On Tuesday, 6 October 2015 10:18:11 UTC+11, Big Bad Bob wrote:
http://www.audiobanter.com/forumdisp...=10&order=desc
seems to be an edited archive of R.A.T. - also lets you mark things as
'abusive' so for grins, I went back to mid-2011, and some specific troll
posts, particularly ones targeted at me, are NOT in the archive.
heh. buh, bye! [at one point a particular troll was just irritating me
to the point I simply stopped posting for a while, looks like a LONG
while, since it was 4 years ago]
saw a few names like 'flipper' 'Patrick Turner' and others who made for
interesting discussions.
unfortunately the N.G. has grown pretty quiet.
I might use this to post some information from past posts, like THIS link:
www.hammondmfg.com/pdf/Catalog%2065.pdf
(1965 Hammond Catalog)
Good evening Mr Bad Bob,
It sure has gone quiet for about the last 7 years, maybe it was a result of two things, the GFC, and everyone getting older.
Newspapers and other press here told us how the middle class in USA went back down a class or two so they has less money, and the joy of life evaporated - no more time or spare cash to spent on hobbies.
Maybe everyone who developed a craze for tube amps after the previous 30 years of being denied the chance because of family commitments then built one amp, with many declaring themselves to be an expert, and soon the craze went the way of all crazes, as ageing took hold, and without fuss, they just let it all go.
In 2012 I retired from building custom built hi-fi amps for audio enthusiasts who hated paying tradesmen's wages, but who whipped out the credit card for the new kitchen their wife wanted. The wife got the kitchen, but of course dinner tasted just the same.
Health matters have gnawed away at by enthusiasm to create. The gloom about dying becomes bearable and life just is. Life does not have to have a reason. God is dead, because the God we were taught about never ever existed, and when ya die, ya gone, there's nothing afterwards, so be good while alive, its the only chance you'll get. Nobody knows why Infinity, and Eternity seem to exist, or why the speed of light is so SLOW! Without more explanations we will all die very dumb. There remains for me enough fresh felt wonderment so I happily spend all day in my shed building electronic gadgets just for the trip.
My latest foray has been to explore AM modulators for test signal purposes. I have a working HP606A Big Bad Box fulla tooobes and tuned LC for about 7 bands from 50kHz to 65MHz. But the AM produced is very lack lustre indeed, with high envelope distortion. Of course, the RF generator part of the 606A is the major thing, and it is a Grand Masterpiece Of Workmanship which represents the USA of old days before all the rot set in. I watched a video recently about a guy who bought a Tektronix 555 on Ebay with over 100 tubes, and it worked just fine.
Anyway, I went for what I could use, a modulator which would accept raw HF carrier signals from a few sig genies I have as well as from 606A, so I've ended up with a modulator for Vc = 10kHz to 5MHz in ONE untuned "band" and with a couple of hand wound toroid chokes and with 2N2222, BF469 ,BF470, all so much easier than using a batch of pentodes and tuned LC.So far, without any NFB to correct envelope THD, I'm getting two balanced outputs of 2Vrms each with 1.3% THD on envelope shape ( compared with shape of audio input wave ) at 99% modulation depth. The exercise has taught me a whole lot more. I soon learnt the majority of BS online about AM was extremely un-informative; if anyone wants to learn, they MUST build, measure, observe, re-do, re-learn, and fill exercise books with schematical thoughts to try, evaluate, and move on to a conclusion with a web-page.
I still have numerous tube projects to complete, but death may intervene before 2047 when I would be 100. My old mum died at 98, but many other relatives and friends died before 61, and I'm 68, and I'm on borrowed time. I do not want to travel, buy a new car, or change houses. A lawyer said to me, "doncha wanna live somewhere else, and better ?" The house he's in is nowhere near as good as the better ones in his posh area of countryside, he's become an ugly caricature of what he might have been life at 30, and his house is full of old junk furniture and needs about 200 grand spent on upgrades. I just said its no good spending one cent on moving house when i'd be just as lonely and unlikely yo live more than 5 more years, AND, I'm happy where I am, and I enjoy frugality, and am largely at peace about accepting what Unkel Fait and Aunty Destiny have in mind for my brief continuance. He didn't want to talk about life any more. I am not into materialism in a huge way at all. So many ppl cannot talk about life because immediately they are faced with a huge pile of inconsistent realizations about themselves and their relationships and way of spending time and money.
I am currently finding that riding 10,000km a year on a bicycle to stay in shape and for the euphoria is becoming impossible; my knees have become my enemy. OK, so I just don't ride much, but OK, eat less, mainly vegetarian, and no sugar, alcohol, and I be gregarius with ppl I meet anyway, and weight remains under control, 1Kg more than the 82Kg I was when I was amateur racing cyclist at 37, and arthritis don't stop me hobbling around in the workshop filling in time.
So, regards to all. Occasionally I post up a new website page, I have 2 nearing completion.
Patrick Turner.