Bargains on ebay? (Part 2)

[spendorman]

No, the Irish connection is McMichael ! joking.

http://www.mcmichael.org.uk/products.htm

Ended up under GEC, yours truly worked for them for around 20 years. Still not got over it and I left more than 10 years ago.

[struth]

Did all my training on mostly Rank Bush Murphy stuff, along with ITT-KB and some GEC, Thorns etc. Not any worse than anyone else in the day, tv, and radio wise tbh.

[Barry]

The first TV my parents had was a McMichael, the second was dual-standard Thorn EMI. The latter was a switchable 405/625 line set; the switching was so complicated it was unreliable to the effect that the set spent more time in the service department than it did at home!

[spendorman]

Funny that quite a few here have connections with GEC, shame that the Company is sort of gone. When I started it was plain GEC, then became GEC Marconi, then Marconi Avionics, then BAE SYSTEMS, all this time I was in the same dept doing the same job. After I left an Italian firm (Selex) took over our work.

[spendorman]

Did all my training on mostly Rank Bush Murphy stuff, along with ITT-KB and some GEC, Thorns etc. Not any worse than anyone else in the day, tv, and radio wise tbh.

I remember having a 405 line Bush TV, that was numerous decades ago, not a bad set for the time. Later I had the ITT/ KB Featherlight 12" portable TV, also a good set. In the 70's I bought an ITT / KB Tiny portable radio, again pretty good.

[struth]

Yeah, my Uncle worked for Marconi avionics as a draftsman, working of some fancy gear for military.. up in Fife I think. He was a very clever guy, but alas got Parkinsons and never worked again. they held his job for years hoping he would recover... that was many moons ago. Good firm..... locally we had Plessey factory , which was situated a stones throw from where I live. they had many thousands on the payrol

[Barry]

Funny that quite a few here have connections with GEC, shame that the Company is sort of gone. When I started it was plain GEC, then became GEC Marconi, then Marconi Avionics, then BAE SYSTEMS, all this time I was in the same dept doing the same job. After I left an Italian firm (Selex) took over our work.

Not really surprising as the then GEC-Marconi Company was the largest electronics company in the UK. I worked at the Marconi Research Laboratories for thirty years, and during that time spent some time at Marconi Communications Limited and at the GEC Hirst Research Centre.

[spendorman]

Yeah, my Uncle worked for Marconi avionics as a draftsman, working of some fancy gear for military.. up in Fife I think. He was a very clever guy, but alas got Parkinsons and never worked again. they held his job for years hoping he would recover... that was many moons ago. Good firm..... locally we had Plessey factory , which was situated a stones throw from where I live. they had many thousands on the payrol

I think I left one name change out, somewhere in-between the names I gave was also Marconi Defence Systems Ltd. Yes, the Company did look after sick people, hoping that they might return. I knew several.

Now Plessey, when they closed their last factory, and I think GEC bought them out, all salvageable Plessey equipment was brought to our site. I was asked if any equipment was suitable for our Dept. I looked at it and everything was too outdated for us. Didn't want anything.

[struth]

Yeah, the bathgate plant had suffered badly from lack of investment; think it closed in early 80's.... made capacitors if memory serves/ used to be Telegraph Condenser Company (TCC)

[spendorman]

Not really surprising as the then GEC-Marconi Company was the largest electronics company in the UK. I worked at the Marconi Research Laboratories for thirty years, and during that time spent some time at Marconi Communications Limited and at the GEC Hirst Research Centre.

Well, a bit of topic here, I worked not far from you in Stanmore, which was the main research site where all the Directors resided, I occasionally visited Hirst Research in East Lane Wembley. Sometimes saw Keith Arbor there.