18 Facts About Pye Ltd

Pye Ltd was an electronics company founded in 1896 in Cambridge, England, as a manufacturer of scientific instruments.

Instruments continued to be designed and manufactured under W G Pye Ltd, later situated in York Street Cambridge, while a separate company was started to build wireless components in a factory to become known as Cambridge Works at Church Path, Chesterton.

In 1928 William Pye sold the company, now renamed Pye Radio Limited, to C O Stanley, who established a chain of small component-manufacturing factories across East Anglia.

New EF50 valve from Philips enabled Pye Ltd to build this high-gain receiver, which was a tuned radio frequency type and not a superhet type.

Pye Ltd was responsible for the early development work on the proximity fuze for anti-aircraft shells.

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In February 1944, Pye formed a subsidiary called Pye Telecommunications Ltd, which it intended would design and produce radio communications equipment when the war ended.

Pye Ltd produced the PF8 UHF hand-held radios featured in episodes of The Professionals television series.

The Independent Television Authority started public transmissions in the same year, so Pye Ltd produced new televisions that could receive ITV, and the availability of a second channel introduced the need for tuners.

Pye TVT Ltd was formed to produce broadcast television equipment, including cameras, which were popular with British broadcasters including the BBC as well as achieving international sales.

The Pye Ltd PC60 was eventually replaced by the EMI 2001 on BBC outside broadcasts but, during its lifespan, it was used on numerous high-profile productions including Wimbledon tennis and Open golf.

Pye Ltd TVT never produced a colour broadcast television camera, but there was an abortive colour telecine camera; few if any were sold.

Not wishing to risk further damage to their fragile brand, Pye Ltd first used transistors in a product sold as a subsidiary brand: the Pam 710 radio, with the transistors themselves labelled Newmarket Transistors .

Pye Ltd found themselves with high stocks and low cash flow at a time when industrial relations were poor, the low-growth economy of the time and limited scope for reducing costs.

In 1979 Pye Ltd were implicated in an episode of Granada's World in Action in relation to the sale of UHF and VHF radios as well as telephone intercept equipment which was used by the Ugandan Public Safety Unit, the secret police of Idi Amin's rule responsible for killing perhaps several hundred thousand Ugandans.

Pye Ltd had been supplying Uganda through Wilken Telecommunications, its East Africa distributor.

Pye Ltd brand enjoyed a short-lived renaissance in audio equipment during the 1970s, and in the late 1980s with televisions, gaining something of a cult status among college students at the time.

In recent years the Pye Ltd brand has enjoyed a resurgence on the UK market, with domestic products including DVD recorders.

The Pye Ltd brand is one of a handful surviving today from the early domestic electronics era that dates to before World War II.