R 1116A pre war aircraft receiver.

R 1116A receiver,

a real museum piece.

This receiver, is what you call, a very old fashion radio receiver. A military design just after the “spark transmitters and receivers” episode  in WW1. They are very scarce to get now a days. That is why, it is one of my most favourite receivers in my collection.

The receiver is in an  entire original condition and working! Only the grid battery is a copy, see pictures below.

The R 1116A receiver is a later version of the R1116. It is a prewar aircraft receiver, which was used with the T 1115 transmitter. The aircraft was , for example,  the   British torpedo fighter “Swordfish”, which operates from aircraftcarriers at sea. The swordfish was wellknown  by actions against the German Bismarck, by attacking it with torpedo’s. Amazing fact is, that both the receiver and transmitter were placed just behind the pilot in the open cockpit. The pilot was also a radioman and gunner.

The receiver is a double superhet receiver. No  HF amplifier stage, just a tuned coil before the mixerstage,  first IF is 10,7 Mc, second IF is 100 Kc. The sensitivity is very well, and the bandwidth is small because of the 100 Kc frequency. Audio is sufficient because of the VR 35 final amplifier. My receiver is working very well . I’m using it also at the 80 meterband for AM, SSB and CW. Also provision is made for direction finding. The receiver can be switched  to 2  different parts, LF and HF. Each part can be switched into 3 different wavebands. Funny is, that the scale lightning  is changing by choosing either the LF or HF part, from the one to other scale.

The front of the receiver.

R1116a-2

Another look at the under side of the chassis.  The LF stage and detector stage.

R1116-3

Just below the chassis Just left the variable condensors for pretuning the HF stage for the LF and HF part.

r1116simplified

A simplified circuitdiagram of the receiver.  The diode at the input of the first mixer is for protecting the receiver for very strong transmitter signals. The diagram is only for one part and one frequencyband. It  has also a provision for an intercommunication  by means of the T7 microphone  connection. The preamp V6 and final  V7 is used then. V 8 is the CW oscillator. R 13 and R 16 are used for an external LF gain remotecontroll.

Posted in RAF R-Radio's ww2.

One Comment

  1. As a boy in Engalnd in WW2 I built my own short wave receivers, but about 1948 bought an R1116A. To me it seemed very sensitive and I attributed that in part to the slug main tuning. I used it intensively for quite a few years, but eventually it died due to internal corrosion. I was told it was from a Vickers Walrus seaplane, probably why it suffered from corrosion. I replaced it with an HRO MX, which I still have. Various other National radios and a couple of Eddystones followed, but a working R1116A is the radio I wish I still had.

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