I have a giant pile of crap that needs to go - probably to Hamvention - but I’ve been giving it away as I find people who are interested. A co-worker had a fake NIXIE clock on his desk, so I asked if he wanted some real stuff. He said yes, and here it is:
The first is a Fairchild Volt/Ohm meter. It does DC and Ohms. That’s all. It’s intact but rough, and looks like it may have had a handle at one time. Yes, it’s THAT Fairchild.
The tubes in this guy are nice and bright, surprising for as poor of condition it’s in. It seems to work, but could use a calibration:
A disagreement of 0.04VDC. Not bad!
The second piece is a Time Systems counter. This is most certainly a piece of space race equipment put together by a company that sprung up to support the frenzy of the time. It’s a counter/timer with three ranges of measurement.
The back has a bunch of card edges on it. Probably brings out all of the data from the timer, but in what format - who knows.
There’s very little information about this company, and too many businesses today named “Time Systems.” I have to assume they’re like all these little companies from the period - appeared and made some equipment, 10 years later when technology made things cheaper they just kind of faded away.
Let’s set the generator to 1kHz and see what this thing does. The switches need a good cleaning, as they need to be wiggled to get the clock to run. The measured value is what I know my signal generator outputs at the given selection, so we’re good.
Testing against my “known” device:
These are off to their new home. Stay tuned for more Junk from the Hamvention Pile, I mean “Projects from the Bottom Drawer!”
The show this year was smaller than usual, occupying maybe 3/5 to 3/4 of the normal space, with a large section left empty. Prices at this show ranged from ok to stupid, which is kind of unusual as this show usually features pretty good values. There were a couple that simply were smoking crack and asking prices that would have been appropriate years ago when the equipment was newer.
I primarily went to get a bunch of tubes from Bob at hamtubes.com - he always has really good prices on tubes both rare and common, so that’s where I spent the bulk of my purchase money. A few other things came home with me, including a couple that will get featured here as soon as I can get to them.
There were still good things to see, and here they are:
A Hallicrafters radio and a junk-tier audio generator.
Indiana Bell with the old logo.
The magneto crank is still there.
An old school transistor checker.
An old CBM desk calculator.
delco.jpg
An Eico meter that's well loved.
Just a bunch of equipment.
More test equipment.
The main floor.
Voltmeters n things.
More voltmeters including a rare Simpson.
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A nice old Philco radio.
An unusual name on a stereo.
This rusty artifact went home with me.
This guy had a bunch of good radios.
Lots of this kind of radio this year.
One of those press-panel scanners.
The 1970s are calling.
Just stuff.
More stuff.
This is what we go to shows for.
Lots of junk, er, goodies.
Even more things.
Radios n more things.
Big old equipment.
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I went to this show mostly for this vendor.
One of many tube testers.
More tube testers.
Test those tubes!
And more tests!
A friend said “It's…um…yellow!”
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That’s it as far as hamfests for 2024 - the next two shows will be the Scott Antique Market events this coming (after Thanksgiving) weekend, and right before Christmas. I may combine those two into one post, depending on what I see.
The Fort Wayne hamfest happened today. The show was kind of mildy disappointing, with somewhat less vendors showing up this year - and some that were simply smoking crack when it came to prices. One in particular made eBay prices look low, and reminded me of the vendor that had those big stainless steel racks of test equipment at Hamvention with astronomical prices on them, rain or shine. I wish them luck in selling, but you’re going to be hard pressed to unload some of that stuff - especially when you can get new equivalents (from the same manufacturer!) for less.
Regardless, there was still some good stuff to see and take home. Stay tuned, pictures are on the way!
Back in part 5 of my Heathkit IG-72 series, I was getting ready to button things up when the socket for the rectifier tube started arcing. I assumed there as carbon tracking inside the socket and moved on with replacing it.
That assumption was correct. Here’s the top wafer:
You can clearly see the arc has eaten away the portion between pins 6 and 7, while depositing a lot of carbon and other debris on the phenolic wafer. The bottom wafer is similar:
It’s not the easiest thing to see, but there’s a lot of soot on the same two pins, and part of the socket crumbled away as the rivet was being drilled out. I’m surprised this thing didn’t arc as soon as it was turned on - but perhaps this is why the device was retired. Who knows, really.
Regardless, there’s a new socket in it’s place that shouldn’t have this issue, and this one goes in the bin - although I may save a few of the better pins for some later purpose.
This interesting piece came from the 2024 Cleveland Hamfest for $5. The vendor was selling an estate - that seems to be happening a lot lately - and was just looking to return some cash to the estate itself. He knew nothing about the unit, but I took a chance and picked it up.
Aerovox, of course, is a name you’ll probably see on capacitors in older devices. The name Aerovox is still out there, but it seems to be more of an industrial player instead of a consumer devices company.
The device seems to be fairly standard at first glance, with your normal ranges and dial to tune to the unit under test.
Nothing special about the case.
The back does have a nice cord wrap area, and the cord seems to be still soft.
The probe is the most unusual part of this device, and is a deal-breaker for using the thing.
Its an inductive probe - there was another piece that went inside this loop of copper, so you could make a part connection without actually connecting the electronics of the tester to the part itself. This is kind of cool because it avoids hitting a live or charged device, but it’s also missing the business end of the probe, so the device can’t read anything. I’m sure it could be modified to work, but I have enough checkers already…
The inside is pretty sparse. A big selenium stack, some capacitors, and the oscillator section for actually checking parts. The big banana slicer in the middle dominates everything.
The device does come alive, and switching things makes the eye open and close.
But…that’s about it. Without the probe, it’s nothing more than a shelf queen - or parts. Fortunately, I have someone who would like a display piece, so it goes to them instead of the parts bin.
