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

 -=> Roy J. Tellason said to Greg Mayman
 -=> about "*BIG* TRANSISTORS" on 01-31-04  12:05.....

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

 GM> I guess so 

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

 GM> No, a square one I think, about 1-1/2 or 2" on a side.

I know I remember seeing some that were pretty good-sized,  in addition to
the ones that I mentioned,  but it was quite some time ago and I don't
recall what the size(s) were.

 RJT> Purchased new in Germany in 1960,  the radio also had SW and an FM band
 RJT> that only went to 100 MHz for some reason.

 GM> The European FM band only went to 99MHz, I think. I used to have
 GM> some data on the old FM bands around the world, but it is filed
 GM> away somewhere...

Yes?  It bugged me,  because my favorite station back then was at 102.7.  :-)

 RJT> That was a rather unusual radio,  the "automatic" tuning
portion of it
 RJT> consisted of a _motor_ attached to the tuning mechanism.  The on-off

 GM> I remember seeing a TV turret tuner that was motor driven. It had a
 GM> solenoid controlled clutch so when the power went off the turret
 GM> stopped immediately while the motor coasted down. IMO a much better
 GM> idea than brakes.

Speaking of which I ran across a chip earlier today and wondered what it
was. Turns out it's a reversing motor control chip (not steppers,  just a
brushed motor) with braking,  apparently intended for vcr or audio cassette
applications.

 GM> But I've never seen continuous tuning with a motor.

I don't recall if there was a search function in that or not,  I think so, 
but it's been a while.

 GM> OTOH why not? 

The other cool thing about that radio that I just remembered was the EM84
tuning indicator tube.  Sorta like those "tuning eye" tubes that
used to be around (6E5, etc.) only those were octal and had the lit part on
the end, while the EM84 was 9-pin miniature and had it on the side,  giving
a nice little rectangular display area.  The vacuum flourescent displays
that I've seen in more recent stuff look pretty clunky by comparison.

 RJT> switch was also a bit odd,  located at the rear and connected to a
 RJT> button in the front with a bit of dial cord!

 GM> Yes, I have seen ideas like that. It was better than running the
 GM> mains halfway across the chassis to a switch on the volume
 GM> control and then trying to get rid of the hum it caused.

It wasn't on the volume control,  just another button among several.  Even
that was fairly different from the US stuff that I was used to seeing, 
which as you say typically had the switch mounted on the volume control.

Hell,  these days things have changed so much you're lucky if there's a
volume control in there!  :-(

I'm well aware of some of the shortcomings of a mechanical pot compared to
other ways of doing things,  and of the relative expense of such compared
to doing things digitally -- I have a little bitty tv I keep here in the
office and it's got a bad one in there that prevents turning it down! --
but I'm also beginning to *hate* pushing little buttons for the same
function. 

 RJT> It was a heck of a nice radio,  but unfortunately all tubes,  and
 RJT> rather fussy about which brand you put in there.  I can still remember

 GM> Ah yes, I remember some sets like that. One set I had would
 GM> oscillate if you used a high gain tube in the IF, but was fine with
 GM> one that was a bit "flat".

I remember Telefunken were good,  Mullard weren't.  Tighter specs?  I dunno.

 RJT> one time when it let the smoke out,  and on opening the back I saw
 RJT> where someone had put a bit of metal shaft across the fuse holder --
 RJT> and the power transformer was toast.  Somehow (this was still back in
 RJT> the sixties) it got repaired properly.  I'd like to find the guy who
 RJT> did that bit of sabotage and let him know just what I thought of it...

 GM> Some people just can't be trusted with anything electrical or
 GM> electronic.

Some people tend to perpetuate the stereotype of "the tv repair guys
are all crooks"...

I came to the conclusion a *long* time ago that it's really not necessary
to rip anybody off to make a living at this stuff,  and never resorted to
some of the crap I've heard about here and there.  That stuff really pisses
me off.

 GM> I had to replace the mains fuse on an 8-track cartridge player
 GM> where the original one (0.5A) had "popped" and the owner replaced
 GM> it with a 10A auto fuse!

I guess it's what they had handy.  That auto fuse was no doubt rated at a
lower voltage,  and could've exploded quite nicely if it had blown.  They
do put those voltage ratings on them for a reason,  not to mention the
amperage ratings...

 GM> The original fault was a shorted diode in the power supply. The
 GM> owner's "repair" let all the smoke out of the transformer.

Yep,  I can see where it would do that.

 GM> The agents quoted about $50 to import a replacement transformer --
 GM> this was in the 70's and $50 was REAL money -- but fortunately we
 GM> were able to find one locally that was close enough in voltage and
 GM> EXACTLY the same size core size as the original!

You got lucky,  I guess that happens sometimes.

 GM> All we had to do was swap the mounting bracket from the old one. 

 GM> We lost was the 240/120 volt selection on the primary, but as he
 GM> had no intentions of taking it overseas that didn't matter.

Been there,  and done that one.  Wore out the t-shirt,  too...    :-)

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