Well the video does have some turning in it and may well spark a smile
from those here who have messed about a bit with old-timey radio
tubes. I still remember when all the grocery stores had a small
machine in the corner somewhere where customers could test and buy
tubes for their tvs and radios.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/200...ccum_tube.html

On Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:55:52 -0800, Kevin wrote:

Well the video does have some turning in it and may well spark a smile
from those here who have messed about a bit with old-timey radio
tubes. I still remember when all the grocery stores had a small
machine in the corner somewhere where customers could test and buy
tubes for their tvs and radios.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/200...ccum_tube.html

I ran across a large suitcase-sized tube tester last summer at an estate
sale. If I'd had room to store it I'd have bought it just for the heck of
it.

The first computer I ever worked on had a tube tester built in :-).

Hi Kevin, thanks for the memories. Those emission testers did little
more than help sell vacuum tubes. Old Timey huh? I bet there's one or
two old old timers here who remember moving a cat whisker around a
piece of galena crystal to get the best reception from KDKA or WLW.

Sorry rcw, we didn't even turn the bakelite knobs on those old crystal
sets.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings

(Arch) wrote:

I bet there's one or
two old old timers here who remember moving a cat whisker around a
piece of galena crystal to get the best reception from KDKA or WLW.

WJR in Detroit. Then I got a real diode and I was in fat city. Listened to the
first Liston/Clay fight under my covers after bedtime.
-- Doug

Kevin said:

Well the video does have some turning in it and may well spark a smile
from those here who have messed about a bit with old-timey radio
tubes. I still remember when all the grocery stores had a small
machine in the corner somewhere where customers could test and buy
tubes for their tvs and radios.

Try a foxhole radio. A razor blade, lead from pencil, and headphones
(and of course, a long wire antenna and ground.). Not very selective,
but way back when, few had more than one strong station to choose
from. If you were rich (comparatively, for a kid) you could spring
for a cat's whisker and wind your own tuning coil. If you were really
well off, you bought a 365pf variable tuning cap as well. As a child
I worked in a television shop to pay the mortgage. I got $3, they got
the other $23. 4 repairs would pay their mortgage for the month. This
was at the cusp of tubes vs. semiconductors. By 10, I was climbing on
roofs around Atlanta installing TV antennas for round tube CRT color
televisions and doing the bulk of repairs.

The tube testers were marketing tools used to sell tubes - and for the
most part, utterly useless. Fortunately, semiconductors had become the
norm by my teens, although there were holdouts who still owned TVs
with vacuum tubes. The transistor put many a diddling moron out of
the TV business. Built my first computer from plans in a magazine in
high school, but there were no O.S.'s to speak of - unless you wrote
your own in the native CPU machine code. Made $13 an hour in 1980 and
bought a house whose mortgage was $198. In 1988 IBM payed the
insulting sum of $7.50 an hour until they tossed my office in the
street because I sued some politically connected dirtbag lawyer. Then
everything was shipped overseas for manufacture, is now assembled by
machines, and nothing is repairable. Your average mortgage is now
$700+, most jobs pay less than 20 years ago, and 32 different
pink-handed money-changers have their hands in your back pocket. For
the first time in history, the father had it WAY easier than the son.
What a country, an era, cursed by being born into.


Greg G.

"Douglas Johnson" wrote in message
...
(Arch) wrote:

I bet there's one or
two old old timers here who remember moving a cat whisker around a
piece of galena crystal to get the best reception from KDKA or WLW.

WJR in Detroit. Then I got a real diode and I was in fat city. Listened
to the
first Liston/Clay fight under my covers after bedtime.


"Wonderful WOWO" or for real dx, WWL. Sometimes I turn the car radio to AM
at night just to hear the fade, static and crosstalk.

Kevin said:

Well the video does have some turning in it and may well spark a smile
from those here who have messed about a bit with old-timey radio
tubes. I still remember when all the grocery stores had a small
machine in the corner somewhere where customers could test and buy
tubes for their tvs and radios.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/200...ccum_tube.html

I got a little off topic, even for an off topic post. Interesting
video nevertheless. 6th grade science fair project was a homemade
vacuum tube. Didn't have access to fancy metals, tools, glass, or
vacuum pumps, and parents weren't the least bit interested in
education, so I had trouble with the filaments burning out
prematurely. Had to keep an extra under the table for such
occurrences. Won 3rd place in state against a barrage of projects made
by other parents - questioning the kids revealed they hadn't a clue
what their project was or how it worked. Damned Lockheed jerks.
Envelopes were spice bottles, seals wouldn't maintain a vacuum - what
bit I could muster - but they worked for a while. The scrap heap later
turned out to be my friend.

Remember the Zenith Transoceanic receiver?
Tubes, A & B batteries, stinky leather case.

When a big solar flare or EM pulse knocks this modern stuff offline
permanently, you may find this knowledge useful. And damned the
government to hell for de-allocating the VHF spectrum and NTSC to
cell-phones. National security my ass.


Greg G.

Greg wrote:

Remember the Zenith Transoceanic receiver?


Used to be on my list of 'must buy' stuff that I never had the money for
when I was a kid. Got the MG and the Shopsmith and then decided the Zenith
would just be too much trouble. Still would like to see if the new Grundigs
live up to the quality of the old sets.