Member postings for Hopper

We called ours a train board. Years of fun. Happy days.

Perhaps the mods should merge these two threads into one?

An interesting aside: The first over-sea radio message ever sent was in Wales, by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897.

Working for the UK post office at that time, Marconi was invited to Wales by Cardiff Post Office engineer George Kemp to perform the first over-sea transmission tests. See story here LINK

iN 1913 Marconi opened the first longwave radio station at Caernarfon, Wales, visiting the area frequently during its construction, and the construction of another station on the Wales coast at Tywyn.  Details: LINK

Marconi's mentor was Caernarfon-born Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the UK Post Office and wireless telegraph pioneer.

Could this longstanding link between Marconi, Wales and radio have led to his meeting with Artie? Tenuous but not impossible. But it does show that the idea of Marconi visiting remote parts of Wales in 1911/12/13 is not as outlandish as it might seem at first blush. He could have visited Artie on his way to or from one of his installations.

Edited By Hopper on 21/06/2023 06:38:21

According to the AMAR Society/Wikipedia he had returned from Jamaica very ill with Leukaemia and went into a convalescent home in Bristol, where he died. I would suppose that was where the body was so that was where they held the service.  He had been away from Gelligroes for almost 40 years by that stage so quite possible he no longer had close family living there nor other strong current connection. His parents could have quite possibly been dead by 1949?

Haven't seen any mention of whether Artie had a wife or kids, but that side of the family may well have been from somewhere other than Gelligroes and decided where to have the funeral. Or maybe he was a lone old man and the convalescent home made the funeral arrangements. I guess we will never know.

Edited By Hopper on 21/06/2023 05:42:49

I wonder if anyone on the forum has a copy of the original ME article on Artie's model engine they can post? It was published in 1909, Volume 21, Issue 451, Page 585 under the byline of Arthur E Moore.

If sufficient detail is included it would be an interesting project to make a replica of the engine of the chap who is reputed to have received the Titanic's SOS and gone on to pioneer sonar.

Well, I did say that it sounds like it might get back - yet once again - to that Artie Moore Am Radio Assn. But there does seem to be more info in Caldwell's article on the radio distance aspect and other matters.

PPS, here is some background info on Scott Caldwell, author of the Press Reader article MG linked to. Should be enough there to track him down through his company or university. Or even the white pages or LinkedIn etc. LINK

It appears he is an experienced researcher (PhD) and writer so good chance his sources are good.

Edited By Hopper on 20/06/2023 06:44:00

Aah! The second radio. On the grassy knoll... The plot thickens.

Well spotted.

PS Well spotted indeed! The linked to Press Reader article seems the most comprehensive to date and does explain a lot more about the Titanic's radio, including it had previously transmitted to Port Said and Tennerife some 3,000 miles distant and that on the fatal night, the Marconi station at Cornwall received direct signals from Titanic. So entirely possible that Artie's rig up the hill from the mill picked up that same signal.

But yet again, no sources cited in the article. It is a general magazine article, not a scholarly paper so no surprise.

Julian, the author's email address is at the top of the article Michael linked to, and the article is only two years old so there is a pretty good chance you could contact him and perhaps find out his sources. (Sounds as though it comes back to the Artie Moore Am Radio Society yet once again, mentioned toward the end of the article. So contacting them directly may be the only way to really find out. The author may be able to tell you who he spoke to and share contact details.)

Edited By Hopper on 20/06/2023 06:30:46

Edited By Hopper on 20/06/2023 06:32:45

So we are back to square one on that issue then! It is not highly probable that Artie received a direct, rather than relayed, signal from Titanic, but it is possible via fluke of luck that Titanic's radio waves bounced off the ionosphere etc and down into his valley. Stranger things have happened. New Zealand is a lot further away from UK than Newfoundland is, about 5 times as far, with whole continents in between.

Edited By Hopper on 20/06/2023 04:07:16

About 100 RPM should do you for that diameter with a HSS toolbit. Could be twice that with carbide, but with the way you are holding the job I would stick at 100 RPM and take it easy. It should clean that nice round shape up pretty easily. It is when you leave it square or even octagonal and you get a harsh interrupted cut that things get interesting.

The two bolts should be sufficient.

A gear cutter is not a straight-sided 90 degree V profile as needed for the finger plate. It will give you an involute shaped deep V..

You could do it perhaps with a fly cutter held in the lathe. Grind the end of the flycutter tool bit to the required 90 degrees.

Yes keep us posted on how he goes please. Will be interested to see how she goes on a full tank of water!

