A Burgess/Regency
215 battery was required ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regency_TR-1
Ran across an article in "American Scientists" about these.
I *do* remember seeing them, stashed in drawers and such.
AM 550-1600 khz band only. The receivers weren't all that
sensitive, but good enough, esp near big cities.
The TR-1 was the first commercial transistor radio.
It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors
and sold for US $49.95 - a fair chunk of change back
in the day. Depending on how you calc inflation the
price would now be about US $500.
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regency_TR-1
Ran across an article in "American Scientists" about these.
I *do* remember seeing them, stashed in drawers and such.
AM 550-1600 khz band only. The receivers weren't all that
sensitive, but good enough, esp near big cities.
The TR-1 was the first commercial transistor radio.
I do not have one of those, but I have a very old GE
Transister Radio. It only does AM. I have no idea
how old it is nor how I got it, but it still works
fine.
You can get a pic of it by doing:
$ curl 'gopher://sdf.org/0/users/jmccue/about/pic/ge_tradio.jpg'
<snip>
It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors
and sold for US $49.95 - a fair chunk of change back
in the day. Depending on how you calc inflation the
price would now be about US $500.
wow
<snip>
I do not have one of those, but I have a very old GE
Transister Radio. It only does AM. I have no idea
how old it is nor how I got it, but it still works
fine.
You can get a pic of it by doing:
$ curl 'gopher://sdf.org/0/users/jmccue/about/pic/ge_tradio.jpg'
On 2025-08-20 17:30, John McCue wrote:
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regency_TR-1
Ran across an article in "American Scientists" about these.
I *do* remember seeing them, stashed in drawers and such.
AM 550-1600 khz band only. The receivers weren't all that
sensitive, but good enough, esp near big cities.
The TR-1 was the first commercial transistor radio.
I do not have one of those, but I have a very old GE
Transister Radio. It only does AM. I have no idea
how old it is nor how I got it, but it still works
fine.
You can get a pic of it by doing:
$ curl 'gopher://sdf.org/0/users/jmccue/about/pic/ge_tradio.jpg'
It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors and sold for US
$49.95 - a fair chunk of change back in the day. Depending on how you
calc inflation the price would now be about US $500.
wow
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:30:45 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors and sold for US
$49.95 - a fair chunk of change back in the day. Depending on how you
calc inflation the price would now be about US $500.
wow
You can see why the Americans never had any luck with transistor-based consumer electronics -- it took the Japanese to make a success of that.
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:30:45 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors and sold for US
$49.95 - a fair chunk of change back in the day. Depending on how you
calc inflation the price would now be about US $500.
wow
You can see why the Americans never had any luck with transistor-based consumer electronics -- it took the Japanese to make a success of that.
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:30:45 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors and sold for US
$49.95 - a fair chunk of change back in the day. Depending on how you
calc inflation the price would now be about US $500.
wow
You can see why the Americans never had any luck with transistor-based consumer electronics -- it took the Japanese to make a success of that.
On 2025-08-21 08:52, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:30:45 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors and sold for US
$49.95 - a fair chunk of change back in the day. Depending on how you
calc inflation the price would now be about US $500.
wow
You can see why the Americans never had any luck with transistor-based
consumer electronics -- it took the Japanese to make a success of that.
My parents bought this one: <https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/sanyo_9_transistor_9f_823.html>
The leather case is in bad shape, the leader is hard and bent.
It was for many years the only FM radio in the house. The normal house
radio was a valve unit, and it only had AM.
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor-radio-amfm>
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor-radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
BUT, they were PORTABLE.
On 8/21/25 6:28 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-21 08:52, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:30:45 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors and sold for US >>>>> $49.95 - a fair chunk of change back in the day. Depending on how you >>>>> calc inflation the price would now be about US $500.
wow
You can see why the Americans never had any luck with transistor-based
consumer electronics -- it took the Japanese to make a success of that.
