Phono Oscillators

[Bob]

Well actually, the power avaiable from one one of those little rascals was
probably about a watt, but even at a quarter watt out the signal level would
only be 30 db down from the local 1/4 KW peanut whistles we had in my old
home town of Eureka.  The town itself is built on a gently rising base from
Humboldt bay.  I would guess that the settled part of the town in the middle
1950s was about 25 to 30 square miles  or about 5 miles from city population
sign south to population sign north.  The antenna system although untuned or
unmatched, was about 25 feet off the ground, insulated with old knob and
tube ceramic chards, and more than a city block in length when you consider
that the old home was at the end of the block.
    Although the operation was short lived, My buddy Barry was able to pick
the thing up on his 49 Plymouth car radio with good signal strength and
reasonable fidelity at the High School about a mile away and it his house
which was near the Sequoia park which was more than 4 miles away as the crow
flys.
    I'll do a little number crunching to see what kind of field strength an
assumed 1/4 watt will lay down, but a simple free space loss calculation
indicates that a few miles to a car radio receiver was probably not that
difficult to do.  Nice thing about living behind the Redwood Curtain in
those days was the near lack of radio stations (we had two at that
time--KHUM and KIEM-- one on the old CONELRAD allocation at the bottom of
the band and one near 1500 KC's.
    But memories tend to dim reality and I could be wrong.  But earlier in
my radio career  I bought an old Gibson Girl 500Khz distress transmitter at
a local surplus store  which me and my grammar school chums used to torment
near by AM BC listeners and the the Coast Guard until we tired of hand
cranking and blew it up tring to make an AC power supply.  And yes the
500Khz mcw came in loud and clear on BC sets in the area either by
fundamental overload or image responses.. At the time we just figured the
whole process was some kind of magic.  The things we did as kids would
probably land us in jail today.  Nothing malicious, just fun stuff.

    Glad it has loosened up a few memories for the group.  Not exactly ham
radio, but a precursor I suppose.

    73

    Bob, KE6F
----- Original Message -----
From: Hue Miller <kargokult at PROAXIS.COM>
To: <BOATANCHORS at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 1999 8:27 PM
Subject: Re: Phono Oscillators


> At 08:40 PM 9/10/99 -0500, Lee Smith wrote:
>
> >>Another handy toy from the 50s was the Bud Phone Oscillator.  A single
> >>117L7/M7 tube provided AC/DC 115 volt operation.  The unit was a
modulated
> >>oscillator.   Despite
> >>its low power and lean modulation, the unit could be heard all over the
old
> >>home town (population 29,000).
>
> --hmmmm. I'm wondering how you got that good range. These things operate
> in the milliwatt range, and the antenna is not well matched to the tuned
> circuit. Typical range is more like just a few city blocks.
> Hue
>
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