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Ekco Electronics
Dave Wiggins
My Time in Avionics Labs c1965-1970
By Dave Wiggins – January 2009
I began working at EKCO as a 'lab boy' on a year's trial (aged 15-16) in the home market television design lab under Ted Maynard, John Davis and George Barsealman. Following this, I was taken on as a 'Technical Apprentice' in the Radio and Television section under a scheme sponsored by the EEF (Engineering Employers Federation), which consisted of being indentured in one of three grades, namely Craft, Technical and Student. I was graded as a Technical Apprentice on the grand sum of £4 pounds and 10 shillings a week, which was a nice rise from my £3.00 per week as a 'lab boy'.
As far as I can remember, all of my 'Technical Apprentice' colleagues also worked in the various design labs within the Development and Engineering Block (known to all as Dev & Eng) or the front research labs (the Wells Coates designed building). The craft apprentices were mostly employed either in the factory or the maintenance areas and the student apprentices (of which there were very few) were seconded to the company by the universities and worked in the labs.
Other than at the final presentation of my indenture, I do not recall ever meeting any of the EKCO Craft apprentices although I did get to know two students in the Avionics Microwave lab, one being Bob Puttock and the other Paddy Melvin. Both of these lads were undoubtedly very gifted academically but seemed to know 'ought about nought' (as our northern friends say) in terms of practical skills. I often wonder where these lads ended up once they got their degrees.
I came to join the Avionics Division by a piece of bad luck, this being the transfer of all television design to PYE Ltd. at Lowestoft. Staff and senior staff were offered the chance to relocate and were coached to Lowestoft to view the PYE factory. Apprentices were not offered the opportunity to relocate. The apprentice supervisor – a Mr. Budd – asked me where I'd like to work and it was more or less left to me to find someone who would take on my remaining period of apprenticeship. Here I got lucky, instead of me having to punt around, an engineer came looking for me.
He was Major (REME retired) Stan Brown who EKCO Avionics had employed after his military retirement to upgrade and run a small test equipment calibration cell within the radar labs, its function being to introduce some decent standards of accurate measurement viz-a-viz military contracts. I took to Stan, who had worked at MoD 'Aquilla' at once and said 'yes please' to the avionics offer.
After a short interview and a welcome from V.J. Cox, my papers were transferred and I began to train in test and measurement. Stan Brown proved to be a stickler for accuracy and my training was thorough. I was soon calibrating the lab's stock of test-meters and 'oscilloscopes' - an experience that was to stand me in good stead in my later career with MoD where I managed similar calibration labs myself.
When my 5 year papers expired in 1968, I was asked to move on yet again.
Again I got lucky as the engineer who ran the environmental testing for the 'radar' teams - a Mr. Ron Lee had asked for a technician with an electronics bias as he was a mechanical engineer. As I had gained some experience in the environmental testing field during my earlier apprenticeship years in the 'TV' design labs, I applied and was accepted as a staff R&D electronics technician and there was lots to do!
EKCO had just built a dedicated Environmental Test Laboratory in the central car park adjacent to the Dev. and Eng. building, which caused some problems since this was built over one of the wartime underground shelters, necessitating one of the old entrances being filled in and extra deep foundations. The building also had to be specially designed to accommodate the vibration cell, which had a brand new PYE/LING shaker set over a large concrete pit; this being driven by a B&O swept sine wave waveform generator and a huge PYE valve power amplifier. To contain the sound waves from the vibration table the walls were specially insulated, the roof was made of a 'Thermcoustic' sound deadening material and the doors were also soundproofed. The building had two large rooms, one for the vibration table and the second room for the Barlow-Whitney environmental test chambers where equipment could be tested over a temperature range of minus 50°C to plus 70°C , up to 100% humidity and a simulated altitude of up to 50,000 ft.
Testing of radar scanners and transmitter/receivers (commonly known as T/R's) were sometimes of 24 hour duration and needed late working. Living close by (in Prittlewell) whereas Ron lived in Rochford meant that I tended to get the calls from the EKCO security box, such as 'we passed your building and its making a VERY loud noise – can you come and have a look?' The worst I can remember was at 10.00pm one night when I found a shattered scanner hanging over the edge of the shaker, while the oscillator happily kept sweeping through the frequency band! Such is R&D work.
We worked under the direct input of the design staff of course. The Chief Mechanical Design Engineer was a rather eccentric man called Mr. Gibson who was well known as something of a character (to say the least) and was commonly referred to as 'Gibby'!! My impression was that he'd been designing scanner dishes all his life – but he could still get it wrong as evidenced on the day we ran the first vibration test on his prototype E390 scanner destined for 'Concorde'. Put simply, it just fell apart bit by bit, which caused 'Gibby' to chuckle but VJ Cox (head of design) and Phil Stride (the MD) who were both observers were not amused, in fact I seem to remember that they both went pale as so much hung on the project. Modification upon modification followed until it came good but the cost of the E390 R&D effort was huge financially. I remember taking the same scanner to the Government 'Environmental Test Centre (ETC), which was part of the weapons test range on Foulness Island for climatic testing. Ron and I had built our own climatic test cabinet to take the 30 inch dish, which was a large wooden box fed by liquid nitrogen or CO2 depending on the low temperature required.
E390 scanner unit (M6201A) (Click to enlarge)
Note the antenna dish diameter was 30 inches
High temperature was catered for by banks of old EKCO electric fire elements set in the floor. It was all very 'Heath Robinson' and although it worked the ARB (Air Registration Board – the forerunner of the CAA) decided that the ETC would get the job with Ron and I as observers.