My parents bought this one:
<https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/sanyo_9_transistor_9f_823.html>
The leather case is in bad shape, the leader is hard and bent.
It was for many years the only FM radio in the house. The normal house
radio was a valve unit, and it only had AM.
Similar in my house, the main unit was all valves,
AM only. Surprisingly good sound.
Of course we didn't HAVE a local FM station for
quite awhile ... and when we did it was 95%
very dull classical.
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor-
radio-amfm>
I remember those ! :-)
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
BUT, they were PORTABLE.
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor-
radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
And sensitivity soon got down towards the thermal noise
BUT, they were PORTABLE.
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
And sensitivity soon got down towards the thermal noise
BUT, they were PORTABLE.
Of course we didn't HAVE a local FM station for quite awhile ... and
when we did it was 95% very dull classical.
On 22/08/2025 19:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-
transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
They were cheap and they were *really* easy to adjust.
I build several portable radios.
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:41:33 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Of course we didn't HAVE a local FM station for quite awhile ... and
when we did it was 95% very dull classical.
The first CDs were much the same, classical stuff for audiophiles. It
didn't take long for sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll to subvert the media.
On 2025-08-22 21:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 19:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-
transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
They were cheap and they were *really* easy to adjust.
I build several portable radios.
Time consuming.
I built just one.
We had an FM station with classical music some 45 Km away, in the
provincial capital. Even when my parents bought a nice stereo system,
that station was a bit noisy, spoiling the joy.
It was later that "talk" FM stations appeared, in the 80's. And now at
least one of those networks is killing their AM transmitters. Pity,
there are rural and mountainous areas where FM reception is bad. They
tell people to use an Android App instead (with registration!).
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 20:35:53 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
We had an FM station with classical music some 45 Km away, in the
provincial capital. Even when my parents bought a nice stereo system,
that station was a bit noisy, spoiling the joy.
In the tropics, we had frequent thunderstorms.
One occasional side-effect, which I noticed more than once after a thunderstorm, was the ability to receive TV stations (very noisily and poorly) from well outside the normal range.
We didn’t get FM radio until later, so I can’t recall getting the same effect with that (though I’m sure it would have applied).
It was later that "talk" FM stations appeared, in the 80's. And now at
least one of those networks is killing their AM transmitters. Pity,
there are rural and mountainous areas where FM reception is bad. They
tell people to use an Android App instead (with registration!).
No plans to repurpose the MW band for digital radio?
On 2025-08-23 00:26, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
No plans to repurpose the MW band for digital radio?
I don't think so, I have not heard of that. There is digital radio,
DAB/DAB+, but they are using other bands.
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor-radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
And sensitivity soon got down towards the thermal noise
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
On 22/08/2025 19:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:transistor-
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaperradio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather poor sensitivity
plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
They were cheap and they were *really* easy to adjust.
I build several portable radios.
One occasional side-effect, which I noticed more than once after a thunderstorm, was the ability to receive TV stations (very noisily and poorly) from well outside the normal range.
On 22/08/2025 20:48, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:41:33 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Of course we didn't HAVE a local FM station for quite awhile ...
and when we did it was 95% very dull classical.
The first CDs were much the same, classical stuff for audiophiles. It
didn't take long for sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll to subvert the media.
That ain't subversion,. That's enhancement
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:41:33 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Of course we didn't HAVE a local FM station for quite awhile ... and
when we did it was 95% very dull classical.
The first CDs were much the same, classical stuff for audiophiles. It
didn't take long for sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll to subvert the media.
On 2025-08-22 21:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 19:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-
transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
They were cheap and they were *really* easy to adjust.
I build several portable radios.
Time consuming.
I built just one.
On 22/08/2025 20:48, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:41:33 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Of course we didn't HAVE a local FM station for quite awhile ... and >>> when we did it was 95% very dull classical.
The first CDs were much the same, classical stuff for audiophiles. It
didn't take long for sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll to subvert the media.
