The size of the three winning sets varied considerably, from a
small brick-sized set to a very large mantle set. They were built by Gary
Newton, Des Nunan and Harvey Utber and all three sets worked very well indeed.
Of the three, the mid-sized set built by Des would probably be the easiest for
anyone wanting to build a near copy.
The little brick
Gary's brick-sized set is compact and utilitarian in concept,
which aided construction, operation and service.
This is the view inside the giant's mantle set, made by Harvey Utber. This set is large for a 2-valve receiver and its performance matches its size.
Because it is small, it took a
great deal of planning to get everything into the case while ensuring that
inputs and outputs were kept apart.
The set has "hand-span" tuning with a knob fitted directly onto
the tuning gang shaft. This made tuning a little more exacting compared to the
other two sets but it wasn't really a problem.
By the way, the overall IF (intermediate frequency) skirt
selectivity of all three sets isn't as good as that from a conventional superhet
with four tuned IF coils (ie, two IF transformers). This meant that when tuned
to a weak station, a strong station on a nearby frequency could be heard behind
the wanted station. That said, the overall performance of all three sets was
very good, considering their simplicity.
