Retrotech(NVCF) - not long now

[ppppenguin]

We've all been waiting a long time for the next Retrotech (previously NVCF). Cancelled in 2020 and postponed from this May, it's back on Sunday 26th September, bigger and better than ever before.

https://www.retrotechuk.com/

As usual, Jeremy, Brian and I will be running the Bring and Buy stall. This raises money for the Vintage Wireless Museum, Dulwich. It's ideal if you have just a few items to sell and don't want to book a stall of your own. There are two ways to sell on the B&B.

1: You take 90% of the price and the Museum gets 10%.
2: You donate the entire sale price to the Museum.

The latter is also nice and easy for us as there are no price labels, lists or record keeping. We just sell for as much as we can get and the Museum gets the money.

There has been a special display at most NVCFs in the past. This year the BECG will be demonstrating a 1960s vintage Marconi Mk IV TV camera. This article shows one that was exported to the USA: https://eyesofageneration.com/classic-th...ts-parker/
The one we'll be demonstrating is even better travelled. It was originally exported to New Zealand and subsequently repatriated.

[pamphonica]

Just under 2 weeks to go until this excellent event!

The Bring & Buy will operate as usual.  Multiple item entry forms are attached below.

As usual Jeffrey, Brian, Chris and and I will be raising money for the Dulwich Vintage Wireless Museum on the Bring and Buy stall. Not sure where we'll be this time but most likely not far from the main entrance. If you've got stuff for the B&B and are queuing for general admission please try to make contact with us and we'll do our best to get your stuff logged and straight on to the stall.

There are 2 ways to sell stuff on the B&B.

1: Donation - with 100% going to the Vintage Wireless Museum. This is easy for us because there's no admin for labels, lists etc.

2: Sales with 10% commission to the Museum. If you have more than a couple of items it helps us a lot if you can make a numbered list with prices.  Add in any lower price you can accept in the Offers column.  We try to sell at the best price we can!  Forms  appear below.  Remember to stick corresponding numbered price labels on each item. Leave space before the number so we can add a unique serial letter to each label. We can do labeling/listing on the day but it really slows things down for everyone at busy times.

The B&B closes at 4pm just like the rest of NVCF. If you've sold anything you can collect the proceeds at any time. Unsold items need to be collected before 4pm. We don't have facilities to dispose of unsold items.

Here's the suggested listing sheet if you have more than a few items.

See you all there - not long now...

Jeremy

[ppppenguin]

Please note that there won't be a cash machine at the venue this year. Despite what the WEC says about preferring card transcations Retrotech is largely a cash event. For admission and most stalls.

Look forward to seeing you all there.

[ppppenguin]

I've just packed the car with all the junk fine vintage kit that I'm bringing to sell on the Bring and Buy stall. I'm amazed that it all fits and there's still some space.

The attached list is a bit telegraphic as it's just the labels I have printed to stick on the various items I'm selling on commission. If anything looks interesting please ask. There's loads more bits and pieces that are far too random to list. These will be for donation to Museum funds.

The weather forecast is looking decent for the weekend so I hope that means a busy show. At the last count there were over 180 stalls. A few may be available at the last minute. See the website.

[ppppenguin]

There's all sorts of kit we think of as modern. Then you look closer and find it was made 30+ years ago. On that basis the BECG has decided not to bring a Marconi Mk IV monochrome camera (about 60 years old) to Retrotech but an Ikegami 323 that's about half its age. It's a 3 tube colour camera, made towards the end of the era of tubed cameras. It was popular in its day and is still liked for some retro production work. Our example was originally used in Studio 12 at Granada.

The photo shows it being given a checkup in Paul Marshall's workshop. The monitor looks like it's sitting on a Marconi Mk IV camera

[ppppenguin]

It was good to be back at Retrotech. Tehre were plenty of stalls but attendance was somewhat down. I suspect a combination of Covid worries and fuel shortage. Though I drove into a petrol station near Rugby and went straight to a pump. The £30 ration was sufficient.

As usual it was busy on the B&B stall though the money raised for the Vintage Wireless Museum was rather disappointing at under £500. I think this was because there were no significant high value items on the the donations side. I brought a lot of kit myself, but since I was raising funds for BECG all the higher value items were on commission sale. The highest value items were a pair of 300A audio triodes, both tested good, that I sold for £580. So that provided £58  in commission to the Museum.

I did the testing with my bench PSUs and supplied photos     This shows you can do valve testing without a valve tester. In fact this sort of test is the ultimate measure of a valve, it's how you can check the calibration of a valve tester.

There was an interesting charity sale of vintage photographic kit too.

One exhibit that attracted a lot of attention was Paul Elkington's reconstruction of a BBC "Roving Eye" car. I hope to have some photos later. It's a big Citroen estate car with a Philips LDK5 camera mounted on the roof. Its main job was to follow the horse at race meetings. The camera was giving suspiciously good pictures. It was what is known in the film/TV business as "simulated practical". A modern camera fitted inside the vintage equipment.

[Murphyv310]

There is no fuel shortage, blame the BBC for causing the alleged issue. A friend drove from Kilmarnock to Retrotech there and back and fuel was plentiful.
He came away with two prewar Pye radios at £5 each, an HMV 1807 TV with an excellent CRT and other bits and Bobs for very little money.

[ppppenguin]

Trevor, any special reason to blame the BBC? HMG has effectively shouted "Fire!" in a crowded theatre and the popular press has put it front and centre. If the BBC was not reporting what is happening in real life it would not be doing its duty as a news organisation. In this article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58701620 there is a masterpiece of ministerial understatement: "While there has always been and continues to be plenty of fuel at refineries and terminals, we are aware that there have been some issues with supply chains.".

At the weekend I have witnessed long queues at petrol stations. Near me, in outer north London, the local Nextdoor group shows there are real problems with fuel supply. But it's patchy. Near Retrotech I got petrol without trouble and saw at least one other garage where I could have done likewise. Apparently the situation is better in Scotland. Can't say I'm surprised.

I came back with a box of spare boards and a tuner for a Thorn 2000. FOC because Mike Barker was only too happy to get rid of it from the BVWS stall. I narrowly escaped being lumbered with another 6 boxes of TV spares on the same basis.

[Mark Hennessy]

I was thinking along similar lines, but am cautious about raising my head above the parapet as many know who I work for. While there's lots that could be said about the BBC, I would say that in this instance it's more balanced to say "blame the media" than "blame the BBC", as a look at the front pages shows: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-58701728 - but of course, there's more to it than that.

Hard to see how to continue this sub-topic without straying into politics...

Because of clashes with other things I haven't been able to do NCVF Retrotech for a few years now, but was hoping to make it this time. Sadly I didn't - just too much else going on, and too much junk in the house already. One year I'll have to take a table and slim down my collection...

[ppppenguin]

Government saying "don't panic" which is an an obvious cue to go and buy petrol/diesel or media reporting what HMG said? A bit of both. But even without HMG or mainstream media, people's actual experiences would have got around on social media. Quite possibly amplifying a minor shortage into a crisis even without mainstream media saying anything.

At least it should work its way through in a fairly short time. Unlike toilet rolls where you can fill up your entire house, there aren't many people taking loads of jerrycans to petrol stations. That means that once everyone has paniced and filled their tanks, and the fuel deliveries have refilled the petrol stations it shouldn't be too bad. I hope!