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MULLARD "High Speed"
VALVE TESTER

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Front View [37k]

  • Circa 1954
  • 9 Valves plus C.R.T.
  • Original cost unknown, but
    I bet it was expensive.
NOTES

Mullard Logo [5K]A top-of-the range valve tester by the people who make the valves ! Almost all valve testers usually require the manual setting of a number of switches and dials appropriately for each valve. However this tester uses a large set of punched cards which automatically program the tester for a particular valve.

The good valve / bad valve indication is unusual in that it employes a small C.R.T. This just displays a dot that moves up and down so I wonder why they didn't just use a moving coil meter?

Front of advertising leaflet [8K]   Dated membership card for the subscription plan [16K]

With a normal tester, if a new valve became available you could work out the various switch and dial settings yourself, although most people would buy an updated book of settings. However this tester is totally reliant upon punched cards. This led Mullard to provide subscription service for card updates at the cost of £3 3s 0d per annum. The testers and the subscription service must have proved popular since Mullard later employed three people full time around the country specifically to provide support for these testers.

Optional trolley [6K]
Optional mobile table.		 The protective hinged cover, which also houses the card index table, was an optional extra, provided free on subscribing to the updates service else costing £1 10s 0d for non-subscribers. A second optional extra was a mobile table for the tester plus its two trays of index cards. The table cost a further £6 15s 0d. Period Advert : Click for a larger view [K]
Period advert from
April 1954 [140K]



SERVICE DATA Came with the original manual and documentation. The tester was in production for a number of years, however the only changes made seem to be the replacement of two EF91's (that drive two plates of the C.R.T. with a single ECC35.
CURRENT STATE The internal wiring and general construction of this tester is of an exceptionally high standard. Looking inside there only seems to be just a few wax capacitors that look like their time has come.
WHERE FOUND £75 from the May 2002 Drayton Manor amateur radio rally. But it took three ½mile walks back to the car (in the sun) to cart all this heavy stuff back. I'm knackered !

Two boxes of punched program cards [22K]
Two boxes of the tester's program cards.
The tester would be useless without these.

Contact array operated by punched cards [14K]
The large array of contacts
operated by the program cards.

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J.Evans 2002		 CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO
THE VALVE TESTER GALLERY		 Last updated
19th May 2002