Greg Mayman wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 -=> Roy J. Tellason said to Greg Mayman
 -=> about "*BIG* TRANSISTORS" on 01-28-04  04:06.....

 RJT> I may have left the nails out.  I was in grade school at the time...  
 RJT> :-) 

 GM> Hmmm... you lost me in there somewhere. What function did the board
 GM> perform? I can imagine it holding nails for the experimenter to 
 GM> solder stuff to...

It was a place to put it,  no more...

 RJT> I'd love to have the space to accumulate some of that old stuff again.
 RJT> Just now there's a big old dual tuning cap around here,  much of the
 RJT> rest of that stuff is just *gone*.

 GM> I salvaged an HF transmitter loading coil and variable cap that a
 GM> friend was throwing out. It was jes' too beautiful to go into the
 GM> junk pile.

Yeah.  I used to go into the surplus places in NYC way back when,  and I
had to appreciate how some of that stuff was made.  You don't see that any
more,  it's all cheaply done,  mostly plastic,  and meant not to last.  :-(

 GM> Now what can I do with a coil wound from 1/4 inch silver-plated
 GM> copper tube, with taps brought to a massive rotary switch, and a
 GM> dual-gang tuning cap where the plates are about 1/8 inch thick and
 GM> 1/4 inch spaced?

Those are some thick plates!  What can you do with it?  Display it,  I guess. :-)

 GM> A total of 5 transistors in the whole thing, and it still works, 
 GM> although the 9 volt battery it was designed for has long 
 GM> disappeared from the market!

 RJT> What kind was that?  I seem to remember a few odd variants on them.

 GM> FWIW the label inside the case says:

 GM> BUSH RADIO LTD  AP-63335  MODEL TR-90C 9V BATTERY
 GM> WARNING: reversed connections may damage transistors.
 GM> Replacement batteries are
 GM> VIDOR T6007, DRYDEX DT7, EVER READY PP7, or equivalents.

 GM> Note the "EVER READY" -- two words 

Those numbers don't ring any bells here.  Would that be one of the larger
9V variants?  Or maybe the one that's cylindrical,  roughly the size of a C
cell?

 GM> I have replaced the battery clips and fitted a small 9v ENERGISER
 GM> 552. It still worked when I tested it just now.

 GM> It is a two band set, long wave 1100 to 1800 metres (270 - 170 KHz)
 GM> and the normal MW band. Of course there is nothing to be heard on
 GM> the LW band, apart from a weak image of a high powered MW station
 GM> near here.

I remember one radio we had in the family that was equipped with a low band
like that,  though I could never pick anything up on it.  Purchased new in
Germany in 1960,  the radio also had SW and an FM band that only went to
100 MHz for some reason.

That was a rather unusual radio,  the "automatic" tuning portion
of it consisted of a _motor_ attached to the tuning mechanism.  The on-off
switch was also a bit odd,  located at the rear and connected to a button
in the front with a bit of dial cord!

It was a heck of a nice radio,  but unfortunately all tubes,  and rather
fussy about which brand you put in there.  I can still remember one time
when it let the smoke out,  and on opening the back I saw where someone had
put a bit of metal shaft across the fuse holder -- and the power
transformer was toast.  Somehow (this was still back in the sixties) it got
repaired properly.  I'd like to find the guy who did that bit of sabotage
and let him know just what I thought of it...

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