On Dec 7, 6:44 pm, "SteveB" wrote:
Another thread is going back to such musings, along a line started by the
discussion of music, then into old phonos, and the thing of "When I was a
kid" ............

When I was a kid, I sent off for all sorts of stuff from comic books. My
most memorable thing was a radio that looked like half a banana, but black.
I'm sure it was Bakelite. It looked like a space ship rocket. It had a rod
coming out of the tip with a small black ball on it. Then it had two cords
coming out. One was a two wire to an ear bud. The other a single wire to
an alligator clip.

You would clip the clip to the silver finger hook on the old rotary phones,
put in the ear bud, then move the rod up and down to get the stations. Oh
My! I was living in Las Vegas, and got radio stations all over the US.
KOMA, Ok. City. KOA Albuq. KOMO Seattle. KNX LA. Bootleg stations in
Mexico that were exceeding FAA wattage limits in the US. I fell asleep
listening to that radio many a night.

Ah. When I was a kid.

What was one of your favorites you didn't put yer eye out with.

BTW, the first time my dad took me out to shoot my new crack back single
shot BB gun, the BB traveled to an old car fender, bounced, and came back
into my eye. I watched it during its whole flight. My dad rolled my eyelid
and the BB fell out. I was lucky. But I remember to this day the flight of
that BB in slow motion. My first shot with a gun.

Steve

I am concerned about the coming of digital radio. Radio was one of
the things that you could show young people to get them interested in
science and engineering. Fathers could make their sons crystal set
radios very easily. Kids could learn the theory of AM radio pretty
easily. The number of children less than 10 years old who obtained
their ham licenses (which required passing a theory test) is legion.

When digital finally replaces current radio broadcasting we won't be
able to do that. Can't use parts from current telephones to make a
simple telephone, either.

At least a balsa and tissue model airplane will still fly, and you can
still find them at hobby shops :-)