What's the best Christmas present you've ever received?
Mine was my first ever playstation when I was 6!
26-30, M
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
Two kits, on successive Christmases, made up by my father, to build very simple transistor radios.
The first required an external aeriel and earphones. The second was larger, with an extra amplifier stage, built-in loudspeaker and internel ferrite-rod aeriel. Dad made the plywood cases but I had to assemble all the electronics: discrete components soldered to the tag- or strip- board bases. Remembering to clip a heat-sink to the transistors' leads to protect their fragile innards from the soldering heat.
These were not commercial kits! Nor plug-together modules.
Amateur electromnics was a major hobby then (1960s) and most towns of any size had shops stocking electronic and electrical components.
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They were not my first attempt. Our 4th Year (ages 10-11) primary-school teacher ran an after-school "Radio Club" in which I was one of several boys building our own, very basic, "crystal sets" tuned to the BBC Home Service (now Radio Four). The "crystal" was a germanium diode; the rest was an inductor with a variable capacitor for fine-tuning. Very low power, driven entirely by the r.f. signal between a long wire aeriel and earth (via a central-heating pipe in my bedroom) - no battery required. Again parts from the local electronics shop, and for mine, a plastic sandwich-box for its case.
/
Sadly when I went to retrieve them several years ago now from the loft when we cleared our deceased parents' home, someone had been there already, not known what they were, did not think to ask, and threw them away.
The first required an external aeriel and earphones. The second was larger, with an extra amplifier stage, built-in loudspeaker and internel ferrite-rod aeriel. Dad made the plywood cases but I had to assemble all the electronics: discrete components soldered to the tag- or strip- board bases. Remembering to clip a heat-sink to the transistors' leads to protect their fragile innards from the soldering heat.
These were not commercial kits! Nor plug-together modules.
Amateur electromnics was a major hobby then (1960s) and most towns of any size had shops stocking electronic and electrical components.
/
They were not my first attempt. Our 4th Year (ages 10-11) primary-school teacher ran an after-school "Radio Club" in which I was one of several boys building our own, very basic, "crystal sets" tuned to the BBC Home Service (now Radio Four). The "crystal" was a germanium diode; the rest was an inductor with a variable capacitor for fine-tuning. Very low power, driven entirely by the r.f. signal between a long wire aeriel and earth (via a central-heating pipe in my bedroom) - no battery required. Again parts from the local electronics shop, and for mine, a plastic sandwich-box for its case.
/
Sadly when I went to retrieve them several years ago now from the loft when we cleared our deceased parents' home, someone had been there already, not known what they were, did not think to ask, and threw them away.
