Jim Adney wrote:

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 04:16:03 -0700 Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun'
wrote:

In article ,
mentioned...

Jim Adney wrote:

I seem to recall fresh ordinary carbon-zinc batteries being used as
"standards" in an earlier era. I think the voltage was supposed to be
1.56V, but that's a very old memory and could be off a bit.

I have never heard of using carbon-zinc (Leclanche) cells for any kind
of reference, and i have been an electronic technician for over 50
years.

When I was a youngster I got a VTVM that had instructions that had you
calibrate the DC range by measuring a fresh dry cell. Well, there
were no alkalines back then, everything was carbon-zinc.

Yes, I remember that one, but the ones I was thinking about were some
of the 60s vacuum tube stereos where you were to set the bias by
comparing the 1.56V from a fresh carbon-zinc D-cell to the voltage
drop across the cathode resistor. I believe both Eico and Dynaco did
this.

Yes, it probably wasn't much of a "standard," but it was close enough,
and probably within 1%, which was better than almost anything else in
those days.

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Jim Adney
Madison, WI 53711 USA
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Cannot get 1% accuracy with (at best) 5% cathode resistors.....