Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category:

2017-10-07 9V Battery Substitute – FB

posted to FB group Vintage Transistor Radios today. I got tired of spending a lot of money on new 9 volt batteries, so I built a dc-to-dc converter, that takes two AA or AAA batteries and converts 3 volts to 9 volts DC.  One problem is that I got it to put out about 10

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2017-10-02 Ripped Off By eBay Seller?

I bought a few Arduino Nano plus breakout board “kits” from an eBay seller in Las Vegas, Nevada.  The seller seems to be a coin dealer.  They advertised the Nanos as Mega328, but the ones I got were Mega168, which have half as much memory.  I don’t know if the seller knew they were inferior

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2017-09-30 Zenith Royal 500 Radios  Pt. 02

Posted to FB group Vintage Transistor Radios  Oct 7 and after. Yeah, it’s a bit confusing because the number of IF transformers is one more than the number of transistors. When you work on IFs, what do you use for alignment?  I got Zenith Royal 500s that the previous owner apparently fiddled with the IF

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2017-09-29 Zenith Royal 500 Radios Pt 01

I bought a bunch of Zenith Royal 500 and similar AM transistor radios from an eBay seller.  These were made in the late ’50s to early ’60s.  They all use air variable capacitors like the 5 tube sets.  They all use four AAA cells for power.  The cases on some say unbreakable nylon, but there

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2017-09-21 Kid Was Totally Into Telephone Central Offices

Posted to FB Antique Telephones group as a reply to Kevin J. Fitzgerald  I helped some students in our computer lab, and one high school kid, I think his name was Robert, was totally into phones.  He had written a Basic program that printed a list out, with the various exchanges in the 714 area

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2017-09-18 Telephone Auto Ringdown Circuits

From my comments on FB Telephone group 2017-09-23 Hot ringdown?  We had dozens of elevator lines that were configured to call an answering bureau as soon as the phone went off hook.  I don’t know what the technical term for them is because our account reps weren’t the brightest and gave us some other term,

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2017-09-17 Telephone Loop Current And Security – DSL 

From comments in FB Telephone group 2017-09-24 Mark Grady I remember the site we had across the street from the Santa Ana Bush St. CO.  Just for grins I checked the loop current:  Fifty-five milliamps!  Couldn’t get any closer than that!  The problem is that all the switching equipment in COs seem to have been

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2017-09-14 Menu Display And Single Button Selection

I will post this to Facebook Arduino group. I’ve been thinking about how the cheap clock kit I built uses a single button to step through and set the hours, minutes and seconds.  It’s a bit tedious and it took me a bit of practice to get the hang of it.  But it makes possible

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2017-09-11 Cassette Tape Stuck In Player

From post in FB group Vintage transistor radios I need some advice.  I bought a Sony combo cassette player and AM/FM radio ‘boombox’ back years ago when it was new.  A few years later I put a cassette in it and played a recording of my now deceased parents.  I was listening when it started

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2017-09-10 How Long Can An Arduino Circuit Last?

My answer to a FB Arduino group question on Sept 17 Dan Rogers has the right idea.  The protoboard, with all the holes in it, was never meant to be permanent.  The contacts in each hole lose their springiness as they are used to hold wires.  The contacts can become intermittent after awhile.  As time

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