I operated the radar as each new temperature was reached and it finally failed at a very low temperature (-80°C I think), when the scanner froze solid. In later years I was posted to the ETC as part of my MoD career. During the welcome speech the interviewer said 'well of course this will all be new to you David'. He was astonished when I said 'No, I've been here before – I did a few years in environmental testing of radar sets!!' I went on to serve there for 8 not very happy years as a MoD Technical Officer keeping an eye on contractors.
The Avionics environmental lab catered for the full range of temperature, humidity and vibration test although we had no centrifuge or shock tower, with these tests being sub-contacted - centrifuge testing going to RRE Malvern for example. We were also able to use equipment owned by EKCO Radio and TV. In case you think that such extreme testing is only necessary for aviation equipment, this is not so.
One of the reasons that EKCO TV/Radio's etc. were so highly regarded by the trade and customers almost from the beginning of the company was the test laboratory set up by Richard Spencer in the 1930's, where ably assisted by his lifelong assistant Miss (Pam) Durrent, he introduced high and low temperature, humidity and 'life testing' for all components and sets prior to them going into production and then finished sets were also randomly tested since EKCO recognised that the sets could be sold in many areas of the world where conditions were not the same as the UK. Another example of the thoroughness of EKCO design was the fact that an anechoic chamber was set up to test loudspeaker design and acoustic quality. Richard Spencer of course being an accomplished musician took a great interest in this area but the audio side was under Clive Fisher.
A severe limitation of the lab's vibration capability was our inability to carry out 'random noise' testing since the B&O generator was sinewave only. At the time I was there 'random noise' testing was being written into the relevant BS (British Standards) specifications and so we had to obtain individual ARB (CAA) waivers for 'sine' testing. I have no knowledge of what was done about this when the lab was moved to Crawley, but by then the shaker controller was already obsolete (1970/71).
E90 scanner unit. Note the antenna dish diameter was only 13 inches
The last radar system I tested was the E90 'baby' radar whose type approval I did a lot of work on. This work included writing the ARB (CAA) type approval document (I think I've still got a copy!) – Something I'd not done before. I understood at the time that the company was looking to sell this (very) lightweight weather radar to the emerging market of small corporate aircraft such as the learjet and the HS125 etc. Although I don't know if any were actually sold as I thought it most unlikely at the time since the Americans with their huge electronics firms such as Bendix, Collins and Raytheon had the executive jet market pretty much to themselves.
Editors note: Rather than the E90, the E190 with the lightweight (M2267) scanner did sell very well with operators of the HS125 and was selected as the standard fit for the RAF trainer version of this aircraft called the Dominie.
Older established equipment like the E190 and 'Red Steer' (the V Bomber tail warning radar) also came back to our lab for re-assessment to higher standards. I recall my amazement at seeing that the latter was entirely 'valve' such was its age by then. To me as a newly qualified electronics engineer brought up on transistors, it was out of the ark.
That people would be expected to fly and possibly fight in an aircraft so equipped struck me as crazy although I've subsequently learned that Red Steer actually soldiered on until 1992 when the last of the V bombers was retired and 'Red Steer' operated in the tail of XM607 during operation Black Buck – the bombing of Port Stanley airfield during the Falklands conflict.
Talking of obsolete, all of our prototype equipment was test flown in the company Anson (PG in my time) and I had the good fortune (sic) to do a couple of these test flights assisting I think (Dennis) Williams who worked in PDS (post design services). The poor old girl seemed to stagger up to 5,000 feet after entertaining the Aviation Traders ground crew with its huge sheets of flame from the engines on start-up. Years later, in discussion with one of these chaps he told me they were not so much admiring the old girl, but wondering if she'd make it off the runway one more time !! When I left the company I did hear a rumour that the company was considering buying a Beech replacement, but the problem was the need to fit the 30 inch scanner dish from the E390 in the nose.
All in all, I enjoyed my 5 year apprenticeship at EKCO and my 6 years at Southend Technical Collage even though life in the laboratories was hard at times when I was given every rotten job going, mistreated, abused and paid rotten money. BUT I got to work for and be taught by some truly amazing top engineers who generously passed on their life's experience to me – something I tried to emulate when later it became my turn to train apprentices. Looking back all these years and long retired, the EKCO training was unbeatable. It set me up for a life in engineering just as it was meant to do. I would not have swapped it for anything and I would have stayed on longer given the chance.
I consider that I had the very best of the years beginning in 1962; going through to 1970 even through the firm was failing as I started out. Within my decade as a young 'tech' and in my sight – the world of truly modern electronics was being born – high definition (625 line) and Colour TV where I was privileged to work in the very next room to the colour design lab and saw firsthand the first 'CT' series / 625 line, NTSC and PAL sets trialled. The first TV remote controls, portable TV sets, the first 'compact cassettes' and 8 track players, car radio's moving from high voltage valves to low voltage transistors, ever smaller and smaller portable transistor radios, stereo and quad sound systems, better and better semiconductors, smaller and smaller passive components, printed circuits, the first 'chips', miniature everything, lower voltages and lighter weight.
EKCO lead in many of these fields and it was a privilege to work in such a design hothouse and with such inventive people, so how did it all go so wrong? The ill judged merger with PYE did not help although at our level we did not know much of the 'in's and out' of this, what we did know was that the E390 Concorde radar was a drain, under resourced and it must have been a burden for Avionics' to weather. The bigger picture was that even in the mid 60's the UK Radio and TV industry was starting to be overwhelmed by cheap imports and not helped by weak government. It also happened later in the USA. This is my opinion of course.
 
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