Hi all,

I'm having a bit of trouble finding a way to wind this RF coil that I'm making. Any advice?

It's the RF coil as seen in Radiotronics No. 117 from 1946. In the 1957 issue of RTV&H it's called an "M23" type. Ring a bell for anyone?

I'm not too crash hot on paying $200 on a coil winder, so I was thinking about utilising my 3d printer and an apple peeling machine.

I've got to wind two sets of 60 turns, and one set of 500 turns over three pies using 10/44 litz.

Litz isn't as absolutely fragile as I've read it to be, maybe it'll be different when I begin to wind it...

Any advice is appreciated!


Or, if anyone has the original coil, I'd be happy to purchase one.

Thanks,

Oli

I guess that's the Aegis M23 coil, pictured here in a period Aegis catalogue:

https://imgur.com/5yn1adZ

That's the one! John Hunter managed to source one for his 5" set, see here:

https://imgur.com/a/aegis-m23-rf-coil-S81FXhj

I was surprised to learn that Aegis is still in business:

QUOTE: Aegis has designed, manufactured and supplied Australian industry with test equipment for more than 80 years. Over the past 8 decades we have expanded to become one of the most diverse and trusted manufacturing companies both nationally and globally.

Aegis was established in Melbourne, Australia in 1933. In those formative years we developed and manufactured assembly kits to service the needs of early radio enthusiasts. These kits included everything required to build your own radio receiver including coils, transformers, ceramics and Bakelite housings.

Of course! The F set!

Oh yeah! I remember the F set. As a telecom lineman 50 odd years ago with just an F set and a Pandora I could locate almost any line fault in minutes. I did that job for 10 years or so. Far and away the best job I ever had. Sadly the pay was not enough and I had to move on.

In the building I work in, I use an F set whenever patching through extensions on the PABX. Due to poor labelling and a habit that was well and truly in force at the time of construction, some of the patch panels on the floors were connected from 1 to 96 from the bottom left corner to the top right and others were connected from the top left corner down to the bottom right. An F set is the only way to find the pair I need to use.

Hi Brad,
The Convention for the cabling of patch panels and distribution frames is as you first stated 1-96 on the bottom Left to the Top Right.

I still have an F set which I purchased not long after I joined Kalamunda Community Radio in WA as their cabling was mess having been assembled over the previous years by anybody who thought they knew what they were doing.
There was NO patching possible as they used Screw terminal blocks and NOT one record anywhere of what went where & what it was carrying.
So an F set was the only thing that could help sort out the mess when thing stopped working.

When we commenced building two new studios I used Krone blocks with patching & isolating functions for ALL the cabling that went from the station rack to each studio.
Thus every pair is patchable and very detailed records are on site so whomever follows on from me can easily see what goes where and why.

As I migrated stuff from the old crappy rack to the new rack I used Tie Cables and patch cords to feed the old studios & keep them on air and when the cutover day came along the old Studio put the News to air and as soon as that started the first new studio selected the News feed on their desk and as soon as I saw that come through the system I pulled out 2 patch cords and the old system was dead and the new studios were live.
Then it only required that the Tie Cables were removed and the old stuff was cut away and junked.

All very fundamental to me after 40 years with PMG, Telecom & Telstra ending up as a PTO looking after a team of techs managing the Eastern region of the Perth switching network.

Patching things about when gear fails makes life ever so easier but imparting just how you do things and why is somewhat overwhelming for newbies just joining the bunch of dedicated volunteers who run KCR but a few practice runs helps heaps.