Show us your gear!

[mandrix]

As part of my lab work in Industrial Electronics, I had to build a tube radio. I believe it was more about developing soldering skills and making the shortest path from A > B.
There were some who never got it down or even made a functioning radio.
I still remember the calculator I used in the classroom sessions, though not the brand. Instead of the TI calculators I had one that used "reverse polish logic" with a crude red display. lol.
1978'ish I think, on the GI bill.

I don't think I ever had a crystal radio though I vaguely remember kits at Radio Shack I think.

 

[par4ken]

https://unitednuclear.com/crystal-radios-parts-c-27_98/the-ultimate-crystal-radio-kit-p-1192.html

View attachment 112378

That is very cool!

It is sad (in a way) that where I live there is no longer any local AM radio.

I had that kit beat for simplicity once. I lived across the road from the local AM radio station. I connected my outside long wire antenna to a speaker through a germanium diode the other side of the speaker connected to ground. The station played through the speaker with good volume and excellent sound quality!

It was always a challenge to keep the radio station out of my stereo system. Likewise the phone company couldn't get it off the phone line!

 

[mandrix]

That is very cool!

It is sad (in a way) that where I live there is no longer any local AM radio.

I had that kit it beat for simplicity once. I lived across the road from the local AM radio station. I connected my outside long wire antenna to a speaker through a germanium diode the other side of the speaker connected to ground. The station played through the speaker with good volume and excellent sound quality!

It was always a challenge to keep the radio station out of my stereo system. Likewise the phone company couldn't get it off the phone line!

Crosstalk. (not really) It's just like..."Crosstown Traffic...so hard to get through to you" .

I had a friend once lived next to a station that had the broadcast tower on the premises. We were standing outside one day in cloudy weather and watched as the tower evidently got struck by lightning. Looked like a ball of fire rolled down from top to bottom, a thing I once saw while working on a big mining dragline. Lightning hit the end of the boom and a ball of "fire" rolled all the way down the hoist cable and disappeared at the end of the enclosure. Bucyrus 1260 dragline, small by today's standards for sure.

Stories R US.

 

[Sal1950]

It was always a challenge to keep the radio station out of my stereo system. Likewise the phone company couldn't get it off the phone line!

Like back in the 60s I built a 120 watt linear amp for my CB.
And trying to keep my transmissions out of the neighbors TV's, and them out of my parents ear.
I'm so ashamed. LOL

 

[barfle]

https://unitednuclear.com/crystal-radios-parts-c-27_98/the-ultimate-crystal-radio-kit-p-1192.html

View attachment 112378

I had a crystal set back in the 1950s, although it had a commercial diode as the demodulator. It usually was good for one station - “tuning” was more of a volume control than a station selector. But I could listen to the Detroit Tigers’ games.

 

[stevendive]

https://unitednuclear.com/crystal-radios-parts-c-27_98/the-ultimate-crystal-radio-kit-p-1192.html

View attachment 112378

Our school physics classroom had a similar one to that. I don’t remember ever being able to pick up anything audible though, but we were probably just too impatient with the whisker placement. This was back in around 1970.

 

[audiomaster]

Like back in the 60s I built a 120 watt linear amp for my CB.
And trying to keep my transmissions out of the neighbors TV's, and them out of my parents ear.
I'm so ashamed. LOL

That's a big 10-4 good buddy!

 

[Sal1950]

Our school physics classroom had a similar one to that. I don’t remember ever being able to pick up anything audible though, but we were probably just too impatient with the whisker placement. This was back in around 1970.

Most often the most important part is the antenna.
Unless you run a 50-100 foot long outside wire, pickup up much is very iffy.

 

[Sal1950]

That's a big 10-4 good buddy!

I still carry a warm place in my heart for the 6146A beam power tube.
I had to save up months to buy the 4 needed for my linear, at the time the most
expensive part of the build by far.

 

[par4ken]

I still carry a warm place in my heart for the 6146A beam power tube.
I had to save up months to buy the 4 needed for my linear, at the time the most
expensive part of the build by far.

I was once given a box full of those tubes, I was going to use them in an audio amplifier. I didn't have the specified Acro transformer but substituted a similar one made by Hammond. I was having issues and ended up using KT-88s instead. I use those amplifiers today to power my midrange and tweeters!

 

[MidiMagic]

As part of my lab work in Industrial Electronics, I had to build a tube radio. I believe it was more about developing soldering skills and making the shortest path from A > B.
There were some who never got it down or even made a functioning radio.
I still remember the calculator I used in the classroom sessions, though not the brand. Instead of the TI calculators I had one that used "reverse polish logic" with a crude red display. lol.
1978'ish I think, on the GI bill.

