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“The Cooke Report”

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“The Cooke Report” The Cooke Report “The Cooke Report” Bill Cooke, GWØION, President of the EUG, worked as a professional radio engineer at Eddystone for the incredible period of 52 years. First with Stratton and then with GEC- Marconi. For most of that time he was the Company’s chief engineer. He started as a technical apprentice in 1935 and retired as managing director. E.U.G. was fortunate in scooping a series of interviews with Bill in which he recalled some of his life and times with the Company. IN THE BEGINNING . Moseley Park and relayed BBC broadcasts to amazed visitors. “I first saw the light of day in Birmingham, the city of a thousand “Father had served with the Royal trades. It was the first year of peace Flying Corps during the Great War and after the War to End all Wars. My first was well up in these wonders of steps were taken as the twenties science. I had hardly passed my third unfolded. They were the landmark birthday when 5IT, the Birmingham years of the century. The public station of the BBC, went on the air. It embraced technology as never before. was November, 1922. At home crystal Flying records were broken daily; the sets and aerial masts were the order of motor car invaded town and country; the day; I could wind a basket coil television was demonstrated; talking before I could read and write. films arrived, - and the BBC was born. “The Midlands was the centre of BBC “The new Company was a commercial technical development. In 1925 the venture formed by the Big Six of the high power long-wave transmitter, radio world: Marconi, Metrovick, GEC, 5XX, opened at Daventry, and the first BTH, Western Electric and RCC. They high-power medium-wave transmitter, were joined by no less than 1,710 5GB, followed it in 1927. The new smaller companies. One of them was studio centre in Broad Street, Stratton & Company, a long- Birmingham, was the largest and most established fancy-goods and hairpin up-to-date in the world. Wireless manufacturer in Birmingham. They mania was here to stay and ‘home- specialised in shortwave components brew’ was the way of life. It was a very and sets, trading under the catchy heady atmosphere in which to grow name of ‘Eddystone’, known the world up. over from the famous lighthouse in the “By 1930 I was ready to build my own English Channel. To gain public short-wave set. The choice for parts attention and advertise Eddystone naturally fell upon Stratton’s, a short products G.S.Laughton, the boss’s son tram-ride from home. Off I went with and instigator of the wireless my hard-scrimped pocket-money to the enterprise, set up loudspeakers in Balmoral Works in Bromsgrove Street, 1 The Cooke Report near the City centre. Not content with (Schenectady). It was just too bad if just going to a shop, I had to see conditions were poor! where the goods were made. I found “I must have managed OK because myself being given a guided tour by soon afterwards it fell upon me to George Stratton Laughton himself. I construct the first ERA7, the pride of must have made a good impression the Company. It was an eight-valve, because he promised me a job when I four-band superhet with all-diecast left school! All this at eleven years old! chassis and switched bands. The OFF TO WORK WE GO . “Wireless World”, reviewing it on April 14th “So, five years later I started work at 1938, stated: ‘Workmanship under Stratton’s, becoming one of ‘Cox’s the chassis is in keeping with the clean Boys’. (Harold Cox was the General exterior . This is an instrument Manager and later Technical Director.) which cannot fail to catch the eye of We progressed through the tool room, the experienced wireless enthusiast.’ model shop, test section, service department, design and drawing office. And we didn’t just watch. We had to do the lot; make a pattern – cast it in metal – machine it and drill it, assemble and wire it. And if that wasn’t enough we did night school at Suffolk Street Tech. Cox’s boys were considered the pick of the bunch! “As a final test we had to go to stores, draw the parts for an ‘All World Four’ and start constructing. “The snapshot above taken about 1938 shows me relaxing in the doorway of the Experimental Hut on “At each stage we reported to Fred the roof of the Eddystone factory. Addis (in charge of assembly): he Believe it or not all testing of new checked each joint and put a dab of models was done up here; the black paint on it. At the end of the day insulators for the twin feeders can you were expected to have a working clearly