We'll start off with with one little thing. We'll start off with the FM bugs FM bugs I want to know about did they start all right? So so up to up to that that point in time the only FM bug was a terrible one transistor FM bug with an an aerial coil which was which was on the on the PC board got got no gain for the mic either. it was just one one transistor that's right one transistor and of course had no queue for the coil because the coil was just a flat coil on the PC board the the board. very bad design, just a bad design.

so who did that one it was Electronics Australia it would have been Phil we or somebody like that did it for one of the one of these um um Dick Smith um funways things something like that. So what I had is that I just can't remember about what I was tinkling with in in the in in the work room but I was tinkling with uh a couple of transistors and a coil and a little bit of wiring and things like that and I had to go I obviously you go away to the to the FM radio cuz you don't want feedback exactly So I turned it on and I went to the FM radio, tuned it in and I could hear it but in those days we had a tuning meter on that so that very very only one or two bars were very very week. So I thought oh well I've got it quite clear I can hear the boys in the room working and talking I said just just talk in the background quietly and I could hear them so lovely and clear. perfectly clear but almost no signal strength it Absolut the signal strength.

It was almost down to nothing. So I went back to the two transistor thing and I left a wire off I forgot whether was the antenna wasn't connected or something like that wasn't touching. So ah, sold that on. went back, the signal strength was huge I thought that's great.

So I picked it all up carefully on a bit of card or a bit of paper, took it outside, took it outside and I went down down three or four houses. Yep and it was unbelievable. It was. It just just worked magic.

Yes, normally think of an FM radio microphone just to to the radio you know, 10 m or 5 m just within the room and I went quite a few houses down. they said yeah, we still picked it up and it was absolutely amazing. So that was the beginning cuz I had just picked up because the other ones had no queue in in the coil so had no gain. had no output at all.

but I had just picked everything right. So from that time on I just made up that little print circuit board in that long strip like that because that's the way the circuit. Works No one, no one had done that before. Everybody just made a square which was just senseless.

every all odd Parts everywhere the the actual board didn't match the circuit diagram. there was no correlation. there was no was no no mechanics with the whole thing. So I changed the whole concept to make it to make it all logical linear, make it work and put the FM bug.

the ant was the first one. the an absolutely brilliant and that was in one of your regular issues. wasn't it? I don't can't remember whether I put it on the cover or something like that. one of those one of those things I I did the PC board for I made a book up five FM Bugs five FM bugs y I' I've got the whole collection I've still got the whole collection and it was just huge success.

And of course we had variations on the whole thing we put. we put amplifiers on it, we had RF amplifiers. we put extra transistors, all different concepts, all very low. The whole idea was to keep it under 30 or 50 Ms because when you start getting a high output you get Splash over you get annoyance.

you get people interfering with things and you do get a lot of problem. So my idea was never to have this one one. RF amplifier stage was all just how much you can do with very little. yep very little output.

One of the people came back to me either wrote to me or rang me up or something. he had put one of the bugs on Mount Dandong yeah he lived 27 kilm away down the down the way and he still heard his bug. 27 km and it would have been no more than it was. It wasn't either an ant or very simple thing but it had the height and it had no no interference in between and he would have a decent antenna on it too.

Would Had the the W yes he would and and his radi and his car radio would have had a good receiver but it still went 27 km with it. wouldn't have been more than between 10 and 30 m. so these were your most po probably your most popular. they were the FM bus they they were the one but the train books were a huge success.

Okay I was never into the train cuz I was sort of past my train period at that I had my train three times more train people really than Electronics people y I can imagine and what were in the train? just train controllers and light controllers. signal whistle sounds yeah had a few sounds and things yes pedestrian Crossing and we had capacitor discharge unit. we had a power supply for had a whole range of different things. They've been a huge success because people with train sets can't get the add-ons and they spend thousands on their train set and they want to have added features as well to make it interactive and make it because the train.

It's not just trains going around, it's actually the things like things moving other. Oh, it's the whole life these train people. They have it running around the kitchen, running through the walls and things. So how many train books did you produce? two? Oh there were only two, but the kits were very popular.