This little scope came from the recent MARC hamfest, and was sold as not working - the previous owner stated that someone had removed tubes, and all he did was verify the heater in the CRT was lighting up. He was right, someone removed all of the 12AX7 tubes as well as a 6U10 compactron, leaving only a 6AG11 compactron in place. All of these devices are triode amplifiers, with the 6AG11 having two diodes in addition to the triodes.
The device appears to have a solid-state power supply with solitary diode. There’s some small evidence of repairs being made over the years, but for the most part it seems to be fairly original.
The device is capable of operating on 50-400Hz @ 115VAC
The front offers all the controls, and uses pin jacks for input on a strip at the bottom. That’s kind of unusual. The metal under the paint appears to be oxidized, and the enamel with the lettering is flaking off. The potentiometers are brought out to the front by long internal shafts, some of which are bent. This could be an easy fix, as they’re just connected internally with nylon unions.
The back offers a cord wrap and some screw terminals, presumably for grounds. It also offers a badly exiting cord from the previous owner.
The device is relatively clean inside with the transformer, power supply, and high voltage all riding in the back.
The bottom is well packed, but there’s no wax paper stuff as far as I can see. Looks like films and other decent capacitors, but I bet some of those carbon comp resistors are drifting. There’s an electrolytic that’s probably baked out, and some neon bulbs of unknown type probably being used as regulators that would need to be replaced, but that’s about it.
You can see where the previous owner removed all of the “good” tubes. The 6AG11 is also a triode pair, so I’m not sure why they didn’t remove it as well. Fortunately, if you’re not concerned about the make of the tubes, all of them can be relatively cheap - there’s about $25 worth needed for this device.
It’s an interesting little scope, and would be perfect for a benchtop radio repair station - tube scope with tube inputs doesn’t care if you hit B+ for a second.
I think I may give it a shot and see if it will live again. If someone out there has a schematic for this unit, I’d appreciate a copy.
This is a show that I’d never been to, but it was a double treat. The show itself had a decent array of vendors and stuff, and the show was being held at the Military Air Preservation Society hanger, so we were able to tour the grounds as part of our show admission.
I highly suggest you check out the air museum portion, there’s a lot to see. Pictures of that coming soon.
We browsed the aisles for a couple hours, wandering through a few times. I brought home a few books and a small scope, my friend brought home some older high-end audio gear. There were a few other things that caught my eye, but I’ve got enough anchors working right now that I’m good - and the few remaining ones I’d like didn’t show up here.
Regardless, we had a good time and will probably come back next year, time and circumstances permitting.
An old Rat Shack reverb device that uses a BBD chip.
A friend wanted to know how much they were asking for the bomber.
An older CountyComm radio amidst the parts.
These will be available forever, I think.
A video filter, I thought it was an 8-track with BNCs at first.
A bunch of monitorradios and a novelty device.
An old Jerrold cable television analyzer device.
These are slowly vanishing from the scene.
A Papst metal fan. This thing had some heft!
Looks like someone was copying VIZ.
There is one monitor scope for every person on Earth.
The requisite boxes of parts.
Radio Shack stuff was pretty decent, TBH.
Another “Not a sig gen, a big gen!” For FM work.
Just stuff. It's what we go to shows for.
Some unusual electronics trainer kits.
A stack of radios. Go figure…
The tuner and CD player went home with a friend.
An old WEN soldering gun.
Begone ye demon of the past!
I think we saw this one before.
Zenith made this chassis forever.
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Next (and last hamfest of the year) show is Fort Wayne on the 16th of November. See you there!
If you’ve ever opened an audio generator from the tube era, chances are you’ve seen one of these in the circuit.
That’s a GE type 11098 - 3S6/5 - a 3W, 115V lamp. It’s used as a balance element for the oscillator in those devices. It acts like a PTC resistor.
The generator I picked up recently at the Piketon Hamfest has a slightly unbalanced output, with the bottom of the signal being flattened. While I assume there are probably some capacitors in there that are bad, it was suggested that I try this lamp. (Maybe…I did find a post where one of these simply needed new tubes and a tune-up.)
They seem to be widely available, as they’re some sort of emergency lighting bulb. I’m planning on ordering some and will give it a try - stay tuned for results!
I grabbed a friend and headed down to this show earlier today. It was a pretty small event, but that’s the kind of thing I like to go to - you never know what you’re going to find. We even stopped at (the last?) Rax on the way home.
I didn’t pick up much - some books, some parts, and this Heathkit Audio generator with a parts donor unit.
I’m asking it for 60Hz, and getting 59.7. That’s pretty good for a piece of 50 year old equipment. It’s a simple capacitive oscillator, so there’s not much to go wrong - exactly what you need for your bench. It’s certainly in need of service, but what do you expect?
Pictures from the event are on the way, so stay tuned!
One of the things I picked up at the Cleveland Hamfest was the Aerovox Model 97 from this picture:
It was cheap, it was from a Silent Key estate that a friend was cleaning up, and it had a functioning eye tube - the primary reason I picked this one up. Those aren’t exactly the easiest thing to come by these days, so having a few laying around is probably a good idea.
This is kind of an oddball unit as far as checkers go - most simply use a pair of leads you put across an unknown part. This one is a bit different in that it has an inductively coupled loop that acts as the probe for the device. You place a coil with probe ends across your part and that couples back to the checker - no direct connections are made, so you save the device if the part is charged.
Unfortunately, the probe coil was not present with the device - it may have been buried somewhere in the box it was stored in, but who knows…I don’t have it, and seeing as how this is a very low capacity device, it doesn’t bother me. Any one of the Eico or Heath devices is a bit more useful in this regard.
It did include a manual, which I will enter into the wereboar archives. You can download a copy here (this link is hosted on my webhost provider’s service):