be seen (no co-ax in those model on the bench; and not just days). receiving Zeeson and Moscow; it was “Before long war clouds were expected to get KDKA as well as gathering and the Company put a lot of W8XK (Pittsburg) and W3XAF 2 The Cooke Report “Several of us were put to work on the Polish Transmitters and for a while I worked with George Brown, G5BJ, who had carried out significant work on the police equipment and was then giving his attention to the Polish modulator and exciter. “George decided to modify (with the minimum of change) a Police Base Station Tx to a frequency of When I took this picture of the Test 7-8 Mc/s to meet the exciter Department in 1936 the All world requirements. The transmitter Eight was the latest product. consisted of three racks housing power effort into developing fixed and mobile supplies, switching, exciter, modulator VHF communications. Working for and final. Stratton wasn’t just nine to five. It was “The final utilised two RCA 833’s (later from breakfast-time to bed-time when 833A’s) running about 400 milliamps at there was a project developing – and 4,000 volts to the plates in Class ‘C’, there nearly always was. producing over a kilowatt of RF power “Mindful of the vulnerability of output. telephone land-lines to enemy “As I recall, the modulator also used bombing, the London Metropolitan 833’s in Class ‘B’ and the final was Police ordered Eddystone two-way plate modulated on the prototype, (duplex) VHF radio-telephones to be though consideration had been given installed in all their 95 police stations to low level modulation. and New Scotland Yard, together with mobile installations. Round the clock, seven days a week became the rule. Extra staff was taken on. The job was finished in July 1939, and then another twelve police forces ordered the sets! THE POLISH TRANSMITTERS . “As if all this wasn’t enough, at Easter 1939, the Polish Army Signal Corps had arrived to order three high-power point-to-point HF transmitters. I well remember their comic-opera hats, never before seen in Birmingham. “Harold Cox had a habit of biting off more than the firm could easily chew; he never refused business. I suspect everybody else HAD refused the business, because Eddystone was not “This picture shows George Brown renowned for its QRO HF transmitters; working on a 60 Mc/s (five metre) in fact, it had never made any before! 3 The Cooke Report tuned line transmitter in the ‘garden military service within days, me shed’ laboratory on the roof of included. Eddystone’s Balmoral Works in 1937. “When I returned from the war Harold Looking very dapper in his white lab Cox told me that two of the Polish coat, George had to reach the hut by transmitters had been completed and way of a ladder and a hole in the roof! the third was almost ready when the “While tests were being carried out a factory was destroyed by bombing in telegram was received from New York 1940. saying that the signals had been “By this time Poland had been picked up there. Another ‘first’ for occupied by Nazi Germany. He said Eddystone. that negotiations had taken place with A DAY TO REMEMBER . General Sikorski’s Polish Government- in-exile, but that we never made any “I have extremely good reason to money out of it! remember the Polish modulator rack. During July, 1939, E.J.(‘Pick’) Pickard, “When I visited Poland, around 1960, manager of Webb’s Radio in London regarding panoramic displays and (Stratton’s retail outlet) was transferred noise-measuring equipment, I did to Eddystone to manage the Polish mention the ‘Polish transmitters’, but project. One day he decided to work so many people had passed away by on the ‘final’ rack as the tank circuit then and little was known of the was overheating badly. project. “He therefore decided to isolate the final rack from the modulator rack. ♠ ‘Pick’ also noticed that the plate EPISODE TWO current meter in the modulator rack In the last Episode Bill took us to the was sticking and asked me to change outbreak of World War Two, when he it after he had isolated it was called up for service in the RAF. “Remarkably, I removed the meter and LIFE WITH THE AMES’s . replaced it, believing that the modulator rack was without HT. I then “Air Ministry Experimental Station picked up a box-spanner to tighten the (AMES) was the title used to describe meter nuts, placing my left hand on the a new generation of radar units (or front panel. As I put the spanner on RDF – Radio Direction Finding, as we the meter I was zapped by the full blast called it before the Americans came of 4,000 volts! into the war).
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