That ain't subversion,. That's enhancement
On 2025-08-23 00:26, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
No plans to repurpose the MW band for digital radio?
I don't think so, I have not heard of that. There is digital radio,
DAB/DAB+, but they are using other bands.
On 8/22/25 2:14 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor-radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
And sensitivity soon got down towards the thermal noise
Sure, LATER models. However the mid 50s units were
not so great - BUT *portable* so ...
So long as Frankie and Annette could play fake-rock
down on the beach you had a winner :-)
You CAN get very good sensitivity/selectivity
using valve units. Often it's less a matter of
the valves but instead tighter 'Q' in the
supporting circuits.
As the price of transistors dropped, they became
almost a sort of 'cheat' - a way to hide poor
overall design. "Just slap another stage in there !"
On 8/22/25 2:37 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
Yep, not the transistors (previously valves), themselves
but better-designed supporting circuitry and layout.
You CAN make a very good AM radio with just four or
five transistors - but if the feeds/couplings/resonators
are pure cheap crap, well .......
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 20:00:02 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 19:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:transistor-
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaperradio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather poor sensitivity >>>>> plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
They were cheap and they were *really* easy to adjust.
I build several portable radios.
I spend one winter sort of working my way through radio design history.
Ever build a regenerative receiver? They're fun.
On 23/08/2025 00:29, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-23 00:26, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
There simply is not the bandwidth for much information.No plans to repurpose the MW band for digital radio?
Cf Shannon, et al.
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 22:26:37 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
One occasional side-effect, which I noticed more than once after a
thunderstorm, was the ability to receive TV stations (very noisily and
poorly) from well outside the normal range.
I once picked up a Minnesota, iirc, FM station on the San Raphael Swell in Utah. It surprised the hell out of me because you can't pick up anything
on that 108 mile stretch of scenery. Tropospheric ducting is a strange and wondrous thing. It didn't last long.
You CAN get very good sensitivity/selectivity using valve units.Physically bigger coils.
Often it's less a matter of the valves but instead tighter 'Q' in
the supporting circuits.
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 21:57:34 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 20:48, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:41:33 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Of course we didn't HAVE a local FM station for quite awhile ...
and when we did it was 95% very dull classical.
The first CDs were much the same, classical stuff for audiophiles. It
didn't take long for sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll to subvert the media.
That ain't subversion,. That's enhancement
I once mentioned I liked some classical composers -- Rimsky-Korsakov,
Richard Strauss, Dvořák, Wagner, and a couple of others. I was informed I had plebian tastes. That was before 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' became
rather well known.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfwAPg4rQQE
In truth my tastes weren't as rarefied.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_81PchgI7A
That was another instance of synchronicity. I was reading Hesse and when I saw Steppenwolf in a rack in a college bookstore I bought it knowing
nothing about the band.
Speaking of which I wonder if the film is still available. It was rather strange for its day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_(film)
Of course Hesse, Jung, Kay, and synchronicity are all tangled up in a web.
On 8/22/25 4:36 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 21:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 19:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-
transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
cheaper than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
They were cheap and they were *really* easy to adjust.
I build several portable radios.
Time consuming.
I built just one.
You can get lots of perfectly good circuits off
the net - plenty options/paradigms to choose from.
It's interesting to do.
However to do most RIGHT you DO need some proper
and expensive instrumentation - scopes, LCR meters
and such, maybe an audio spectrum meter. Few have
those things.
If I'm gonna do another it'll be a 'super-regenerative',
the kind that tend to howl a bit. Interesting feedback
paradigm.
You can do good AM with plain old 2N222A's up to
maybe 5Mhz. Super cheap.
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 21:57:34 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 20:48, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:41:33 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Of course we didn't HAVE a local FM station for quite awhile ...
and when we did it was 95% very dull classical.
The first CDs were much the same, classical stuff for audiophiles. It
didn't take long for sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll to subvert the media.
