Remembrances of vacuum tube days
As a young teenager, I developed a love for electronics which became a lifelong love affair. In those days vacuum tubes were the norm and solid state devices such as transistors weren't in usage then....
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Being an air force brat, I lived at CFB Cold Lake Alberta in the late 60s.
In 69, at age 15 I volunteered for a DJ position there. I had my own Friday and Saturday evening shows for playing teen music. My theme song was "Friday On My Mind" 1450 CHCL "Chuckle" Radio!
The whole radio station was all old tube equipment, and would go down once in a while. I remember looking into the amps and broadcast equipment at all those cool looking tube things, and learning that if it isn't glowing, it has likely failed.
There were 2 control rooms, each equipped with turntables, control boards with pots to adjust sound and inputs etc.
Sometimes one control room would go down, and I figured out on my own how to use big patch cables they had to run the output of one room into another. I would get it up and running while the service tech would come fix the problem, usually a blown tube. It only happened a couple or few times, but I was totally fascinated at all that neat-o electronic equipment.
Even as a boy I loved to play with little electric motors such as those battery operated Meccano set ones, little flashlight bulbs and batteries, wires I could fiddle with to do things etc.
In about grade 6 I won first prize for the best Halloween costume, a robot. Wearing cardboard boxes covered in tinfoil from head to toe, I ran wires, flashlight bulbs, a motor with propeller on the top of my head and more. I ran all the wires and taped the bared ends to my fingertips. The thumb was power and the other fingertip wires fed the various lights and such. I walked around touching my fingers to my thumb for the blinking, propeller spinning robot effect.
Yeah, great memory for an 11 year old!
That DJ experience was the beginning of getting serious about the hobby. I took electricity and electronics in high school, graduated with the intention of furthering my education and finding work in that field, but wound up taking work in home renovation instead for a while. 45 years later, I'm still in that industry.
In 69, at age 15 I volunteered for a DJ position there. I had my own Friday and Saturday evening shows for playing teen music. My theme song was "Friday On My Mind" 1450 CHCL "Chuckle" Radio!
The whole radio station was all old tube equipment, and would go down once in a while. I remember looking into the amps and broadcast equipment at all those cool looking tube things, and learning that if it isn't glowing, it has likely failed.
There were 2 control rooms, each equipped with turntables, control boards with pots to adjust sound and inputs etc.
Sometimes one control room would go down, and I figured out on my own how to use big patch cables they had to run the output of one room into another. I would get it up and running while the service tech would come fix the problem, usually a blown tube. It only happened a couple or few times, but I was totally fascinated at all that neat-o electronic equipment.
Even as a boy I loved to play with little electric motors such as those battery operated Meccano set ones, little flashlight bulbs and batteries, wires I could fiddle with to do things etc.
In about grade 6 I won first prize for the best Halloween costume, a robot. Wearing cardboard boxes covered in tinfoil from head to toe, I ran wires, flashlight bulbs, a motor with propeller on the top of my head and more. I ran all the wires and taped the bared ends to my fingertips. The thumb was power and the other fingertip wires fed the various lights and such. I walked around touching my fingers to my thumb for the blinking, propeller spinning robot effect.
Yeah, great memory for an 11 year old!
That DJ experience was the beginning of getting serious about the hobby. I took electricity and electronics in high school, graduated with the intention of furthering my education and finding work in that field, but wound up taking work in home renovation instead for a while. 45 years later, I'm still in that industry.
