ultra radio

[VoiceOf Sefron]

have you heard of ultra radio?

I had a radio made by Ultra once, it was part of the EMI Thorne group...I had an Ultra telly too, but it broke.

[threegee]

Thorn - without the e - actually! But it was an independant company before Sir Jules Thorn (British Radio Corporation part of Thorn Industries) bought the consumer side back in the late '50s or early '60s. Ferguson was his main brand; he also had HMV. And (like the British Motor Corporation in those days) branding differentiation ultimately reduced to name stickers and a different bit of glitz on the cabinet. At times they even managed to get the wrong BRC brand in the right box. Ultra still has some professional electronics interests I think; military radios and things if my failing memory serves me right.

Under BRC Ultra was always quite flashy and "modern" looking, even if the guts didn't always live up to the good-design image. One particularly iconic bit of advertising showed a female sitting in one of those cocoon hanging chair things - "ultra" sheek in the '1960's, and they still look quite cool. The original company's consumer products were a bit more mundane than under the BRC marketing guys, but that was mostly before my time.

Pity you hadn't kept it; I'm likely one of the very few people still around with enough design knowledge of how it worked to fix it - using modern parts! LOL

[Andy Millne]

Pity you hadn't kept it; I'm likely one of the very few people still around with enough design knowledge of how it worked to fix it - using modern parts! LOL

Careful 3G. I'll get the newspaper cuttings out

[VoiceOf Sefron]

Thorn - without the e - actually! But it was an independant company before Sir Jules Thorn (British Radio Corporation part of Thorn Industries) bought the consumer side back in the late '50s or early '60s. Ferguson was his main brand; he also had HMV. And (like the British Motor Corporation in those days) branding differentiation ultimately reduced to name stickers and a different bit of glitz on the cabinet. At times they even managed to get the wrong BRC brand in the right box. Ultra still has some professional electronics interests I think; military radios and things if my failing memory serves me right.

Under BRC Ultra was always quite flashy and "modern" looking, even if the guts didn't always live up to the good-design image. One particularly iconic bit of advertising showed a female sitting in one of those cocoon hanging chair things - "ultra" sheek in the '1960's, and they still look quite cool. The original company's consumer products were a bit more mundane than under the BRC marketing guys, but that was mostly before my time.

Pity you hadn't kept it; I'm likely one of the very few people still around with enough design knowledge of how it worked to fix it - using modern parts! LOL

Yes, of course..it was without the 'e'. Thanks for this illuminating piece of electronic history! Love it..Did they own the Fidelity brand too?

Thorn also owned Glow Worm heating as well. I had a 75,000BTU (space saver lol) boiler, until about 3yrs ago, when the heat exchanger finally rotted away. It was a robust design and gave sterling service for 30yrs or so. I couldn't complain about that at all. How many of today's boilers, will last this long?

Interesting too that you mention your design knowledge re:restoration of Ultra RF products. A friend of mine in Morpeth is an expert on this sort of stuff and frequently picks up sets from the likes of, Ultra, Roberts, Bush etc. for very little money from Tynemouth market. He restores them to pristine condition...

Great stuff, cheers

[VoiceOf Sefron]

Yes, of course..it was without the 'e'. Thanks for this illuminating piece of electronic history! Love it..Did they own the Fidelity brand too?

Thorn also owned Glow Worm heating as well. I had a 75,000BTU (space saver lol) boiler, until about 3yrs ago, when the heat exchanger finally rotted away. It was a robust design and gave sterling service for 30yrs or so. I couldn't complain about that at all. How many of today's boilers, will last this long?

Interesting too that you mention your design knowledge re:restoration of Ultra RF products. A friend of mine in Morpeth is an expert on this sort of stuff and frequently picks up sets from the likes of, Ultra, Roberts, Bush etc. for very little money from Tynemouth market. He restores them to pristine condition...

Great stuff, cheers

Just remembered, Thorn owned the Marconi brand too IIRC...

[VoiceOf Sefron]

Thorn - without the e - actually! But it was an independant company before Sir Jules Thorn (British Radio Corporation part of Thorn Industries) bought the consumer side back in the late '50s or early '60s. Ferguson was his main brand; he also had HMV. And (like the British Motor Corporation in those days) branding differentiation ultimately reduced to name stickers and a different bit of glitz on the cabinet. At times they even managed to get the wrong BRC brand in the right box. Ultra still has some professional electronics interests I think; military radios and things if my failing memory serves me right.<snip>

After I'd posted the Glow Worm boiler connection, I was intrigued how this came to be. Thorn Industries became part of the TI Group, which was Tube Investments as I remember. This was a very diverse company, but IIRC, all quality products. After market exhausts under the TI Bainbridge brand, were far better engineered, better fit and better steel, than the market leader at the time, Quinton Hazell. I just realised too, that to this day I'm using some TI products, everyday. Both my oven and my microwave, both incidentally 30yrs old, are made by TI Creda, as is my tumble dryer. In 25yrs all the dryer has ever needed was a replacement drive belt (in 2007).

I do appreciate quality, well engineered products. Alas, we will never see these British made products again.

But Ultra lives on, albeit in a slightly different guise

Ultra

Edited October 30, 2010 by VoiceOf Sefron

[threegee]

Just remembered, Thorn owned the Marconi brand too IIRC...

Yes, Marconiphone was the fourth brand that came off the production line. I knew there was a fourth one, but the Pilot brand kept coming into my head, and that seemed to me wrong. Marconiphone was different from the other three brands in that it was sold through wholesalers, and not to Radio and TV dealers directly. Thanks for the memory jog!

Fidelity remained an independant company for much longer than most. They were associated with cheap audio rather than TV. A large range of "trannies" ( transistor(ised) radios ) kept them going in the 1960's, until the inevitable rise and rise of far eastern imports swamped them. Wasn't the Fidelity name finally bought by Amstrad?

[VoiceOf Sefron]

Yes, Marconiphone was the fourth brand that came off the production line. I knew there was a fourth one, but the Pilot brand kept coming into my head, and that seemed to me wrong. Marconiphone was different from the other three brands in that it was sold through wholesalers, and not to Radio and TV dealers directly. Thanks for the memory jog!

Fidelity remained an independant company for much longer than most. They were associated with cheap audio rather than TV. A large range of "trannies" ( transistor(ised) radios ) kept them going in the 1960's, until the inevitable rise and rise of far eastern imports swamped them. Wasn't the Fidelity name finally bought by Amstrad?

I'm unsure as to what happened to Fidelity..

Here's another brand for you that was part of Thorn for a time, 'Goodmans'. I had a module 90 tuner/amp with their badge on it, yet it was possilble to buy an Ultra and Marconiphone badged version of it.

[mercuryg]

Of course!