That ain't subversion,. That's enhancement
I once mentioned I liked some classical composers -- Rimsky-Korsakov,
Richard Strauss, Dvořák, Wagner, and a couple of others. I was informed I had plebian tastes. That was before 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' became
rather well known.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfwAPg4rQQE
In truth my tastes weren't as rarefied.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_81PchgI7A
That was another instance of synchronicity. I was reading Hesse and when I saw Steppenwolf in a rack in a college bookstore I bought it knowing
nothing about the band.
Speaking of which I wonder if the film is still available. It was rather strange for its day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_(film)
Of course Hesse, Jung, Kay, and synchronicity are all tangled up in a web.
On 23/08/2025 07:04, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 22:26:37 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
One occasional side-effect, which I noticed more than once after a
thunderstorm, was the ability to receive TV stations (very noisily and
poorly) from well outside the normal range.
I once picked up a Minnesota, iirc, FM station on the San Raphael Swell
in Utah. It surprised the hell out of me because you can't pick up
anything on that 108 mile stretch of scenery. Tropospheric ducting is a
strange and wondrous thing. It didn't last long.
What could be better than sitting in Eastern England watching the news
in DUTCH
Ha, My first one was PNP germaniums.
Oh yes, I have some snobby friends who are into 'post mediaeval
religious choral music' they think Beethoven is simply 'ear candy for
plebs'
The next step was to add a tube amplifier, and after that I threw on
another coil and made it regenerative. I can still remember that ragged squeal it made when it went into oscillation.
At which point the piece itself (or at least its minute-and-a-half
intro)
became plebianized itself. Remember the disco version?
I built several super-regenerative receivers for my model planes. 4 transistor
Many chinese style designs said '9 transistor' and when you looked at
the circuit, 3 of them were duds, just soldered in the board but not connected to anything...
On 23/08/2025 07:04, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 22:26:37 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
One occasional side-effect, which I noticed more than once after a
thunderstorm, was the ability to receive TV stations (very noisily and
poorly) from well outside the normal range.
I once picked up a Minnesota, iirc, FM station on the San Raphael
Swell in
Utah. It surprised the hell out of me because you can't pick up anything
on that 108 mile stretch of scenery. Tropospheric ducting is a strange
and
wondrous thing. It didn't last long.
What could be better than sitting in Eastern England watching the news
in DUTCH
On 8/22/25 4:36 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 21:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 19:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-
transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
cheaper than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
They were cheap and they were *really* easy to adjust.
I build several portable radios.
Time consuming.
I built just one.
You can get lots of perfectly good circuits off
the net - plenty options/paradigms to choose from.
It's interesting to do.
However to do most RIGHT you DO need some proper
and expensive instrumentation - scopes, LCR meters
and such, maybe an audio spectrum meter. Few have
those things.
If I'm gonna do another it'll be a 'super-regenerative',
the kind that tend to howl a bit. Interesting feedback
paradigm.
You can do good AM with plain old 2N222A's up to
maybe 5Mhz. Super cheap.
Oh yes, I have some snobby friends who are into 'post mediaeval
religious choral music'
they think Beethoven is simply 'ear candy for plebs'
... and then another nearby station cranked its power up to 50 kW
and smeared itself right across the dial. No selectivity.
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 18:02:30 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
The next step was to add a tube amplifier, and after that I threw on
another coil and made it regenerative. I can still remember that ragged
squeal it made when it went into oscillation.
Everybody in the neighborhood probably remembered it too. What the holy
hell is that kid up to now?
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 11:20:24 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Oh yes, I have some snobby friends who are into 'post mediaeval
religious choral music'
Fans of the Mediaeval Baebes?
<https://www.youtube.com/@MediaevalBaebesTV>
I first heard of them when they did a few collabs with Delerium.
they think Beethoven is simply 'ear candy for plebs'
Coincidentally, I was just rewatching “Immortal Beloved” last night ...
