Ediswan 1923B Crystal Set Ediswan 1923B Crystal Set
This little radio was found by a builder
friend when clearing rubbish. It's in original condition, by which
I mean its tatty looking with rust on its steel bits. This is
rather fortunate because it looks its age because it hasn't been
rubbed down and french polished which I think would have done
away with its charm.
The cat's whisker has fallen off but the original crystal is still
there under a screw-on ebonite cover.
Most radios up to 1926 were crystal sets and could be home constructed
or bought like this one for a two or three pounds. Decent reception
via headphones was obtainable up to about 20 miles and in the
New Forest area, where this radio was discovered, the local station
was Bournemouth, with the callsign 6BM, which opened for broadcasting
on 17th October 1923 on 326 metres. To put this date into context,
the BBC, originally named the British Broadcasting Company, started
up in November of the previous year, initially only from London
and Birmingham.
Note the "BBC" label on the set. In those days listeners
could only legally listen in after buying a license for 10 shillings
and then only by using a set with the BBC label. Part of the price
of these sets would go to the BBC and part to Marconi who held
the broadcasting patents. The latter however was based on the
number of valves used in the set so crystal sets avoided the penalty.
To protect British industry from cheap foreign imports, manufacturers
were initially restricted to using British components. To circumvent
lost revenue from DIY'ers, a constructors' licence was necessary
to build your own wireless and this was priced at 15 shillings
of which the BBC got the lion's share. You could however use the
dreaded foreign imports and save a bit of money. Big aerials were
necessary for crystal sets but these were limited in size by even
more regulations to a maximum of 100 feet in length. Many listeners
found they could connect their set to their telephone wires and
effectively increase the aerial length to miles with the benefit
of hearing all sorts of stuff. Such was the selectivity of a crystal
set however that all the stations would be received together and
one had to be adept at tuning one's ears to a particular broadcast.
Ediswan, the makers
of the 1923B, employed youngsters paid threepence (a little over
one "new" penny) an hour to help make some of the components
such as coils. Just think- if one of these lads managed to "pick
up" all the bits he needed to make his own crystal set he
would still have to put in 60 hours at Ediswan's before he'd accumulated
enough cash to buy his BBC license to legally wire the bits together!
