8SN7 experiences
This is pretty much off-topic, but I can't resist. When I was in the
4th grade in Concord, California, I'd been building crystal sets for a
couple of years and playing around with "space ship" AM radios that
you got by sending in $3.50 and a couple of cereal boxtops, but I
really wanted a better receiver. We had a copy of an encyclopedia
called "The Book of Knowledge" in the classroom, and I read and re-
read the article about shortwave radio until the pages just about fell
out. They told you how to build a one-tube receiver using a 6SN7.
You wound your own coils, and the B+ supply was a 90-volt battery. If
I remember correctly, the 6SN7 was a dual tetrode(?), and the receiver
used half of the tube as a mixer and the other half as an audio amp.
I built one by going down to the local TV repair shop and bugging them
for parts, and I actually got it to work, after a fashion. Then I
moped around for the next couple of years, trying to figure out how I
was going to learn more about radio, until I changed schools when I
went into the 7th grade. Miracle of miracles: my 7th grade teacher
was a ham radio operator!! Within about 3 months I had my Novice
license. And the rest, as they say, is history! Oh, God, I shouldn't
have told you I'm a ham. Now you're going to think I'm weird.
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