Yes it does seem unlikely. Marconi was a bit of a rock star tech entrepreneur of his day. It would have been like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs visiting Gelligroes. Seems unlikely for a busy celebrity businessman and surely would have made the local newspaper, you would think. More likely Marconi sent him a letter, maybe in reply to a job application, and the rest is local legend perhaps.

Julian have you tried tracking down Kevin Dawson to find out his sources? A direct message on Facebook might reach him even if he is no longer active on the society Facebook page? Or he could even be in the white pages.

And what about Lynn Pask of the Blackwood historical society quoted in the very recent BBC report on Artie HERE ? That society must be contactable and is presumably in your neck of the woods somewhere? They may have some original source material?

And Neil Prior, the BBC journo, should be able to put you in touch with the quoted "amateur radio enthusiast Billy Crofts" re the antenna. The BBC Wales switchboard should be able to put you onto Mr Prior. Although not much more to be said on that topic not already shown in the pics and discussion thereof perhaps?

Oooops. I got that back to front didn't I. Sorry bout that. London is of course 5 hours ahead of NY, not behind. Even so, it is quite possible Artie was out twiddling at 4 or 5am. People rose early in those days. And it would have been far too late for the morning newspapers to have the story so he was still ahead of the general public in hearing about it.

It certainly is a fascinating story, or should we say stories? A further article would be well read I am sure.

Well, Artie must have picked up something on his magnificent erection or he would not have bothered to pursue a hobby in radio. There were no radio stations to listen to in those days so ships etc would have been a big part of what was on air. But according to THIS interesting Science Museum article, the Titanic's radio signal would have traveled only about 300 miles in daylight and maybe two or three times that at night. So 900 miles maximum. The Titanic sank near Newfoundland, about 2,200 miles from Swansea. Seems more likely Artie might have picked up signals from other, closer, ships relaying the Titanic's desperate message?

Even so, he would have had the news ahead of the general public. The Titanic hit the iceberg about midnight, local time, so that would be about 4pm UK time. Any distress signals reaching Wales then would have arrived late afternoon or evening time. No radio stations in the UK at that time. So the earliest the UK public would have known was next morning's newspapers. Even then, there was great confusion, with the Daily Mail reporting no lives were lost. American papers were first to break the true scale of the tragedy. link and link

Reports in those links indicate there was radio chatter back and forth between ships, and journalists, relayed across the Atlantic. So again, this is most likely what Artie could have picked up, not the direct transmission from the Titanic. But this detail was probably lost in the retelling of the story to the local newspaper for his obituary by family members recalling events of some 40 years earlier, at which they were not present but only heard discussed around the family dinner table etc. And we all know how that goes. (And local newspapers generally do not fact check obituaries submitted/told by families of the deceased.)

PS, just noticed the obituary clipping in Weary's link, says it was reported to the newspaper by one Councillor Richard Vines. So who knows where he got his information and how reliable it was. Most likely word of mouth from the family and other members of his constituency who may have recalled stories about Artie. Not necessarily a reliable source of historical facts at the minute detail level.

Edited By Hopper on 19/06/2023 15:55:26

Or you can hold the plate in a similar way in the four jaw chuck and it will be more stable.

I think you would have been better off to turn the steps on the ends with a normal turning tool. What you are using in the videos is parting/grooving tool plunged straight in. Less than ideal and as you found, prone to erratic cutting. It is not really designed for that sort of use. But it got the job done so at the end of the day, that is all that matters.

Yes Milwaukee is a good brand for power tools and cutting discs etc as you have found. They are widely used here on construction site work which is notoriously rough duty. But not cheap!

A smallish hobby-grade horizontal bandsaw is the best addition I made to my workshop since getting a lathe and a welder. Well worth the investment if you do that sort of work regularly. Mabye not so much for horology though!

They also sell some small portable bandsaws designed for onsite construction work etc that could be handy in the home workshop too.

Awesome stuff. That is quick. Not a lot of technical detail on their website but this one here LINK seems to say the bike carries a pressure vessel full of water that is heated to 200C under suitable pressure (14.5bar/225psi) by an external oil burner that presumably  is then disconnected. When the 200C water is released through a nozzle/s to atmospheric pressure it flashes off to steam and expands by the usual 1700 times in volume and provides the rocket propulsion in the process.

I reckon it takes a pair of cojones to straddle that thing!

Edited By Hopper on 19/06/2023 07:37:07

Thanks Brian. Sounds about right! Looked like butter going on in the videos.