Nostalgia time. Who remembers Lisle St. & Tottenham Ct. Rd. In their prime (UK)

[nali]

I used to cycle to Mozer's when I was too young to drive a car. Bi-Pak had a shop in Ware and I used to cycle there too. When a bicycle is your only means of transport it is amazing how you shrug off distances where people would normally drive.

Bi-Pak was just about cycling distance for me too as a teenager, about 20 miles round trip down the busy A10. There was am old surplus shop next door too, whose name escapes me? I sort of remember it being full of dusty old relays, meters etc which I wasn't particularly interested in at that age.

[sca]

...John's Radio, who were up north somewhere, but did mail order, from their ads in Wireless World / Electronics World.
I bought my first Tek scope (a 465) from John's Radio, 30- odd years ago, it nearly bankrupted me.

John's Radio was, IIRC, on the A58 just off the M62. My first scope also came from there - a Phillips - which is still under a bench in the garage somewhere. I remember the place being absolutely rammed floor to ceiling with gear, the vast majority of which I was too young / inexperienced to recognise.

I remember the lady in charge when I visited being very helpful considering that I was presumably right at the bottom of their typical spend.

sca

[chris_leyson]

Bought a Creed 7B teleprinter from a shop in Lisle Street, can't remember the name but they advertised in WW and PW, I remember Henrys Radio in Edgeware Road, Ralfe Electronics, Z and I Aero Services, Cricklewood Electronics, Foyles bookshop and the Modern Book Company in Pread Street, those were the days.

[chris_leyson]

I think it was G.WSmith and Co. in Lisle street also bought a WWII 88set there and remember wiring 90V across the heaters 

[woodchips]

Some more.

Electronic Brokers, had real test gear but their catalogue was the only way of knowing what was available.

Was it Bi-Pak in Southend? Or Bi-Pre-Pak? Used to buy lots from there, amazing how much you can stack on a motorbike even with a 60 mile journey ahead.

AH Supplies in Sheffield, just off the M1 then the A52? Visited there a few times from Suffolk.

Mustn't forget Arthur Sallis Radio Control in Brighton, bought lots there.

Anchor Supplies in Nottingham Cattle Market, still there I think, also at Ripley. They got hold of a load of 141 spectrum analysers just as the EMC regs came in and started selling them much cheaper than at Johns Radio. Also a 466 which I still have.

Johns Radio, and yes, I remember the helpful lady who ran it.

Some place in Liverpool, just outside the city centre before they rebuilt it, last there it was a waste land of mud and concrete.

Wasn't it Ralfe Electronics in Pread Street? They moved outside town some years later.

Chiltmead, bought a Solartron 1212 scope there just after I started work in 1971, cost over £100. My cousin thought I was mad but that scope had some use until replaced by a 547 in the mid 1980's, Leicester Radio rally. Then my dad used the 121 until he died in 2008. I reckon that scope taught me more than the degree, at least in how to design things so they worked.

Other modern possibilities are Leavesley's at Alwras on the A38, Woods group in Crediton, Ramco in Skegness.

[rch]

I remember as a child in the late 1950s going with a family friend who ran a small but innovative medical equipment company (name withheld!) to one of the higher grade surplus shops in Tottenham Court Road to buy surplus wirewounds for production!   I can't remember which shop though, it was another few years before I got to window shop there myself as a teenager.  Their was quite a good surplus shop in Leeds, somewhere near the football stadium where I remember buying a 22 set because I couldn't afford a 19 set, but I can't remember the name.

[alanb]

I remember buying an oscilloscope kit from Heathkit on Tottenham Court road in the mid sixties on a visit to London with my parents.

[SKPang]

I used to cycle to Bi-Pak is well. They are in Ware. Not too far from Harlow.

[SKPang]

I also remember the second Maplin store opened in Hammersmith. I think it was 1980.

I used to used go there on a Saturday to get my electronics bit and walk across the road to Tandy and play with their TRS-80.

