American Experience PBS Chasing the Moon

[Larry sreyoB]

Oh yes, I remember taking tubes to the local drugstore for testing. Can you imagine kids replacing tubes in the back of TVs near AC power today???

Not something we need to worry about. The need to use a screwdriver to remove the back panel should be pretty effective at keeping them out!

[Ralph Jones]

The need to use a screwdriver to remove the back panel should be pretty effective at keeping them out!

Doesn't matter: at that level of expertise, they wouldn't have a chance of defeating the AC interlock...

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

Oh yes, I remember taking tubes to the local drugstore for testing. Can you imagine kids replacing tubes in the back of TVs near AC power today???

John -- Tubes and AC power, that was my "safe" activity as a kid. Building black powder bombs in the basement was my hazardous stuff.....

[Mase Taylor]

Doesn't matter: at that level of expertise, they wouldn't have a chance of defeating the AC interlock...

I had my own cheat cord. Interlock, interlock, what interlock.

[Reams Goodloe]

At 5-6-7, I was "helping" (clean) at my Dad's radio and TV repair shop in Nashville. The usual answer was "a new vibrator and a 5U4 and your car radio will be good as new." He also did some avionics at "Berry Field". So, we had our own tube tester...!!! Hickok brand, I think.. I did a lot of vacuum tube testing!

Reams

[Russell Holton]

When I was young, my parents had the usual problems trying to figure out what to do with me during summer. The usual summer fun stuff wasn't working out. (Sending me to a summer fun at a Tennis Racket Club was one of the more memorable ones. I'm sure it's fine for kids with better athletic abilities and coordination.) Then my dad started taking me in to work. Sorting resistors, testing tubes, and the last summer there, aligning radios. That's how I got my start in electronics.

[Reams Goodloe]

Well, cleaning things with Carbon Tet in the radio shop didn't hurt my interest in chemistry. My brothers were more into Scott's black powder testing with energetic projectiles, but I got their attention with some fun iodide pastes on key slots, and other chemistry magic. Can't get a good chemistry set any more...<g>

Reams

[Reams Goodloe]

After we moved to Maryland, one summer we found some vials of Hg at the Martin Company dump off of Wilson Point, not far from where the model aircraft fields were then, and are now.... Made a good mercury barometer at the house with glass tubing, also found at the dump, using some interesting glass blowing techniques with a hand held propane torch. Ah, for the glory days, when you could really do things that could make a mess if you didn't handle things correctly...!!

Reams

[Ralph Jones]

Well, cleaning things with Carbon Tet in the radio shop didn't hurt my interest in chemistry

I had chem sets, but what I really lusted after was the A. C. Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab. But it was fifty 1951 dollars...;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_U-238_Atomic_Energy_Laboratory

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

Made a good mercury barometer at the house with glass tubing, also found at the dump, using some interesting glass blowing techniques with a hand held propane torch.

Reams

Did that, too....in science class/middle school. We used Hg, and also did the same with plastic tubing, water with color added and a 3 or 4 story central staircase. Dad brought me home some Hg from his lab at one point, fun.

[Ray Tackett]

Ah, for the glory days, when you could really do things that could make a mess if you didn't handle things correctly...!!

"Uncle Tungsten" by Oliver Sacks, ISBN-13: 978-0375704048 My own bedroom "lab" on steroids.

[Reams Goodloe]

Thanks, Ray. I've just added it to my I Pad for an upcoming road trip...

Reams