I DJed a lot of parties back then - it was mostly rock (both country
rock like New Riders of the Purple Sage and straight-up stuff like Bob Seger). But I would usually throw in a disco parody to shake things up
(e.g. _Do You Think I'm Disco_ by Steve Dahl and The Teenage Radiation).
I built myself, from a kit, a good CB receiver (AM only). Among other
things, I learned that part of the critical stuff is unobtainable.
Specially the transformers and variable caps. A kit solves all that.,
but there are no more kits like that one.
On 23/08/2025 04:06, c186282 wrote:
On 8/22/25 2:37 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor- >>>>>> radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages, which
were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
Yep, not the transistors (previously valves), themselves
but better-designed supporting circuitry and layout.
You CAN make a very good AM radio with just four or
five transistors - but if the feeds/couplings/resonators
are pure cheap crap, well .......
Three IF stages is more than enough.
Feed the RF into a self oscillating mixer, that's the first transistor,
and pull the IF off with the first IF can...
Then two more IF cans and transistors, so we are up to three, before a
diode detector.
After that an audio stage driving a phase splitter transformer and two
power outputs driving the final speaker impedance matching transformer.
6 transistors,
That is all you need for best audio quality. Better sets had an RF
amplifier at the front so 7 transistors.
On 23/08/2025 04:01, c186282 wrote:
On 8/22/25 2:14 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Physically bigger coils. Point being that beyond a certain point you
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way cheaper
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-transistor-radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
than adding valves.
And sensitivity soon got down towards the thermal noise
Sure, LATER models. However the mid 50s units were
not so great - BUT *portable* so ...
So long as Frankie and Annette could play fake-rock
down on the beach you had a winner :-)
You CAN get very good sensitivity/selectivity
using valve units. Often it's less a matter of
the valves but instead tighter 'Q' in the
supporting circuits.
start to degrade the audio. For the sake of kicking out the adjacent
channel
As the price of transistors dropped, they became
almost a sort of 'cheat' - a way to hide poor
overall design. "Just slap another stage in there !"
Many chinese style designs said '9 transistor' and when you looked at
the circuit, 3 of them were duds, just soldered in the board but not connected to anything...
...Marketing. Imagine Intel marketing its latest chip 'over a billion transistors'
On 23/08/2025 07:04, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 22:26:37 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
One occasional side-effect, which I noticed more than once after a
thunderstorm, was the ability to receive TV stations (very noisily and
poorly) from well outside the normal range.
I once picked up a Minnesota, iirc, FM station on the San Raphael
Swell in
Utah. It surprised the hell out of me because you can't pick up anything
on that 108 mile stretch of scenery. Tropospheric ducting is a strange
and
wondrous thing. It didn't last long.
What could be better than sitting in Eastern England watching the news
in DUTCH
On 23/08/2025 07:42, c186282 wrote:
On 8/22/25 4:36 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 21:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 19:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 20:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 14:41, c186282 wrote:
Actually selectivity came easy as adding transistors was way
I got this one when I went to uni:
<https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/1791229461/vintage-sanyo-
transistor- radio-amfm>
I remember those ! 🙂
Alas most of those little old radios had rather
poor sensitivity plus poor selectivity.
cheaper than adding valves.
It came from adding intermediate frequency transformer stages,
which were not cheap nor easy to adjust.
They were cheap and they were *really* easy to adjust.
I build several portable radios.
Time consuming.
I built just one.
You can get lots of perfectly good circuits off
the net - plenty options/paradigms to choose from.
It's interesting to do.
However to do most RIGHT you DO need some proper
and expensive instrumentation - scopes, LCR meters
and such, maybe an audio spectrum meter. Few have
those things.
Bollox. I had nothing except my ears and a home made multimeter.
If I'm gonna do another it'll be a 'super-regenerative',Chaos theory/climate theory in 4 transistors
the kind that tend to howl a bit. Interesting feedback
paradigm.
You can do good AM with plain old 2N222A's up to
maybe 5Mhz. Super cheap.
Ha, My first one was PNP germaniums.
