23 Mar
2009
23 Mar
'09
7:19 p.m.
When I was a boy, my father thought he'd show me
how he made radios
when he was young. So he went down to the local electronics parts
jobber and asked for a UV201.
As I've said several times before, I suspect '01s are a lot easier to
find _now_ than some parts for, perhaps, 10 year old computers.
I think he had to settle for something like a 1G4G,
but he built a
regenerative circuit up nicely, with hand-wound coils on a shellacked
paper form, all surface-mounted on a piece of clear pine. It was a
thing of beauty. No vario-couplers or book-type tuning capacitors,
but it still worked.
There's a nice little series of books called 'The Impoverished Radio
Experimenter' which have designes for 'breadboard' receivers. They use
octal-base valves plugged into those screw-terminal sockets normally used
for holding power relays. Home-wound coils, of course (even the IF
transformers in the superhet).
Although it was dated, it served to push me along my
career path.
Just think, I might have been a hedge-fund manager or television
sitcom producer instead...
Alas I know too well what you mean :-(
Given that I don't think in terms of programming, and am much happer with
a scheamtic than with a VHDL listing, and that I am much, much, happier
with a 'scope than a simulator, is there any hope for me? Or should i
connect myself between the anode and cathode of an 807 running at full power?
-tony