Here is another blast from the past.

Not a radio subject but a power generation thing from when most rural power was generated on the farm property.
Electric power used to be confined to the main cities. However, the reticulation of state power was completed in the 1980's.
I worked for the diesel company Lister and in 1985 we did a hands on survey in NSW to see what the future of building generating sets was.
We drove around the state mainly out West. We found that most large centres had shut their local power stations down and were connected to the Grid. Farm stations that were within spitting distance of the reticulation were hooked up as well.
Railways were shutting down and country towns were dying as the next generation fled to the big citys.
A bleak outlook for the farming way of life and a company making diesel powered gensets, shearing gear and allied products.

Anyway, here is a bit of reminiscing about Farm power.


Fred.

Auto start panels

Document uploaded.

Lister and Wolseley were big names in stationary engines on farms back in the day. Wolseleys were more often used for water pumping though. These engines are collectors items now (just like radios!) and there are shows around the country with dozens of them on display.

Almost every remote Radio/Television relay building I worked in had a small dark room (no windows, floor level vent grill instead) where an air-cooled Lister sat waiting for a mains failure. Magnificent engines, worked every time on time.

One memorial night I was tasked to drive to such a site with a 44 gal drum of diesel in tow. Radio telemetry equipment showed a low fuel alarm. We were assured by the power authorities that the site mains was OK. "Your generator must be faulty--" was their reply.

I arrived at the site late at night and sure enough, the mains was OK but the generator , which had been running since morning, was still running. There had been a mains bump early that morning, which set the genny running, but the changeover contactor had frozen, keeping the site on generator power.

As the mains side of the site was 3-Phase, I was not qualified to work on it. I refuelled the diesel, reported the situation then left the site with the Lister running the show for another 8 hours. No problems, the generator kept us on-air with no sign of overheating.

BringBackTheLister

I also remember Lister generators, used with WWII radars.

They had a valve lifter to allow you to hand crank it and when up to cranking speed, you whacked the valve lifter to get compression and I seem to recall they fired up every time.

They used a 3 phase generator for the British made radar.

Harold

The thing about the1960's air cooled Lister / Petter type diesel engines was they were rated for continuous operation, not intermittent.
Thus if the name plate rating was say, 10 HP at 1500 RPM that is exactly what you could load the engine at knowing there was 10% more available for a short term overload (to BS and AS specs).

I dyno tested a lot of other engines that supposedly complied to spec, but fell short when run 24/7!

Yes great old engines, but, no way could they comply with emissions post 1970.
A bit of black smoke and all the OH&S experts faint!
You have to fit then out with all sorts of stupid computer controlled injection systems/electronic crap as in cars.

Not what you want down/up in Antartic/Siberia at -30 deg + flat batteries and it HAS TO START AND RUN OR WE DIE.

Fred.