Slight Off-Topic: Question regarding mono Alice desk

[iamthecosmos]

I’ve picked up an old mono Alice broadcast desk, I wondered if Ted could shed some light on it’s origin or even supply a schematic (I’m looking to add direct outputs from each channel)? I think a couple of PCB’s are loose again since channels 5 and 6 aren’t working. Should get the chance to open it up again tomorrow.

http://tinyurl.com/deskguts

http://tinyurl.com/alicedesktop

Alice/Stancoil plate on the back says serial no. 0701, model SM10 / 1B.

[Ted Fletcher]

No, not really off topic…. this is what it’s all about!
Wow, that’s a real old one! This was the SM series mixers that we made in 1969/70/71. I don’t really know where that one came from…. they were all ‘specials’ in those days; we used to tailor the design to suit the application.
Interestingly, it has a PPM so it was probably for speech recording, but it’s odd that it has so many channels…. it’s a bit of a mystery.
I will get Eric the Oracle to look at the pictures; Eric remembers every mixer we ever made (Eric was a founder member/director of the old Alice company).

Regarding the design, I don’t have any circuits from that era, the designs were very simple with a discrete transistor mic amp and equaliser. Some of the early mixers had a single transistor emitter-follower stage after the fader….. but I can’t be any more helpful than that.

I will report back when I know more.

[iamthecosmos]

According to the original owner it was at one of the first ITV stations in the south west, then it was used by an amateur dramatics society for years until I bought it. It has these in it:

http://tinyurl.com/sowtertrans

It sounds pretty good too!

[Ted Fletcher]

LOVE the picture of the transformers!
Yes, that would figure….. we made some stuff for Westward Television at Derry Cross, Plymouth back in the early days. It must have been a mixer for an interview facility or something like that. I expect it still works well!

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