Sep 24th 1932 issue of Practical Wireless. It's entitled "How To Place Your Components". As the title suggests, the subject is the placing of components on a chassis and/or baseboard to get the best results. It was of interest to me and thinking it might also be of interest to anyone else who designs and builds early receivers I have copied it here in PDF format.

Nick

[John M0GLN]

Thanks for that Nick, I've saved a copy, I really like the presentation of these early articles, I can pick up my 1950's  'Practical Wireless Encyclopedia' or one of John Scott-Taggarts books and just read them for enjoyment.

John

[AlanBeckett]

So have I, a splendid article.

Alan

[SurreyNick]

On that point I would wholeheartedly agree with you John. As I mentioned in my 'newbie member' hello post, my interest is exclusively limited to the period 1925-1935. I find this era particularly fascinating because it spanned a period of rapid development, but was still mainly in the hands of DIYers and enthusiasts. Experimentation and the designing and building of circuits and components was the norm and the magazines of the time really did include the most interesting articles. I thoroughly enjoy picking up one of these old magazines or journals and reading through them and scanning the advertisements too. I just wish I had a bigger collection
Nick

[pwdrive]

That stuff is still relevant today in many respects.

I built a regen and the only valve I had to hand for the regen detector was one with a top cap connection for the control grid, initially there was stray hum pick up issues due to the high impedance of the grid leak circuit, I eliminated the hum by using a screened lead but the sensitivity was reduced, this was due to the self capacitance of the screened lead, I checked the self capacitance of other bit's of screened lead I had and chose the one with the lowest value and that cured that.

The capacitance of the screened lead together with the valves input capacitance was initially the problem, it forming a potential divider together with the capacitor in the grid leak circuit and the tuning capacitor.

Lawrence.

[AlanBeckett]

It's interesting to compare the ideas in the Article with the Layouts provided by Lewcos in my Vintage Coils Thread.
The 'Stripey' Wires are 'Spaghetti Resistors' ie Resistance Wire.

Alan

   

[SurreyNick]

That stuff is still relevant today in many respects....
Lawrence.

That's quite interesting, because with the great technological strides of the last 80+ years, particularly in fields like materials science, I just assumed that interference due to stray fields and currents would have been engineered out.
Nick 

[pwdrive]

It probably has, by proper layout, in some modern stuff like computers the pcb tracks take on the properties of a transmission line.

The biggest headache I get with stray currents etc at my location is interference from the power line and general local radiation, it can upset my shortwave listening...not good...a Wellbrook loop is what's required at some point.

Lawrence.

[pwdrive]

It's interesting to compare the ideas in the Article with the Layouts provided by Lewcos in my Vintage Coils Thread.
The 'Stripey' Wires are 'Spaghetti Resistors' ie Resistance Wire.

Alan

P for plate? I'm surprised the save the english society didn't pounce on them

Lawrence.

[AlanBeckett]

This is probably an example of how not to do it.

   

The complete absence of Resistors might imply that some of the Wires are 'Spaghetti'. I'm hoping it will be the basis of some experiments with my old Coils in the not too distant future.
The rf side has a Copper Sheet on the Baseboard. First there'll have to be some reverse Engineering.

Alan