On 2025-08-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 22:26:37 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
One occasional side-effect, which I noticed more than once after a
thunderstorm, was the ability to receive TV stations (very noisily and
poorly) from well outside the normal range.
I once picked up a Minnesota, iirc, FM station on the San Raphael Swell in >> Utah. It surprised the hell out of me because you can't pick up anything
on that 108 mile stretch of scenery. Tropospheric ducting is a strange and >> wondrous thing. It didn't last long.
I had a 6-transistor AM radio of the kind common in those days
(about 2x4x7 inches, complete with leather case). Late at night
I'd see how distant a station I could pull in from our home near
Vancouver, B.C. KSL in Salt Lake City would come booming in
regularly. But I would spent hours listening to static-filled
signals trying to pick out station IDs that I could look up.
I once got KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But my best was when
after listening to a noisy signal for a while, I picked up
the jingle: "W-O-W-O... in Fort Wayne" (Indiana).
And then I got into short wave...
On 2025-08-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I spend one winter sort of working my way through radio design history.
Ever build a regenerative receiver? They're fun.
I started by building a crystal radio (using a germanium diode
rather than a cat's whisker). A local radio station came in
just fine on the telephone handset I was using in lieu of
headphones - and then another nearby station cranked its
power up to 50 kW and smeared itself right across the dial.
No selectivity.
The next step was to add a tube amplifier, and after that
I threw on another coil and made it regenerative. I can
still remember that ragged squeal it made when it went
into oscillation.
On 2025-08-23 12:05, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Many chinese style designs said '9 transistor' and when you looked at
the circuit, 3 of them were duds, just soldered in the board but not
connected to anything...
Were they actual transistors, or also themselves duds? Transistors were
not that cheap initially.
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 11:20:24 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Oh yes, I have some snobby friends who are into 'post mediaeval
religious choral music' they think Beethoven is simply 'ear candy
for plebs'
Hildegard of Bingen? I don't know if she was post-medieval.
I have Sequentia's 'Edda. Myths from Medieval Iceland' and 'The
Rheingold Curse' but they get into a lot of that stuff. The Edda
album was an attempt to recreate what passed for entertainment.
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 11:15:10 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Nope. They were not
I built several super-regenerative receivers for my model planes. 4
transistor
Overkill. Armstrong's first attempt only needed one. He and De Forest
fought over the patent. I think De Forest won the legal battle and lost
the war.
The regens weren't very neighborhood friendly.
On 2025-08-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 18:02:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
At which point the piece itself (or at least its minute-and-a-half
intro)
became plebianized itself. Remember the disco version?
I have tried my best to suppress all memories of disco. I mostly
switched to outlaw country in the '70s. Then country went to hell.
I DJed a lot of parties back then - it was mostly rock (both
country rock like New Riders of the Purple Sage and straight-up
stuff like Bob Seger). But I would usually throw in a disco parody
to shake things up (e.g. _Do You Think I'm Disco_ by Steve Dahl and
The Teenage Radiation).
On 23/08/2025 22:32, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 11:15:10 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
I built several super-regenerative receivers for my model planes. 4
transistor
Overkill. Armstrong's first attempt only needed one. He and De Forest
fought over the patent. I think De Forest won the legal battle and lost
the war.
The regens weren't very neighborhood friendly.
Nope. They were not
On 8/23/25 6:22 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:maybe 5Mhz. Super cheap.
Ha, My first one was PNP germaniums.
It'll work ... just not so WELL.
DO remember the Germanium Dominance. Silicon
was better, but TOOK a little while.
Germanium does still have a place.
On 24/08/2025 01:18, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-08-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 18:02:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
At which point the piece itself (or at least its minute-and-a-half
intro)
became plebianized itself. Remember the disco version?
I have tried my best to suppress all memories of disco. I mostly
switched to outlaw country in the '70s. Then country went to hell.
