On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 09:22:55 GMT, mick wrote:

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 06:42:09 +0000, Stewart Pinkerton wrote:


'kin elle, you must be nearly as old as me! :-)

Maybe!

I was brought up on valves mainly - a lot of them rescued from old TVs cos
we could get them really cheap! The bloke from the local TV shop used to
turn up with a van full of old sets now and again, and I spent hours
unsoldering and drilling pop-rivets off the chassis to get the valve
holders off for my dad. I had to sort the resistors into old OXO tins for
him cos he was red/green colour blind. It may be all those early
experiences that have produced some sort of affinity with valve gear for
me!

I remember my dad buying his first transistors (the first I had ever
seen) as part of a radio kit. They were probably Newmarket, in the flat
squarish cans, and marked with green & yellow spots on top for AF types
and red/yellow (or was it red/white?) spots for RF. They were also rather
expensive and very electrically fragile!

Wow! Yes, I remember those. Funny how a simple comment like that can
bring all those memories flooding back! Those old geraniums certainly
wilted in the heat, didn't they? :-)

Currently listening to the computer playing MP3s via a 6L6 "triode mode"
SE amp at the other side of the room. Things progress! ;-)

What, you like your music destroyed at source *and* delivery? :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"mick" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 10:12:14 +0000, Mike Gilmour wrote:

Coor, it must have been difficult being colour blind sorting resistors -
he's got to trust the right ones are in the right box ;-) Takes me back,
its
Red = AF and White = RF. That's just what I did as a kid take old
Clip

Ah, but those colours were on the black-painted glass transistors. These
were in metal cans (a sort of goldy colour) with 2 paint spots on the top.
The leads were in a single line with the collector spaced apart from the
others IIRC.

Ever scraped the paint off an early clear gel-filled OC71 (before they
made the filling opaque) to convert it into an OCP71?


Ah yes the instant photo-transistor :-) I remember also carefully removing
the paint.... and the ubiquitious ORP12 or was that a lot later? Remember
making a simple auto headlight dipping circuit for a friend jallopy which
detected main beam, needed more trials cos' it dipped at every street lamp
:-))) Doh!!!

radio's and commercial throwouts and cannabilise them for parts. Boxes
of valves, resistors, capacitors under my bed drove my mum crazy trying
to clean. One early project I remember was a super-het radio built in a
biscuit tin..that came after a long line of silly Xtal sets with a cats
whisker and cardboard bog rolls for coils (least I think it was bog
rolls..its a long time ago ;-), messing around trying to find the right
spot on a lump of germanium..god that was fiddly, even tried it with
coal and it worked :-) When I finally got hold of germanium diodes it
was heaven sent though a bit late.... all our yesterdays eh? ("Jumpers
for goalposts" - fast show??) :-)

Been through the crystal set thing, but only with germanium point
contact diodes (OA70?). There were some of those in the tellys. I never
got to play with lumps of germanium. I hadn't heard about using coal!

hmm... memories of trying to make frame aerials that worked with crystal
sets...

Oh yes a crossed wooden or square frame that turned, they were circular
later for RDF.


In those earlyish days I used to *dream* about amateur radio. Now I've
finally passed the RAE (and been licenced on VHF) I can't really be
bothered! Its an alternative use for those 6L6s that I got cheap if
I get bored with audio though... ;-)

Yep I went for marine radio and did more than my share of dit dahs
(He only dit it cos his dah dah didit) and my dream come true making and
repairing stuff.

Strange..missed a line of text out. The computers here are networked
with two others in the house on broadband (plus two servers stuck in a
cupboard)... but thats my son's domain, I'll ask him when he gets
back....

I do all me own networking! 4 boxes so far, mine on linux. Used to use a
fifth as a router but just got a ss quiet one! Intending to add a linux
file-server to the system (used to have one but scrapped it to get the
bits). All on cat5 - its cheaper than wireless and I've overcome any fear
of wires after all this time!

Just to keep this slightly on topic - my first experience of a valve amp
was a PA amp that my dad had got from somewhere. That had a pair of "large
size" 6L6s into a rather thin-looking OPT. I don't think he ever got it to
work really well (I think the OPT was duff) but the bits were around for
many years. Wish I still had the bottles - they would have looked rather
nice!

6L6's were very popular especially guitar amps..

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

Keith G wrote:

A pleasant, polite, passing professional person who, previously
positively pulverising poor pathetic Pouncing Pink Pillock's
****-poor posturing posts, paused, pondered and then pushed
off.....

