"m" wrote in message ...
Graham. wrote:

.


I vaguely remember making one in the mid '60s I seem to recall I used a small stump
of a carbon rod for one electrode and the rest of it I pulverised for the granules
I cant remember a second carbon rod, I thing the capsule might have been metallic.
I've no memory of the diaphragm, nor any of the finished mic in use which leads
me to believe the whole enterprise was a failure.

Our school text books showed the carbon rod in a dry cell surrounded by a muslin
bag containing the MnO2 depolariser, but I never found such a bag in all the U2s I
dissected. Was it present in the era you are talking about? Perhaps it goes further back
than that and my school's text books and teaching practices weren't renowned for
being modern.




But we all used to make things in those days. Now kids (IT people?) just go to Tandy (sorry Maplin) or very expensive Hi-Fi stores
and buy things ready made.
I wonder how many would be able to put on a mains plug - let alone make up even a SCART flail or a belling-Lee tele aerial
connector?
They don't baulk at a SCART or HDMI lead that costs more than the equipment connected.

Mike

I was doing an installation with a colleague and I decided to shorten a 6 way mains
plug-board for neatness as it had a rewireable plug.
He was quite uncomfortable about me doing this and wondered if we "were insured"

The sad thing is he was probably right.

On another occasion we were required to attend a training session where one
of the software developers showed us how to graft an RJ45 to a length of CAT5
Choosing to ignore the fact that the clamp missed the sheath on his effort, I pointed
out that he had just crimped a normal plug to solid cored cable.

The guy had no idea.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

In message , Arny Krueger
writes:
[]
They don't baulk at a SCART or HDMI lead that costs more
than the equipment connected.

Not if you know where to buy them. Unfortunately, not any local
brick-and-mortar store that I know of.


Well, they tend to be concrete (or whatever old Woolworth's stores were
built of), but poundshops (or 99p shops) sell SCART leads. Sure, not the
highest quality! But they do for a lot of purposes. Tend not to use any
screened cables, though the ones I've seen have at least been fully
wired (i. e. all 20/21 pins).

I _think_ I've seen HDMI ones in a similar outlet. Probably of similar
quality (i. e. certainly not high in technical terms, but not as bad as
you'd think, certainly mechanically).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Anybody can garble quotations like that -- even with the Bible... Er... "And he
went and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5). Go, and do thou likewise (Luke 10:37)."

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
I'll bet they were in the early days. The BBC certainly used them for a
while.

Interesting, Do you know what did they use them for?

Err, broadcasting? I'm surprised you've never heard of the GEC Peel
Conner. Or Marconi Reisz. Etc. Carbon mics were used into the '30s.

But in what application? Speech only?
Surely not for music?

The Schottky ribbon dates from 1923
and ribbon mics were available from the very
earliest days of electrical recording and
ubiquitous by early 1930s

Even by modern standards, ribbons can produce
a very pleasing sound. I have a pair of British made
Film Industries M8s which are excellent on strings,
and the STC/Coles 4xxx series is still highly regarded
by people who have them. Especially pleasing for
acoustic guitar.

After the AXBT came the PGS - both BBC designs. The PGS was then slightly
modified for production and made by STC as the 4038. I have one.

We had a number of 4038s at Decca. I have
never come across them since.

Still my
favourite alto sax mic. You should try it on those sometime

I would if I had one. I can imagine it would sound very good on
an alto saxophone in an orchestral setting - Ravel, Dubois, etc.
But for jazz, where you need proximity, two mics are often neede
for solo alto. A pair of 84s are a popular choice, among those
that have them. Their placement needs particular care. Fortunately,
the legendary Greek recording engineer Isosceles has worked it all
out for us:-)

Iain

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

Iain had written
had a carbon hand mic in a very substatial bakelite case
and padding with a switch on the side. It had the British WD
mark and broad arrrow on the back plus RTC (Royal Tank Corps)
and 2DG (2nd Dragoon Guards) After a while, I exchanged it for a
78rpm record; "All Shook Up" which I still have. I wonder if that
spotty kid in short trousers still has my mic? I would like it back:-)

Carbon mics were used widely by the miliary through WW2.

Indeed. you probably did not get the significance of my mention
of the WD broad arrrow. The 2nd Dragoon Guards, raised as
a regiment of horse dragoons in the 1680s became a mechanised
regiment a few years before WW2 and were part of The Royal
Armoured Corps ("The Tanks")

So the mic I referred to may well have been used by
a tank commander in W.Europe or maybe N.Africa.
I wish I still had it.

Iain

In message on Fri, 4 Mar 2011 00:18:58 +0000
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , Arny Krueger
writes:
[]
They don't baulk at a SCART or HDMI lead that costs more
than the equipment connected.

Not if you know where to buy them. Unfortunately, not any local
brick-and-mortar store that I know of.


Well, they tend to be concrete (or whatever old Woolworth's stores were
built of), but poundshops (or 99p shops) sell SCART leads. Sure, not the
highest quality! But they do for a lot of purposes. Tend not to use any
screened cables, though the ones I've seen have at least been fully
wired (i. e. all 20/21 pins).

I _think_ I've seen HDMI ones in a similar outlet. Probably of similar
quality (i. e. certainly not high in technical terms, but not as bad as
you'd think, certainly mechanically).

Ah yes! Wonderful places, those pound shops!

Despite carrying around a large drum of Cat5E plus plugs and tools to match, I bought
some 5m ethernet patch cords at a pound shop a few years ago.

It was so much easier when carrying out testing and upgrade work to spot my
Red/Green/Blue/Orange/Yellow cables amongst the sea of grey on a congested patch panel!