[nfmax]

• the Lisle-St-type shop in the school near Southampton University

Forum Stores - the SSTF junk shop in the Tram Shed just off the Avenue! I used to haunt that place while I was at Southampton University, 1975-1981. I still have a small stock of Lemo connectors acquired at ridiculously cheap prices. They'll come in handy one day.

Going even further back, I remember visiting a shop called Selctradar in Erdington, that sold me OC71's and AD161/162 'matched' pairs when I was at school. There was another radio place in Corporation Street, I think it was, in Birmingham city centre. Thought itself very superior as it catered to proper licenesed radio amateurs.

[tggzzz]

• the Lisle-St-type shop in the school near Southampton University

Forum Stores - the SSTF junk shop in the Tram Shed just off the Avenue! I used to haunt that place while I was at Southampton University, 1975-1981. I still have a small stock of Lemo connectors acquired at ridiculously cheap prices. They'll come in handy one day.

That's the one! I still have a PCB containing photodiodes for reading punched cards. I don't think that will come in handy, but I'm not getting rid of it

I was at the university 75-78.

[nfmax]

I was at the university 75-78.

Did you read Electronics starting in October 1975? So did I!

Max

[tggzzz]

I was at the university 75-78.

Did you read Electronics starting in October 1975? So did I!

Max

Yup. Does your surname begin with H and did you spend some time in Huntingdon? If so PMs are probably more relevant

[Gyro]

Sounds like we now have a Nostalgia AND Friends Reunited thread! 

The thing I regret is the number of things I bought and then pulled apart when I was too young to know better. I once bought a lovely Mercury relay from Z&I Aero, all glass construction so you could see the steel plunger being pulled down and raising the Mercury level up to the contacts. Unfortunately I broke it to 'salvage' the mercury. I did find another one there a few years later but the tube was already broken; the Mercury had presumably worked its way through the floorboards!

Another time I bought a crystal oven from (probably Henry's) in the Edgeware Road. It was beautifully constructed, a solid milled aluminium cylinder inside, about 8 inches long with a glass crystal in the bore (taking up very little of the length). The whole length was wound with an element and lacquered in red. I still have the little 60'C mercury thermometer with wire fused into the side that it used as the temperature sensor but the rest is gone. If I still had it intact it would have been ideal for putting an complete voltage reference circuit inside.

I sometimes wish I could just go back and give myself a 'clip round the ear'.    (I can see why my dad sometimes used to resort to that now!).

[SeanB]

Sounds like we now have a Nostalgia AND Friends Reunited thread! 

The thing I regret is the number of things I bought and then pulled apart when I was too young to know better. I once bought a lovely Mercury relay from Z&I Aero, all glass construction so you could see the steel plunger being pulled down and raising the Mercury level up to the contacts. Unfortunately I broke it to 'salvage' the mercury. I did find another one there a few years later but the tube was already broken; the Mercury had presumably worked its way through the floorboards!

Another time I bought a crystal oven from (probably Henry's) in the Edgeware Road. It was beautifully constructed, a solid milled aluminium cylinder inside, about 8 inches long with a glass crystal in the bore (taking up very little of the length). The whole length was wound with an element and lacquered in red. I still have the little 60'C mercury thermometer with wire fused into the side that it used as the temperature sensor but the rest is gone. If I still had it intact it would have been ideal for putting an complete voltage reference circuit inside.

I sometimes wish I could just go back and give myself a 'clip round the ear'.    (I can see why my dad sometimes used to resort to that now!).

Still have a crystal oven that takes IIRC 8 crystals. Must dig it out and post a pic of it. Looking at the box it probably is in, but that one is at the bottom of the pile.....

[Gyro]

Time for a little more UK nostalgia...

I just found this thread on the UK Vintage Radio site - more memories of Tottenham Court Road:

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=139501

It also links to some photos from before the mid '70s redevelopments:

https://news.fitzrovia.org.uk/2015/05/21/tottenham-court-road-before-central-cross/#prettyPhoto