Why would we worry Wally, what witless weasel words wearisome, washout
******s will write....??

There's this olde-tyme variety show that's looking for someone with your
talents...


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com
www.wally.myby.co.uk

In article ,
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
I remember my dad buying his first transistors (the first I had ever
seen) as part of a radio kit. They were probably Newmarket, in the flat
squarish cans, and marked with green & yellow spots on top for AF types
and red/yellow (or was it red/white?) spots for RF. They were also rather
expensive and very electrically fragile!

Wow! Yes, I remember those. Funny how a simple comment like that can
bring all those memories flooding back! Those old geraniums certainly
wilted in the heat, didn't they? :-)

I've still got a heatsink I made for soldering them - a crock clip with
two large diameter bits of copper wire soldered into the jaws then filed
flat, and two bits of copper plate soldered to the 'handles'.

IIRC, weren't green/yellow spots used for intermediate frequencies on a
superhet, so slightly cheaper than proper RF ones?

IIRC again, the first red spot I bought cost 10/6 - 52.5p. About 12 quid
in today's money.

--
*Microsoft broke Volkswagen's record: They only made 21.4 million bugs.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Wally" wrote in message
...
Keith G wrote:

A pleasant, polite, passing professional person who, previously
positively pulverising poor pathetic Pouncing Pink Pillock's
****-poor posturing posts, paused, pondered and then pushed
off.....

Why would we worry Wally, what witless weasel words wearisome, washout
******s will write....??

There's this olde-tyme variety show that's looking for someone with your
talents...



Ha ha, I know the one you mean but I'm stuffed for the name of it!

It was pretty good and I loved the blokey's convoluted, alliterative
introductions (whatever his name was) but my 'specialism' has already been
done to death on the boards by a geezer by the name of Joseph Pujol....

:-)

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 22:16:20 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

"Wally" wrote in message
...
Keith G wrote:

A pleasant, polite, passing professional person who, previously
positively pulverising poor pathetic Pouncing Pink Pillock's
****-poor posturing posts, paused, pondered and then pushed
off.....

Why would we worry Wally, what witless weasel words wearisome, washout
******s will write....??

There's this olde-tyme variety show that's looking for someone with your
talents...

Ha ha, I know the one you mean but I'm stuffed for the name of it!

It was pretty good and I loved the blokey's convoluted, alliterative
introductions (whatever his name was) but my 'specialism' has already been
done to death on the boards by a geezer by the name of Joseph Pujol....

The Good Old Days, with Andrew Sachs.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

In article ,
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
It was pretty good and I loved the blokey's convoluted, alliterative
introductions (whatever his name was) but my 'specialism' has already been
done to death on the boards by a geezer by the name of Joseph Pujol....

The Good Old Days, with Andrew Sachs.

Not the name of the original MC who died rather young.

--
*Stable Relationships Are For Horses.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 22:16:20 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

It was pretty good and I loved the blokey's convoluted, alliterative
introductions (whatever his name was) but my 'specialism' has already been
done to death on the boards by a geezer by the name of Joseph Pujol....


The Good Old Days, with Andrew Sachs.

I don't think Sachs had Pujol's particular talent. :-)

--
Eiron.

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 17:39:45 +0000, Stewart Pinkerton wrote:


What, you like your music destroyed at source *and* delivery? :-)

Of course! What can be nicer than umpteen mp3s to choose from without
needing to find miles of storage space together with a contribution to the
room heating and lighting bill? ;-) What's more, I tuned the amp's overall
NFB loop by ear so that it sounds fine to me. What measurements? lol!

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 18:01:20 +0000, Mike Gilmour wrote:


6L6's were very popular especially guitar amps..

They still are - over 65 years after the original version appeared. Far
too good for guitar amps though - at least the early versions were. I'm
not too sure about the C versions - I think there may be sound quality
sacrificed to get more out of them.

Do you think any current ss devices will still be manufactured & sold in
hundreds of thousands in 2069?

Just in case anyone is interested, it appears that my valves, although
marked "6L6GC - SOVTEK - MADE IN USSR" appear to be some obscure bottle
called 6P3S. Still nice (if you keep Va below 375 & Vg2 below 300), and
just slightly higher rated than a 6L6B (20W compared to 19W). Very rugged
but not as pretty as the original 6L6 in big bottles!

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info