It is also much easier to see which USB cable is which when under the desk peering round
the back of the PC when the printer, scanner, etc., are all different brightly coloured
cables (from the same source) - beats trying to read labels!

I invested five euros on an extention mains lead in the Netherlands, I cut the Shuko
connectors off and just used the cable - 10 metres @ 50c/metre - and could instantly spot
it anywhere because it was bright yellow!

--

Terry

In message on Thu, 3 Mar 2011 17:14:53 +0000
tony sayer wrote:

Besides all things radio, I was intrested in modulated light, and we had a
perminant light
beam telephone set up between my room and the shop across the road, the one that
used to be owned by Mr Saul.


We used to do that with a carbon mic based phone set and stakes set into
the ground some distance apart. Set up a sufficient field for it to work
seem to remember a lot of volts were used from those olde dry HT
batteries;!..

My brother and I tried that once! Buried an old chassis at the far end of the garden for
one electrode and used the rising main for the other (the wring in our house was so ol;d
that all we had was 5A 2-pin sockets!)

We were going to drive it with my 10W amplifier - 2 x 6V6 + 2 x 6SN7 IIRC.

That was how we found out that there was a fault in the mains transformer - the
insulation had broken down between the primary and the core and we just managed to get
the mains plug the right (or should that be wrong) way round!

--

Terry

In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
I'll bet they were in the early days. The BBC certainly used them for a
while.

Interesting, Do you know what did they use them for?

Err, broadcasting? I'm surprised you've never heard of the GEC Peel
Conner. Or Marconi Reisz. Etc. Carbon mics were used into the '30s.

But in what application? Speech only?
Surely not for music?

Not having been around then my guess is they were used for everything and
anything. They didn't have the selection we have today. ;-) Certainly
early pics show it being used for singists.

The Schottky ribbon dates from 1923
and ribbon mics were available from the very
earliest days of electrical recording and
ubiquitous by early 1930s

Even by modern standards, ribbons can produce
a very pleasing sound. I have a pair of British made
Film Industries M8s which are excellent on strings,
and the STC/Coles 4xxx series is still highly regarded
by people who have them. Especially pleasing for
acoustic guitar.

After the AXBT came the PGS - both BBC designs. The PGS was then
slightly modified for production and made by STC as the 4038. I have
one.

We had a number of 4038s at Decca. I have
never come across them since.

I'm surprised. It's the sort of mic most people have at least one of.
Since it was one of the finest general purpose mics of all time. But very
pricey.

Still my
favourite alto sax mic. You should try it on those sometime

I would if I had one. I can imagine it would sound very good on
an alto saxophone in an orchestral setting - Ravel, Dubois, etc.
But for jazz, where you need proximity, two mics are often neede
for solo alto. A pair of 84s are a popular choice, among those
that have them. Their placement needs particular care. Fortunately,
the legendary Greek recording engineer Isosceles has worked it all
out for us:-)

It works just fine for any type of music. Being extremely dead on the
sides has uses in a multi-mic setup too.

--
*Would a fly without wings be called a walk?

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

In article ,
Terry Casey wrote:
Well, they tend to be concrete (or whatever old Woolworth's stores
were built of), but poundshops (or 99p shops) sell SCART leads. Sure,
not the highest quality! But they do for a lot of purposes. Tend not
to use any screened cables, though the ones I've seen have at least
been fully wired (i. e. all 20/21 pins).

I _think_ I've seen HDMI ones in a similar outlet. Probably of similar
quality (i. e. certainly not high in technical terms, but not as bad
as you'd think, certainly mechanically).

Ah yes! Wonderful places, those pound shops!

One near here had 'karaoke' mics for 99p. Appeared to be moving coil by
the weight - and had a metal body.

--
*I brake for no apparent reason.

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

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

Not that much has changed. In 1962 I was the *genius child* at a large
electronics store because I knew how to solder a RCA plug on the end of a
piece of shielded cable.

....and it went to his head, so he spent the rest of his life talking ****e
about audio signals and audio systems; sounding just like a real professor,
but without the actual scientific knowledge or credentials.
I heard he wears a "white scientist coat", his graphs are very colourful,
and he printed his certificates on the finest quality paper.
He's kept in the same asylum as "David Robinson" (it's called "Hydrogen
Audio").

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
I'll bet they were in the early days. The BBC certainly used them
for a
while.

Interesting, Do you know what did they use them for?

Err, broadcasting? I'm surprised you've never heard of the GEC Peel
Conner. Or Marconi Reisz. Etc. Carbon mics were used into the '30s.

But in what application? Speech only?
Surely not for music?

Not having been around then my guess is they were used for everything and
anything. They didn't have the selection we have today. ;-) Certainly
early pics show it being used for singists.

Gosh! I wonder what that sounded like?

I once worked on a Pasadena Roof Orch type job
where the singer used a megaphone into an STC4038.
On another session, the original singer of The Temperance
Seven, whose name escapes me, is said to have sung
a chorus with his head in a galvanised bucket!

We had a number of 4038s at Decca. I have
never come across them since.

I'm surprised. It's the sort of mic most people have at least one of.

Not outide the UK

Since it was one of the finest general purpose mics of all time. But very
pricey.

It would be interesting to compare it with my long term favourite
the original vintage U-47.

It works just fine for any type of music. Being extremely dead on the
sides has uses in a multi-mic setup too.

In many instances, hyper-cardiod ís not the best choice.
One can use omni and Fo8 pattern to great advantage.
I was taught to mic French horns with a Fo8 and take
use the surrounding acoustic which plays such a large
role in their sound. You need to set the studio up
properly and ensure there is no-one sitting behind
them blowing into their mics.

Regards
Iain