the connection of vacuum tubes and wacko cults

[ericbarbour]

Part of why I keep following the early history of electronics:

The TCA list has been discussing this Radio magazine article:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Arc ... 925-12.pdf

Not only is this rare information, it was written by none other than Volney Mathison. Who later invented the e-meter used by L. Ron Hubbard. And wrote a whole string of wacky books in the 1950s.

http://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com ... art-6.html

Not all the electronic pioneers prior to WWII were dull technical types.....

[Graaf Statler]

O, tubes. ECC81, EL84, EL34, ECL83, AZ2? Granddad is talking. I remember me the first transistors, germanium, a disaster. And now someone in 2017 stil is working with tubes!
Stttt Dream. A QUAD Classic II M.

[Graaf Statler]

Here. A idiot who build a vacuum tube drum machine..

@Erik, do you know what drum machine is this? Because I am curious.

[ericbarbour]

Here. A idiot who build a vacuum tube drum machine..
@Erik, do you know what drum machine is this? Because I am curious.

Yes, I designed and sold that. It was discontinued 3 years ago and replaced with a better one--but various people (lunatics?) keep begging me to make the old one again.....it had problems. But they don't care.

[ericbarbour]

harolddonleonwp.png (71.08 KiB) Viewed 7728 times

From another thread -- some time ago, on the old WS forum, I noted there was no article about Cyril Elwell. Then "as if by MAGIC", one appeared. But there's still nothing about Harold Donle. And I could make up a list of other electronic pioneers who aren't on WP. And even a few that were part of wacko cults.

At least they have something about John R. Brinkley, goat testicle hero of Kansas. And a genuine radio pioneer--for bad reasons.

[suckadmin]

At least they have something about John R. Brinkley, goat testicle hero of Kansas. And a genuine radio pioneer--for bad reasons.

There's a documentary on Netflix about the first male to female and female to male sex change recipients in Great Britain and they mentioned goat testicle implants as being a popular method to cure the gay or something like that. Curiously the patient who underwent the male to female operation had to do his own castration because it was illegal for surgeons to perform it for any "non-medical" reason... Otherwise the sex change operations were performed by a surgeon who was a pioneer in using skin grafts to reconstruct faces and genitals damaged by war related injuries.

[ericbarbour]

There's a documentary on Netflix about the first male to female and female to male sex change recipients in Great Britain and they mentioned goat testicle implants as being a popular method to cure the gay or something like that.

Which is doubtful at best. Sometimes male impotence could be cured with Brinkley's lunatic idea as the testosterone in the gland was absorbed into the blood stream. Not mentioned were the many people (he sometimes did it to women also), who sickened and died from septic infections because Brinkley was a "bit lax" about cleanliness. He was great at pushing people thru the surgery pipeline as fast as possible. Not to mention the people who died of tissue-rejection effects, because btw it's the wrong species.

And that is the man who nearly became governor of Kansas, and later pioneered "clear channel" Mexican broadcasting. For a few years he operated the world's most powerful transmitter, XERA on 840 kHz. It was a historic pioneer of broadcasting "race" music, which very few radio stations would touch at the time. In between the advertising for goat-testicle implants, astrologers, fortune tellers, and scam artists. James Weldon, XERA's engineer, went on to found Continental Electronics, one of the largest manufacturers of commercial radio transmitters.

XERA was the first "Doherty transmitter" design and used the most powerful transmitting tube of the day, the Western Electric 320A. Sixteen of them. Western Electric loved Dr. Brinkley--until the Mexican government shut him down in 1941 because of pressure from the US State Department.

weldon_tube.jpg (87.64 KiB) Viewed 7725 times

American politics is more messed up than most Americans realize.

[Graaf Statler]

Here. A idiot who build a vacuum tube drum machine..
@Erik, do you know what drum machine is this? Because I am curious.

Yes, I designed and sold that. It was discontinued 3 years ago and replaced with a better one--but various people (lunatics?) keep begging me to make the old one again.....it had problems. But they don't care.

Vacuum tubes are always a problem Eric. Glowing EL34's, exploding e-cap's, hum, burnt tube bases, I know what tubes are. I have seen enough half burned out Fenders in my life. But they were also very easy to repair. The roadies did this kind of work in that time. Change the tubes and the e-caps, and the probelm was solved.
We bought boxes of Tesla tubes in Czechoslovakia in that day's, they had Russian codes, but were extreem cheap. And not bad quality, you only had to search the pairs experimentally. Guitarists destroy vacuum tube's very quick, so it did't matter. If there was a lot of noise it was OK for them. Transistor amplifiers were aso very simple, change the 2n3055's and a few bc 547, 557 and the problem was solved! Life was simple in that time,

[Strelnikov]

There's a documentary on Netflix about the first male to female and female to male sex change recipients in Great Britain and they mentioned goat testicle implants as being a popular method to cure the gay or something like that.

Which is doubtful at best. Sometimes male impotence could be cured with Brinkley's lunatic idea as the testosterone in the gland was absorbed into the blood stream. Not mentioned were the many people (he sometimes did it to women also), who sickened and died from septic infections because Brinkley was a "bit lax" about cleanliness. He was great at pushing people thru the surgery pipeline as fast as possible. Not to mention the people who died of tissue-rejection effects, because btw it's the wrong species.

And that is the man who nearly became governor of Kansas, and later pioneered "clear channel" Mexican broadcasting. For a few years he operated the world's most powerful transmitter, XERA on 840 kHz. It was a historic pioneer of broadcasting "race" music, which very few radio stations would touch at the time. In between the advertising for goat-testicle implants, astrologers, fortune tellers, and scam artists. James Weldon, XERA's engineer, went on to found Continental Electronics, one of the largest manufacturers of commercial radio transmitters.

XERA was the first "Doherty transmitter" design and used the most powerful transmitting tube of the day, the Western Electric 320A. Sixteen of them. Western Electric loved Dr. Brinkley--until the Mexican government shut him down in 1941 because of pressure from the US State Department.

weldon_tube.jpg

American politics is more messed up than most Americans realize.

"Clear Channel" broadcasting still exists on AM like KTNN, the Navajo station on 660 kHz. When I first heard it, I thought it was a pirate because it was all in Navajo, and there were no ad breaks. They are in New Mexico and I am at the far end of the continental United States and it came in well.

[ericbarbour]

"Clear Channel" broadcasting still exists on AM like KTNN, the Navajo station on 660 kHz. When I first heard it, I thought it was a pirate because it was all in Navajo, and there were no ad breaks. They are in New Mexico and I am at the far end of the continental United States and it came in well.

At least the Navajo are trying to preserve their language somehow. Most tribes in North America gave up. Plus note that KTNN has announcements in Navajo (it's one of the most difficult languages to learn) but they play ordinary white-people country music most of the time.

They stream here
http://streamdb6web.securenetsystems.net/v5/KTNN