john curl said:
When I was 11 transistors were available already, so astronomy was less attractive... That first bass guitar amp I made used P210 output transistors, huge Germanium devices. The schematic I borrowed from a portable record player, I wanted the amp to be more powerful, but instead it drew more power from power outlet generating more heat. I did not know then I made class A amp out of class AB one, but I liked the sound!
5 years later in 1973 I made my first guitar amp using GU-50 output tubes. I still love them... May be it is the 1'st love?
When I was very young, 10-17, tubes ruled, and solid state was second place, except for special applications. For example, the portable radio that I had was all tube. The radio in my car was tube, the electric guitar amp that I had was tube, the TV's were all tube, and the clock radio that I had in my bedroom was tube. The first voltmeter that I built when I was 17 was a VTVM (tube), as well as my first audio oscillator, fm tuner, oscilloscope, and everything that I first built for several years. I did take an adult ed course in solid state that talked about transistors in about 1960, and I think they finally invented the silicon power transistor with any real bandwidth, called the 2N3055. I don't think that I actually saw a separate silicon transistor until 1964, but I had read a lot about them up to then.
Edmond Stuart said:When I was 11 I built my first illegal MW tramsmitter.
What did you use then?
Mine was made of a coil around base of 6P3S tube, with couple of capacitors and one resistor soldered directly to pins. It was made to be connected to output tube of any available tube radio (plate modulation) by wires. Easily removable. The problem was, warm tubes in a radio receiver.
Edmond Stuart said:When I was 11 (1954) I built my first illegal MW tramsmitter.
I was a bit older than eleven, but my transmitter output was a few watts. A friend and I transmitted over a local AM talkback radio station and actually got someone in my suburb to ring in (live on air) a complaint about the profanity on the air ways.
Crapped myself and pulled the conspicuous array of salvaged car antennas off the roof after that real fast.
A young blonde woman used to sunbathe topless in the backyard next door, so before this incident I used climb up on the roof to service my antennas a lot.
Cheers,
Glen
john curl said:
At 8 I built a crystal radio with a DGU-1 russian germanium point contact diode. At 9 I built the first short wave radio receiver using this http://www.transparentsound.com/transistors/vintage-transistors/Russia/N416-01A.JPG (RF germanium point contact). At 10 I built a tube power amp using 6N14 http://www.russiantubes.com/prop.php?t=12&p=212 and 6P6S tetrode http://www.russiantubes.com/prop.php?t=12&p=241 At 11 I built a "computer" (4 flip-flops with SFT323 germanium allied transistors, connected as 4 bit counter, a germanium diode matrix decoder and 16 OC26 germanium power transistors with 6.3V/300mA light bulbs loads. The thing was adding and displaying decimal numbers input through a phone rotary disk.
I stayed with computers
My first project (1959) was a vacuum tube based photocell project that I got from a beginners electronics book. In the USA, we had lots of really good kit manufacturers, both for tube audio equipment and test equipment. These companies were EICO, Heathkit, and Lafayette. They were a real bargain, and I still have some test equipment from that time.
In Soviet Union we learned how to build really good stuff from what can we get... We could buy only replacement parts for consumer electronics only like radio receivers and TV sets. However, some parts were available from garbage, like dead tube radios. There was a radio section in Scouts Club, they were getting some parts from enterprises for kids to play with. I grew up in a small Siberian town, we had no electronic plants, so parts were coming from post office (telephony stations), airport (some equipment left after upgrade), and so on.
Being a kid I spent lot of time in a public library reading "Radio" magazine... I was drooling reading articles because I did not expect a chance to get some parts... When I built my first bass guitar amp the main problem was to get a NPN transistor. They were very rare then!
GU-50 tubes brought from work my uncle who passed away long time ago... He used to be a staff engineer supporting telephony communications through high-voltage power lines...
Much later, when I was a student of Irkutsk University studying physics, I got access to many parts: there were many electronic plants in the town, so parts were available on a flea market. They were parts stolen from plants, including military production. Police knew about that, but flea markets in Soviet Union were alive, because without them lot of people could be unhappy... It was an example of the law: when a formal system can't work a non-formal one starts working...
Being a kid I spent lot of time in a public library reading "Radio" magazine... I was drooling reading articles because I did not expect a chance to get some parts... When I built my first bass guitar amp the main problem was to get a NPN transistor. They were very rare then!
GU-50 tubes brought from work my uncle who passed away long time ago... He used to be a staff engineer supporting telephony communications through high-voltage power lines...
Much later, when I was a student of Irkutsk University studying physics, I got access to many parts: there were many electronic plants in the town, so parts were available on a flea market. They were parts stolen from plants, including military production. Police knew about that, but flea markets in Soviet Union were alive, because without them lot of people could be unhappy... It was an example of the law: when a formal system can't work a non-formal one starts working...
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