General view of Nucleonics service section L-R – Phil XX, Dave Andrews (back), Ian Prior (sitting), Geoff (can't recall surname, was supervisor) (back) , Ian Bancroft (me), Eddie Tooke (sitting).
In those days, most of the service for Ekco medical instruments would be carried out at Rochford. A N530 and N610 would typically have all valves tested on an AVO valve tester and any on low emission / gain would be replaced. The N530 used rows of ECC 81s and carbon resistors. So we spent most time getting balanced sets of valves and replacing all the resistors on pulse circuits to metal oxide. The early modular 5000s where all transistor and also used Dekatrons for display.
It wasn't till later that IC's and CMOS technology would be used on the 5000 series.
We sold some units to China; they would not then accept any American components in equipment. So to disguise them, all the boards' & components had to be completely covered in a dark coating to remove any traces of origin. I'm sure the Chinese must have known about this.
In addition to 'base' servicing, we also did carry out field service, for example one of the London hospitals had a N610, which kept blowing fuses. With an all valve line up, it got quite warm. It was discovered that the cause of this was that in a cold hospital it was an inviting place for a mouse to set up home. Not so good when the home is in an HV power supply.
Another Hospital reported intermittent high background counts detected on a 5000 system. Sure enough about every 20 minutes the Dekatrons would go whizzing around. After much head scratching and checking with a portable radiation monitor, a rogue fridge in another room was found to be the problem, whenever the fridge switched in.
The normal jokes took place, like charging up large value paper capacitors and telling somebody to catch or putting one charged left on your bench for you to find.
The Rochford factory's roof always leaked when it rained. On one occasion a small rubber bottle filled with water was place under Ian Prior's seat (if he ever reads this, I'm sure he won't mind) and a small hole drilled into the seat. So when he sat down he unwittingly squeezed the bottle and got a small jet of water. Thinking rain had gotten onto the seat, Ian got up wiped the seat and sat down again and the same thing happened. We all knew what was happening, so after a couple of times of him getting up and down to wipe the seat he looked around and he could see the look on all our faces, he knew he'd been had.
