Re: Kilowatts

On 2025-01-15, vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote:

On 15 Jan 2025 00:39:16 GMT, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote in
<luoedkF6gdtU1@mid.individual.net>:
>

On 14 Jan 2025 22:34:47 GMT, vallor wrote:
 

Sidenote: Do they still teach electronics with discrete components in
High School?  I hope so...I learned it growing up, but having a
structured course with theory helped with my "STEM" career (which
wasn't called that back then...).

 
My high school didn't have an electronics course. Had they, given the
lag between high school courses and the rest of the world, the discretes
would have been 6AU6s pentode and six dot mica capacitors.
 
https://www.radioremembered.org/capcode.htm
 
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/RYYAAOSwxT5nV79L/s-l1600.webp
 
If you don't know what the image is your education was limited. I had an
advantage. My uncle owned a radio and TV store where the 'store' part
was small compared to the back room with units waiting repair. 'In those
days when the TV repairman, who made house calls, pronounced 'it has to
go back to the shop' it was like your doctor telling you that you should
get your affairs in order.
 
He was old enough that in the course of his life radios and then TVs
were cutting edge technology.

>
I remember watching our old black & white console while it blew
a cap.
>
It was an extended affair, lasting maybe a minute -- the
tv was making a keening noise as the picture bent inward on
one side.  Then "pop!" and the picture went away.

We had a BW TV which would toast a tube every time we came back from spending
summer vacation at our country house. It was very strange.
I would also complain about the high frequency noise from the flyback transformer.
Smack the side of the TV and it went away.

We never had tv repairmen -- Dad always fixed it.  He also
fixed my Hallicrafters S-38 at his shop while I watched, getting
rid of the 60Hz hum and adding a standard headphone jack.

My dad and his best friend ran a TV repair biz on the side.
As it turns out he was a ham and had a Hallicrafters SX-100.
I used to listen to radio Moscow propaganda all the time.
I eventually got my novice license and then general.
Today I'm an amateur extra.

https://antiqueradio.org/halli08.htm
>
As an avid SWL, the HF propagation experience helped a lot
with my Radioman rating in the CG.
>
Could also hear quite a bit about what was going on in
the world, thanks to having a very, very long longwire
antenna.  Building that was how Dad taught me to differentiate
between physical connections and electrical connections.  Made
from zip-cord, it went out the window, up a tree, then out to
a pole at one corner of the yard, then across to another pole
at the other end of the yard.  Great for DX listening.
>

It's all about the antenna and thinking outside the box makes the difference.
Experiment.


--
pothead

"Give a man a fish and you turn him into a Democrat for life"
"Teach a man to fish and he might become a self-sufficient conservative Republican"
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up,"
---  Barack H. Obama