I don't think I ever had a crystal radio though I vaguely remember kits at Radio Shack I think.

Probably a Hewlett-Packard calculator.

I started with a TI-56 with the AOS (algebraic operating system). I won't buy a calculator that doesn't have it. The $10 Casio fx-260 has everything I need.

I built a tube power amplifier in 8th grade science (everyone in the class made one).

 

[MidiMagic]

I would genuinely love to hear you playing Telstar. One of my faves. Dr Who you should check out.

Not yet. I have a lot of work to do on technique. I played them, but not perfectly.

The last theremin I played had the notes farther apart.

But this is the first one I owned.

I would have to learn the entire Dr Who song mentally before I could play it.

 

[audiomaster]

You kids missed all the fun. All I had in college was a slide rule! I had a panic attack in a college physics final when I realized I had forgotten my slide rule! Fortunately the physics prof loaned me hers!
Later I graduated to a HP35, then an HP45, then to a HP41 with a card reader and printer. That was big time then!

 

[MidiMagic]

You kids missed all the fun. All I had in college was a slide rule! I had a panic attack in a college physics final when I realized I had forgotten my slide rule! Fortunately the physics prof loaned me hers!
Later I graduated to a HP35, then an HP45, then to a HP41 with a card reader and printer. That was big time then!

I started out with a slide rule in high school, and became an expert at using one. I still have it because it is great for tutoring how logarithms work.

I did the initial calculations for the quadraphonic systems with that slide rule. I didn't have a calculator until 1976.

 

[Sal1950]

You kids missed all the fun. All I had in college was a slide rule!

WOW, You had a slide rule ?
All I had was an Abacus !

 

[barfle]

You kids missed all the fun. All I had in college was a slide rule! I had a panic attack in a college physics final when I realized I had forgotten my slide rule! Fortunately the physics prof loaned me hers!
Later I graduated to a HP35, then an HP45, then to a HP41 with a card reader and printer. That was big time then!

One thing about slide rules is that the batteries never go dead.q

I also jad a handful of calculators over the years, ending up with an HP41-C. I had the bar code reader, the printer, expanded memory, and a hacking ROM. It took me a year to go through the manual.

 

[ar surround]

You kids missed all the fun. All I had in college was a slide rule! I had a panic attack in a college physics final when I realized I had forgotten my slide rule! Fortunately the physics prof loaned me hers!
Later I graduated to a HP35, then an HP45, then to a HP41 with a card reader and printer. That was big time then!

You had high-end stuff, audiomaster! All I had was an Texas Instruments SR-10. It cost like $500 in today's dollars, but that HP45 costs ca $2300-$2400 in today's dollars. Then just a couple of years later they came out with the HP25C, a programmable animal that was only $125...essentially free.

But that SR-10 made such a difference, especially with profs that gave people a -0- on a long problem just because they made a small arithmetic error...like slipping a decimal place calculating bloody Angstrom units.

(For you Bears fans, an Angstrom is one ten-billionth of a meter, which is even way smaller than a Double-Doink.)

 

[mandrix]

You kids missed all the fun. All I had in college was a slide rule! I had a panic attack in a college physics final when I realized I had forgotten my slide rule! Fortunately the physics prof loaned me hers!
Later I graduated to a HP35, then an HP45, then to a HP41 with a card reader and printer. That was big time then!

I didn't take the electronics course until 1978. I had been out of the Army for quite some time by then. So I was in my late 20's.
I've looked at pics of calculators from back then but haven't seen one that looked like mine. It was not a big brand like HP or TI, I bought it at an Eckerds drug store because it was all I could afford.

But I was not able to take Algebra in High School, and never got that Calculus course because I had to go back to work to make a living.
I did go to work in QC repairing boards for a company that manufactured for various phone companies, etc.

 

[audiomaster]

I didn't take the electronics course until 1978. I had been out of the Army for quite some time by then. So I was in my late 20's.
I've looked at pics of calculators from back then but haven't seen one that looked like mine. It was not a big brand like HP or TI, I bought it at an Eckerds drug store because it was all I could afford.

But I was not able to take Algebra in High School, and never got that Calculus course because I had to go back to work to make a living.
I did go to work in QC repairing boards for a company that manufactured for various phone companies, etc.

I was Army Signal Corp. 84D20 audio specialist. 1969-72

 

[mandrix]

I was Army Signal Corp. 84D20 audio specialist. 1969-72

I was the an idiot on the .50 cal.