15 comments

  1. The muzzleloader is great, but it’s lacking a proper lug and affixed bayonet.

    But yeah, that flash drive tube needs to be in me Christmas Stocking. *puts on Santa hat* There, I think I can arrange it, now.

    Jim
    Sunk New Dawn
    Galveston, TX

    1. > How many people even know what a “pentode” is?

      Not many, I’d imagine. I’ll admit to having to look up its position (IF amplifier) just now inside the typical All-American Five radio chassis…bought one of those cheap in the ’90s and got it running again by replacing the wax firecrackers with Sprague Orange Drops, the multi-part electrolytic can with a rebuilt replacement, and one or two burned-out tubes. From Las Vegas, I once got decent reception with it of a station in San Francisco just 20 kHz away from the local 50-kW talk-radio station. Can’t complain about that. 🙂

      1. My Dad collected old tube radios. He had a big Westinghouse AM, shortwave, longwave console model. About 4 feet tall solid walnut cabinet. we set up a long wire antenna and could clearly receive WBZ out of Boston 180 miles away on AM. If the conditions were right we could get the BBC from London on shortwave.

      2. Scott, do you have a good source for old-style electrolytic capacitors?

        I have two tube radios – one is a Zenith Transoceanic, vintage 1954, and the other is a small 4 tube radio, made by Temple Radio, vintage about 1937. Both radios still work, except that they need new filter capacitors. I have not been able to find a replacement for either one.

    2. For a smaller data set, how many folks have operated equipment with them, and had to replace them during trouble shooting?

    1. 12AX7 – 12volt filament, 7 elements – except it’s not a pentode, it’s a dual triode. The 12AT7, also a dual triode, was an ubiquitous tube in the very early digital computers – think Univac.

      Yeah, I’m an old phart. My career in electronics spans the decades from the sixties and vacuum tubes, (valves for our esteemed host.) right up until, well, today. And yes, I have also used modern digital test equipment to troubleshoot tube circuits.

  5. In my view, the optics for the muzzle loader needs to be polished brass (and segmented and longer) and the Bi-pod needs to have lattice work and there needs to be a pressure gauge somewhere for Steam-Punk ( but “Art” is subjective …. so what do I know )

    … and no one under 50 has the experience to understand the Radio Tube. which makes it a Geezer Gadget

    1. > In my view, the optics for the muzzle loader needs to be polished brass…

      Yup.

      > … and no one under 50 has the experience to understand the Radio Tube.

      I’m over 50 and most of my peers don’t know what they are. You may need to raise that age a bit.

  6. Good thing that cap and ball muzzle loader isn’t considered a legal handgun… since foregrips are illegal on them.

  7. Thirty years ago the Astronomy magazine, Sky and Telescope had a catalog that sold, among other things, a video cassette in which someone asked new University graduates how the seasons of the year worked. Like Jay Leno’s “Jay Walking”, the results were hilarious. I doubt anyone nowadays can do any better, and never mind a Pentode, who can explain a diode or a triode? How about Anode and Cathode? Anodized?

  8. Back in the early-60’s, some of our more die-hard SoCal staff used to “repurpose” some of our comms equipment in Southern Alaska to listen to 50K watt “clear channel” KFI 640AM and the Dodgers, and the latest Top-40 play-lists, to get through some of the more boring evenings.

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