This really is an unusual unit from Racal Electronics - makers of the highly esteemed and justly famous RA17L tube receiver.

It is a frequency counter of 1.2MHz range - but instead of using nixie tubes for its display it has 6 columns of filament lamps - 10 in each column - to illuminate the individual digits on the plastic front panel - a grand total of 60 lamps (with spares included!).

This is a solid-state unit with many circuit boards and multiple transistors and appears to date from the early 1960's. I am puzzled as to why its display technology seems anachronistic even for its time and why its range is limited, compared to other units of the time.

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Last updated 11th April 2003