NRG founder

[Raredx]

Hi all, just curious so thought I would ask:
Has anyone produced a documentary about Steve Moss
the inventor of the NRH line of products?
Many thanks
Cheers

[Albert H]

No. Steve was a fairly private person, and the lady that knew him best - Christine - certainly wouldn't want to talk much about him to people she doesn't know.

[sinus trouble]

I am a massive fan of Stephens work!

Sadly i have to agree with Albert! It aint gonna happen!

The legacy he left us still remains!

[Albert H]

Stephen was certainly "one of a kind". His knowledge was formidable, and his design abilities were excellent too. He managed to design a set of kits that could be built with good results by anyone who could follow simple instructions and solder properly. He designed those big boards to be single-sided to cope with people soldering in components in the wrong position, de-soldering and moving them....! The results from a correctly built Pro III board were exceptionally good, with at least 4 Watts available across the band, and minimal adjustment.

It's instructive to compare the Pro III with other products available at the same time:

The Broadcast Warehouse "1W" exciter seldom managed more than 700 mW and would usually hum. It also had poor harmonic purity unless carefully calibrated on a Spectrum Analyser.

The Ramsey rigs were either under-powered or outrageously expensive.

The Panaxis FMX was better than competent, but was tricky to build correctly, and only gave around 200 mW at best.

The Radio Free Berkeley job was pretty good, but used a few obscure components and was expensive.

[sinus trouble]

What most people do not realise is that back in them days, Books, Magazines and the odd Engineer you could tap for a bit of info was all we had!

Mobile phones and the Internet did not exist!

Most of the basic transmitters i built in those days drifted all over the place!

The first kit i bought from Stephen was a Stereo 1 Watt VFO which literally blew my mind!

I remember vividly receiving the kit and being eager to build it! The stability and sound quality far surpassed anything i could have ever imagined building in those days!

[Albert H]

Back when I first started building broadcasting gear (my first was in 1969!), I relied on amateur radio periodicals like Practical Wireless and QST. My first AM rig had three valves, and was based on a circuit published in PW in 1965. It used an 807 as a power oscillator, modulated by an 6L6 driven by a ECC83. I quickly discovered that the two stages of amplification in the ECC83 were far too much gain (it was designed for a microphone input), so I discovered the joys of a simple compressor circuit, adapted from the input stages of a Philips tape recorder. The rig was originally designed for 160m amateur band, but with more turns on the coils, and slightly larger capacitor values, I could get it down into the top end of the medium waveband.

At first, I used it on 1530 kHz (196m) into a "Marconi" aerial, and got great results in the daytime when I earthed it to the water pipes! I later discovered that it was producing around 8 Watts of carrier, and peaking at around 30 Watts when modulated. I also discovered that it had a little bit of FM (because of the simple power oscillator circuit), but that wasn't ever a problem. My friends and I ran our little station from home for about 4 months before the guys from the PTT turned up. They realised how young I was (my squeaky voice on the air should have been a clue) and demanded that I dismantled the transmitter and didn't do it again.....

Of course the bug had bitten and after about a week off air, we were back on! The second time I got the "unfriendly visit", they impounded the rig...

The next rig came from a garden shed a few streets away from home. The second rig had a pair of 807s, sported a VFO (allowing both deliberate change of frequency and some drift!) and did almost 100 Watts pep!

Pretty soon, we'd started to use "links" and unattended transmitters, and several of them were collected by the authorities. I made the move to VHF (94 MHz) in 1972.....

[Albert H]

Just found the Practical Wireless circuit:

First Rig.png

[sinus trouble]

Blimey!

I remember seeing circuits like that in books i had read in the libraries! What was the supply voltage for that beast? Gotta be in the couple of hundreds figure?

When i was around 12 years old, There was a bloke named "Trevor" who used to repair our TV when it was on the blink! (Yes TV Repairs did actually exist)

I used to be watching everything he was doing in amazement! Asking all sorts of questions!

He gave me some hand written notes on simple transmitters which i still have here today!

Thinking back? I know i must have been irritating to him? I was just curious to learn! Knowledge was hard to find back then!

[jvok]

There's some old tapes of Steven's station Veronica floating about online if you like 80s pop. Complete with original ads for gear.

[LeeCavanagh]

I remember those ads, transmitters from £50
i have some tapes in a box with some of veronica but i dont have time to go through them all to find the relevant bits.

[rigmo]

Stephen was certainly "one of a kind". His knowledge was formidable,

Hi Albert
Can you make list what he done for FM... *?

[LeeCavanagh]

The NRG name came from me, I suggested it to Stephen after his court case meant he had to change his trading name (because Paul had registered the Veronica name even tho Stephen had been using it for many years well before Paul even joined the business).

Stephen liked the NRG name (in the absence of anything else) and I built him a website which built on the Veronica kits offering, my friend Tim took a lot of the photos of the kits and Stephen was blown away by the amount of orders the new site brought in, thanks of course to the great designs and the extra reach the internet brought with it.

[teckniqs]

[rigmo]

WOW... this dated from?

[teckniqs]

WOW... this dated from?

Around the late 80s I expect.

[LeeCavanagh]

I would expect later as it mentions Paul but i’m not exactly sure when they joined together , I do remember the original ads on Veronica fm mentioned £50 pounds (less than the clip someone put up recently).

[teckniqs]

First time I saw their adverts was in DJ Magazine around 1993.

[rigmo]

The NRG name came from me,

Can you tell us more abut that?

[rigmo]

He gave me some hand written notes on simple transmitters which i still have here today!

can you show to us?

[rigmo]

I can't find any photo of Stephen Moss.. iT'S glad to see how looks like. thank you you in advance.