I DJed a lot of parties back then - it was mostly rock (both
country rock like New Riders of the Purple Sage and straight-up
stuff like Bob Seger). But I would usually throw in a disco parody
to shake things up (e.g. _Do You Think I'm Disco_ by Steve Dahl and
The Teenage Radiation).
Agreed. I did like Donna Summer though. Apparently she had a university degree in something
On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:18:20 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I DJed a lot of parties back then - it was mostly rock (both country
rock like New Riders of the Purple Sage and straight-up stuff like Bob
Seger). But I would usually throw in a disco parody to shake things up
(e.g. _Do You Think I'm Disco_ by Steve Dahl and The Teenage Radiation).
I liked NRPS. My taste for the Dead was mostly 'Workingmans' Dead' and 'American Beauty' (or 'American Reality' if I was stoned enough. I never
did catch on to psychedelic typography).
The long disjointed jams didn't get it for me.
'Last Lonely Eagle' is one of my favorites although in my mind I generally hear the Ian and Sylvia cover.
Seger is good too. 'Turn the Page' is one of my faves.
I spent a lot of
time on the road setting up molding equipment. We were doing a plant in Madison GA, a real backwater despite only being about 25 miles from
Athens. I had long hair and a beard (which I still do). There was only one restaurant in town and a busboy there was eyeballing me. After a couple of visits he got up the courage to come over and ask 'Are y'all one of them
that musicians?". Early '70s Southern Rock hadn't quite reached there. I wasn't a rock musician but I spent a lot of time on the road and probably heard those whispers in the shadows. Nothing ever came of it. Just as well
-- I was of the long haired redneck species, not the peace and love contingent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3_qUDwF-Ns
On 23/08/2025 23:27, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-23 12:05, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Oh rejects.
Many chinese style designs said '9 transistor' and when you looked at
the circuit, 3 of them were duds, just soldered in the board but not
connected to anything...
Were they actual transistors, or also themselves duds? Transistors were
not that cheap initially.
The sort of thing Clive Sinclair used to badge as 'wonder components'
I did like Donna Summer though.
"Skip" COULD get you there ... across the world. All fascinating.
On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 10:49:32 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 23/08/2025 23:27, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-23 12:05, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Oh rejects.
Many chinese style designs said '9 transistor' and when you looked at
the circuit, 3 of them were duds, just soldered in the board but not
connected to anything...
Were they actual transistors, or also themselves duds? Transistors were
not that cheap initially.
The sort of thing Clive Sinclair used to badge as 'wonder components'
I'm familiar with his wonder components. I bought a ZX80 kit when they
first came out, curious to see what he did with a Z-80. I don't remember
the specifics but some user troubleshooting and modification was needed to get it working. I suppose the membrane keyboard was no worse than any of them.
On 24/08/2025 22:28, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 10:49:32 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 23/08/2025 23:27, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-23 12:05, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Oh rejects.
Many chinese style designs said '9 transistor' and when you looked at >>>>> the circuit, 3 of them were duds, just soldered in the board but not >>>>> connected to anything...
Were they actual transistors, or also themselves duds? Transistors were >>>> not that cheap initially.
The sort of thing Clive Sinclair used to badge as 'wonder components'
I'm familiar with his wonder components. I bought a ZX80 kit when they
first came out, curious to see what he did with a Z-80. I don't remember
the specifics but some user troubleshooting and modification was
needed to
get it working. I suppose the membrane keyboard was no worse than any of
them.
'He' didn't do *anything* with a Z-80.
"The Sinclair ZX80 was primarily designed by Jim Westwood for the
internal electronics, while John Pemberton was responsible for the case design."
"Sinclair BASIC was developed by John Grant and Steve Vickers of Nine
Tiles Ltd. for the software."
His flair was in telling porkies, conning up front money from the
gullible and dreaming up projects that fitted his notion of 'the future' whilst having no idea how to turn them into reality.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 546 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 153:35:18 |
| Calls: | 10,383 |
| Files: | 14,054 |
| Messages: | 6,417,840 |
