Hi all Tony H who I have being repairing some radios for has a sound level meter that was his Dad's for sale.
I do have a picture of it. I think he would most likely be happy with $50.00 he just wants it gone.
If anyone has any interesti in this, email me. My email is open I will send you a picture of it. If then you are still interested in it I will give you his contact details.
I do not want to bother Brad with uploading a picture.
Regards Jimb

Make and model known?

Sorry GTC. I should have asked for these details.
I will try and find out . He is non technical. In the mean time if you want a picture email me.
Regards Jimb.

I have just looked at the front panel cannot see a make on it. I have sent him a text asking these details.
By the chrome handles eithe side it looks like it was a rack mounted bit of gear. From memory of my Broadcast TV days 19 inch rack mount seems to rattle the grey cells.
Sorry for the vague description will try and do better.

Photo uploaded to Post 4.

Thank you Brad

Boy ,That looks like a good one Jim.
Someone would like that I imagine..

What's on the label at the bottom left of the panel? Western something?

I cannot specify the brand, but from the front panel controls, it is a selective (frequency) voltmeter and signal source, designed for measurements on 600 ohm telephone networks. It can also be used for wideband measurements.
The panel under the meter shows the configuration for doing level measurements on various balanced and unbalanced lines and goes back to the days when multiple phone channels were combined on a single pair by frequency shifting and band pass filtering.
Perhaps a member with more telephone knowledge could confirm?
Harold

That actually says "Western Germany" and the images are European typically German

Decibel Meter is not clear, but seem to have the large "S" with a "H" blended in So that would be Siemens-Halske two "S's' Seimens-Schuckert

Marc

Yep, Siemens type Rel 3 D 321e. Here it is: https://collection.maas.museum/object/319054

You people are amazing ! You could get a job in forensic science.
I guess it may not have much application for anyone these days. His Dad was a communications engineer and as I mentioned before he was a part time tafe teacher. He was one of my teachers for a while in industrial electronics. His house which Tony H is moving into is stuffed full of rack mounted gear most of which I am guessing was used in the telephone side of things . I have looked at it and have no idea what the stuff is. Down the track all this stuff will be going one way or the other there are common interest items CRO'S etc plus what radios he decides he does not want to keep. He himself does not as yet know all what is there stuffed in the rafters of the garage and out buildings some covered in possum poo. It will be a couple of months before he moves here as he has to sell his house in Sydney.
It is another reason why I do not want any of this stuff , there will come a day when it will all have to go. The older you get brings the time closer , not being morbid just facing reality. Down the track he will be glad to welcome you there and help him reduce the pile it will be a real treasure trove for some of you.
Regards Jimb.

Yep Siemens & Halske for sure.

Used to be the mains signal level checking bit of gear in every PMG/Telecom Transmission area. BIG and Hefty and normally came as a pair with an equally accurate Oscillator clipped together and wheeled about on a quite large trolley.

Was supplied to be used on 12 channel carrier systems which worked in the band of 32 kHz to 148 kHz on 600 ohm open wire and also 150 ohm cable carrier systems. IF your patch did NOT have 12 channel gear you never saw one as were VERY expensive.

VERY accurate where you could selectively measure individual frequencies when either lining systems up or trouble shooting.

It could measure up to about 400kHz which some higher band 12 channel systems went to so on ONE pair of wires you had the Voice circuit up to 4kHz, then stacked on top of that via 5.6kHz filter you had a 3 channel system, then on top of that again via 32kHz filter you had the low frequency 12 channel and then on top of that you had the High frequency 12 Channel via a 150kHz filter. The HF 12 channel systems were a bit of a pest anywhere near an airport as the airport NDB beacons worked in that upper band and very often made 2 or 3 channels utterly unworkable due to the interference. So on one pair of wires PMG/Telecom derived 28 voice circuits. Not a bad effort for technology derived in the late 1930's to 1940's.
A LOT of 3 channel and 12 channel gear was imported from USA made by Western Electric and ALL Valve operated hence battery supplies at stations were often 24V and 120V DC for the transmission gear and later on 48V for the auto exchanges.


Totally valve operated and being not exactly portable was surpassed in the mid 1960's by a transistorised AWA unit that combined oscillator and selective level meter which was battery operated (rechargeables) and was easily carried about to use in the field when working on 12 Channel underground cable carrier systems with buried repeaters about every 10kms apart.

In the 1950's STC started making the transmission gear here in OZ and was not very long before transistors wiped the valve systems out as they were extremely power hungry and rather good radiators to boot.
Each system was on a 10' 6" rack 19 " wide and as heavy as hell whereas the transistorised systems were about 1/4 of the size and easily managed to be able to transport and install.
There was a boom in transmission gear being made in OZ from the 1950's with the likes of TMC, TEI, AWA besides STC making stuff only to be gobbled up by the bigger overseas makers and ultimately shutdown. Siemens had a very big factory in Victoria I think it was that also ultimately closing so ending a period of quite good electronics making in Australia..sad.



As to value...NIL really as its now only a museum piece.

Hi Kakadumh, Hope I got that right thank you and thank everyone for your help.
I will be seeing him tomorrow afternoon. He is bringing me some radio parts. I will let him know it is an item for the resource centre, I expect a lot of the stuff he has there will be destined to a similar fate.
Regards Jimb.

Jimb,

Yes a item for a suitable display somewhere. I would bet anything that even though its been lying idle for years it would most likely work OK when switched on.
They were built like the proverbial brick dunnies and in most places were left switched on constantly and it was rare to change a valve in them even though most sites carried a few spares "just in case" and they were odd little valves as well.

When I was based at Rawlinna on the Nullabor at the PMG repeater the S&H was my most used tool apart from a soldering iron changing the sensitrols that were used to sense the line losses and drive tiny motors to adjust the amp gains up and down according to weather conditions on the route.

On the then ONLY link between WA and the rest of Australia there were 7 pairs on the trunk route following the trans line and 6 of those 7 had 12 Channel systems on them with 3 channel systems under those. Some were for PMG use and others were for Commonwealth Railways use for their train control system.

Most stuff Siemens designed and built was uber reliable and even their teleprinters were equally well engineered and would work through very poor radio telegraph circuits when the yankee stuff would start generating errors on the printed page but the Siemens gear never missed a beat.
It was great stuff to work on and that ethos from Siemens followed through with their coaxial cable systems using the 4 MHz and 12MHz bands which I had at South Hedland on the Perth to Hedland 4 tube coaxial cable..only lightning strikes and man made digging up of the cable was when it failed. The 4 Meg system would carry 960 Voice circuits and the 12Meg carried 2700 Voice circuits OR ONE TV bearer and 1200 Voice circuits.
Now optic fibre has blown those capacities out of the water !!!