Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!reader5.news.weretis.net!news.solani.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Favourite Test Equipment
Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2024 10:47:31 GMT
Message-ID: <uugno4$1qgc$1@solani.org>
References: <9k7j0jlnbhs8qfg5m17pium0835meean83@4ax.com> <uudm4h$23si2$1@solani.org> <j6sk0j5cpqb46pt9tg6uvji35a2bstb9o8@4ax.com> <uue68h$b3t$1@solani.org> <1qrchq1.w6xc5sp9kef4N%liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; ISO-8859-15
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2024 10:47:32 -0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: solani.org;
	logging-data="59916"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@news.solani.org"
User-Agent: NewsFleX-1.5.7.5 (Linux-5.15.32-v7l+)
Cancel-Lock: sha1:AH19xj8AYebLpFrTGa9X1/Q95J8=
X-Newsreader-location: NewsFleX-1.5.7.5 (c) 'LIGHTSPEED' off line news reader for the Linux platform
 NewsFleX homepage: http://www.panteltje.nl/panteltje/newsflex/ and ftp download ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/system/news/readers/ 
X-User-ID: eJwNwgkRADEIBDBLUGChcsrnX8LdJCZglCsMavtLwvA9c3Y5gIx4nne1kgiHVkRUapv6CbPdVkxkhbdx+HxJBhU5
Bytes: 6048
Lines: 79

On a sunny day (Mon, 1 Apr 2024 17:34:24 +0100) it happened
liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote in
<1qrchq1.w6xc5sp9kef4N%liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid>:

>Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> wrote:
>
>> I learned the basics of how electrons behave and move as a small kid from
>>this book: [...] > I remember walking the streets of Amsterdam looking
>>for usable parts for my own TV in primary school
>
>Jan, you forget that we had the *advantage* of starting from the
>beginning and having to make or scrounge everything. 
>
>When I started, there was nobody with much knowledge of electronics to
>help me and very little material of any kind.  My city had been bombed
>during WWII (not as bad as Amsterdam, but bad, nevertheless) and both my
>grandfathers showed us how to make furniture from odd scraps of wood.
>The family motto seemed to be "If you can't make it, you can't have it".
>
>I eventually learned to solder with a gigantic 65-watt iron that could
>undo two tags of an octal valveholder while you tried to solder the
>third.  I saved my pocket money for a year to buy a government surplus
>multimeter - and when it arrived, the pointer was lopsided and the
>safety cutout had been glued solid.  There was no "Sale of Goods Act", I
>just had to take it apart and mend it myself.
>
>I begged scrap radio and television sets off a local repair shop to use
>as a source of components - you made what you could with whatever you
>had to hand.  Government surplus valves were available but expensive;
>you just had to hope they were not too low on emission, because nobody
>had any way of testing them.  Amplifiers were 'designed' by rote: the
>anode load resistor of a 6J7 was 47k - or 100k - nobody knew why.  A 6V6
>needed a transformer to match it to the loudspeaker - any transformer, -
>nobody knew how to calculate ratios and it wouldn't have mattered if
>they had, because the chances of finding the correct transformer were
>nil.   Data sheets were a closely-guarded secret, I never even saw one
>until I went to college.  
>
>My first oscilloscope was an EMI WM2 (partly designed by Alan Blumlein,
>I believe).  It was absolutely lethal to work on and most of the
>components were out of specification or intermittent, so It only worked
>for brief periods between long intervals of failure and repair. 
>
>When I took the job of setting up an electronics workshop for an
>educational establishment, we could afford a 12v soldering iron but no
>transformer, so I begged a scrap pre-war one off my cousin's business.
>I set about building a stabilized power supply around it, but it had to
>be switched off each time I wanted to make a soldered joint, so I had to
>be quick and finish each connection before the iron cooled down.  We had
>no large resistors, so I loaded the power supply on test with a plastic
>bowl full of salty water and a couple of pieces of aluminium plate.
>
>Many of the huge 'boat anchors' of test gear, so despised by the modern
>generation  are still working and still perfectly adequate   ...as long
>as you know what you are doing.

Amsterdam in the fifties had some nice electronics shops
Radio Rotor and Valkenberg in the Kinkerstraat...
Closed 2013?
 https://www.rtlsdr.nl/hamnieuws/amsterdamse-elektronicazaak-radio-rotor-gesloten/
 https://www.nvhr.nl/brands/Valkenberg.htm

Years later at school somebody made a light dimmer from a capped fluorescent tube filled with water and a piece of metal on a wire sinking in it to adjust the light.
In those fifties some relative gave me an old record player and some 78 RPM records 'His Masters Voice' label...
It had a dynamic element and a replaceable needle...
and I had some battery tubes and stuff.
Soldering with a screw driver heated in the coal fire we had as heating in the living room...
Tried my first (tube) radio transmitter ...
Peculiar, when my father's radio broke down (he had a nice big one) I told the technician that came to fix it what to replace...
Was not allowed to touch that radio... World news, he was a journalist.
Later we moved away from Amsterdam into the country, for me  big minus,
lost all my friends, places I could get parts from out of reach..
Revolted, so they did send me to a boarding school, joined the gangs there, parts we got..
And before you know I was building a tube amplifier for the music group we had..
Some had money, rich parents..
The guitarist really liked the sound of that amplifier, later asked for some more stuff.
Transformers... balanced output transformer I got from a surplus shop in The Hague..
Later got some nice radio stuff from them too, 31 set for example
 https://armyradio.com/Wireless-Set-No.-31.html
Now we are talking early sixties...