Very very popular. Oh where were most of your sales for these kits in Australia because magazine was only in Australia only in Australia Yes, that's right. Okay, so you didn't really. there was no Avenue for overseas back back before the internet was there? No? and and that brings me on to how people paid for things.

cuz I remember you were the only one who only business that I knew of who would accept uh stamps as payment I thought cuz I was a kid I didn't have? well we we didn't have credit cards back in the no just came in. no we about the fourth or fifth magazine one of the boys who was serving a customer came to me I was in the room. He said a customer's got a uh uh a State Bank credit card here. Do we take credit cards I said what's a credit card card I said what's the point in that he said I will but I kept my mouth shut I thought no I won't make a full of myself I said what I'll do is I'll go to the bank and I'll find out about it.

Yep so I went to the A&Z Bank $70 to buy the machine, the card imprinter, $70 to set it, set it all up Yeah and in the finish of course I didn't have to send us the card. People thought they had to send us the card some people used to post the card to us. no they did. a few people yeah well they thought they had to just to prove they had it right.

but eventually they they understood that they could. They could write the number down and they didn't have the the secret number on the back. in the old days they just had the in fact was only 14 digits to start with was it and and it finished up with 16 digits in the finish. So we had the 14 digits and of course and I just copied them out on on huge sheets and in Finish 50% of our bus business finished up.

Credit cards 50% 50% at what date was that around? oh I can't remember. It just gradually increased, increased and increased until 50% of our business was credit cards cuz I remember when I was still a kid like my par we were poor family, my parents didn't have credit cards. it was Cash for everything. If we did have any money you know and I didn't have you know anything like that and to go you had to pay an extra $250 for a money order or something like that for the post office.

So sending stamps was that's Sav $250 of because I used so many stamps that they're quite number of. but one of the boys he sent me stamps that already licked licked yes so he so they were useless to me so I had to lick them I had to put glue on and and I didn't mind I wasn't going to complain because you just never know in this world who this person is. exactly So a boy rang me up. he he sent in for about three kits $16 at a time and things like that I glad you used them up cuz he had uh I know where he got them from now cuz his mother worked as solicitor's office she was washed them off, gave them to him all the ones and he sent them to me right? I didn't complain I sent him his Goods because that's what I offered I didn't say they had to be had glue on them no that's right I did use them up I put sticky tape on I use them up Sheridan Electronics Here we bought Shidan oh you bought oh yes right you you bought out Sheridan no no bought a lot of I couldn't couldn't buy him out right? of course As you said, he wanted 150,000 for it.

oh did he so I went on the day and of course he was crying. He said oh it's all been gone for 23,000 you know I said well you know it's last year stuff I took a few thousand. Worth it but but that's all you can get now of course I couldn't even get rid of once I even bought it from I couldn't get rid of it cuz it was just dying from under our feet as we were going. He was lucky to to move out when he did because he couldn't sell it I said you've tried, you're spending $400 every month in T Australia putting out all your specials and sold a few bucket loads but he still had.

He had hundreds of thousands of dollars and he want $ 150,000 just to clear out the stuff I said well I haven't got the space for it Guy bought some a whole bunch of stuff IC tubes. A friend of mine bought out a bunch of his component cabinets and stuff like that, you know and then his son started up in Black town. oh did he started a store in Black must have taken all the the he took a a fair bit but that didn't last more than 6 months and I don't know what ever happened to poor old Mike Sheridan and uh, what there was Dave Reed Electronics in the city as well. Not sure what happened to them, but were there any other? Surplus yes they were component supplies in Melbourne yes yes well Jo Ellis started off electronic he started off he first of all bought all the stuff from Tottenham he bought all their old crows and all their test equipment because we used to do a lot of um electronic stuff here for England we we made a few planes here and we made a lot of equipment to send to England cuz we're very technical here so we sent off a lot of radios and things like that uh from here and we had a lot of equipment and he had all the know obvious just a round tube in a very old it might have been 5 Mega something like that.

he had hundreds and hundreds of crows and he had little tiny shop. he made a lot of money out of them cuz he bought them for practically nothing and he made a huge amount of money out and then he started to store and he he bought a lot of serus stuff into the store. then he bought a lot of new stuff and of course it just boomed and boomed of course then slid away because as the market went away you know I could just every year was was just dying all.