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Showing posts with label tube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tube. Show all posts

Monday, March 15, 2021

Aladdin's Lamp == The Vacuum Tube (aka The Thermatron) (Video)


After our posting of the video about 1957 transistor production, our friend Peter O'Connell VK2EMU asked for some equal time for vacuum tubes.  He sent me this 1940 Western Electric video.  It is quite interesting. 

-- I like the Aladdin's lamp metaphor.  When I was out in the Azores I thought of my homebrew 17 meter DSB rig as my "magic carpet." 

-- Lowell Thomas was brought in to narrate.  His voice sounds a lot more natural than that used to narrate the transistor film. 

-- To explain the effectiveness of transcontinental telephony with vacuum tube repeaters, they compared the system that of a relay of "hog callers" claiming that it would take 100,000 hog callers to carry a signal from New York to San Francisco.  So perhaps this could be a rival to db?   100,000 hc? 

-- Arlington to Paris 1915 caught my eye -- Arlington Va. is right down the road. 

-- The film of Edison in his lab was good to see.  And note the importance of his lab notebooks. 

-- The explanation of thermionic emission was quite good.  But of course too much credit was given to Lee DeForest. 

-- The breathless description of the amazing uses of tube technology was for me a reminder of how recent this technology is.  My father started as New York City cop in the 1950s.  He always referred to his police car as a "radio car." 

Hey, are any radio amateurs out there using one of those big water-cooled tubes?  If not, why not? 

Monday, March 9, 2020

The Homebrew Rigs I Worked During the First Day of Novice Rig Roundup (NRR)


The Thing-of-Beauty above is "The Scrounger" homebrew transmitter of Jon WS1K. Jon writes: 

The rig I used this morning was the Scrounger.  I built it a couple of weeks ago.  It took me about 2 months of trolling a local thrift store for the right pan. I wanted a pan that captured the spirit of a true Novice built rig.
As a side note, the key that I'm using is a JH Bunnell that I bought at one of the MIT flea markets last summer in Cambridge.  It's mounted on a piece of plywood and written on the plywood is the Novice callsign WN1UMD.  Cool or what?

More of Jon's rigs here: https://www.qrz.com/db/WS1K




Above is Greg Latta AA8V's amazing 6X2 superhet receiver: 
More details here:



Saturday, July 2, 2016

SolderSmoke Podcast #188: Blue Rig, 6U8 RX, Dial strings, Hamfest, VFO Builds, MAILBAG

SolderSmoke Podcast #188 is available.


http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke188.mp3

Audio "sparkle"

Bench Reports:
Pete: Blue Rig, Amplifier Project, LBS and Simpleceivers around the world
Si5351s in the new Elecraft KX2

Bill: 
Mighty Midget Mate 6U8 RX Refinement
Using a Millen 61455 IF can
Broad, but beautiful. But not as nice as PA3GSV's
Tweaking a VFO the old fashioned way
Reduction Drive Re-works.
A Confession:  Using Amplified Computer Speakers

Back to the lipsticked pig.  Pete convinces Bill to fix the S38-E
dial cord. 

Manassas Hamfest Report.

Field Day.

Mysteries:

Who is WV2YAU

Who sold Bill the hombrew SWR meter at Manassas?

MAILBAG
Designer: Douglas Bowman | Dimodifikasi oleh Abdul Munir Original Posting Rounders 3 Column