Industrial Technology Research and Preservation http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/index.php Copyright 2006-2007 VTA. All rights reserved. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/rsfeed.gif http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/index.php 31 31 Another wave of new items have been added to the website * Solid State Indicators: Three new vintage LEDs, including a very early green model. * Microwave Oscillator Tubes: Raytheon QK291 Ka-band tunable klystron. * Filament Displays:IEE 220H-6409-B-328 One-Plane Readout and the tiny Wamco KW-105 minitron. We also have a few spare samples of the KW-105, which we have made available for purchase in our eBay store. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=702 Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=702 We have added several new scientific apparatus to the Gas Discharge Tubes section: a Crookes cathode ray tube and two spectrum tubes that appear mundane in function, but are constructed with very unusual envelopes. Other new tubes to appear on the site are the General Electric GL-6452 x-band reference cavity and the uranium-doped Eimac CIM-481274 vacuum capacitor. Not every new item to appear in this update is a tube however. We have added a vintage and strange Motorola LED, which is packaged in a red epoxy TO-92 case, to the Solid State Indicators section. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=674 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=674 Hamvention 2008 was pretty weak. Vendor attendance was significantly lower than in recent years, and I have a special *go to hell* saved for all of the gold scrappers out there who, within a two year span, have made it virtually impossible to find affordable used HP test equipment or gold-on-ceramic IC chips. Screw you and your ilk, you are destroyers of history and a cancer on society. You should try something more dignified and appropriate to your regressive species, like stealing the copper mains out of abandoned buildings and selling them for meth money. Soapbox aside, we managed to find a few good things scattered about the sea of excruciatingly boring ham radio gear and staggeringly overpriced test equipment. 2008 turned out to be a very good year for klystrons; we brought home a Raytheon RK2K25, Varian V-153, Varian VA-220G and the highly impressive Varian VA-806F water-cooled klystron. We also found a Western Electric 730A magnetron. As a result, the Microwave Oscillator Tubes page has received a major update, with entries for these new devices as well as new, better photographs of some pre-existing devices. Other noteworthy Hamvention finds include an original Haydu 6700 magnetic beam switching tube, and a rare C.P. Clare XG-1288 cermet spark gap tube. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=664 Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=664 Well, Dayton Hamvention 2008 is impending, which means we're pretty busy gearing up for it, but we've managed to add a few new items in the past week, including some argon laser tubes and a couple new microwave oscillator tubes. We've also added the Hamamatsu R444 circular-cage PMT, one of the smallest of such devices ever constructed. We'll be at Hamvention all day, all three days, weather permitting. If you see somebody in a decadecounter.com MO-10R t-shirt, walking around with another guy wearing a straw hat, pushing around a shopping cart full of totally awesome electronics crap, that would be us. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=650 Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=650 Okay, I admit that we've been wrapped up in some definitively non-vintage technology lately. We've been building a couple projects using some extremely modern Lamina Ceramics RGB light engines. They may not be old, but they are very, very bright. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=638 Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=638 We have added several new LEDs to the Solid State Indicators section, all of which feature metal can style packages. The TLMP 9210, TLMP 9310, and TLMP 9710 are a series of nearly modern, hermetically sealed LEDs which use a metal TO-46 package. The Soviet-made 3L341 is a green metal and epoxy packaged LED that was manufactured shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union. We have also added a very rare Monsanto MDA-111 display module, an integrated character generator and driver for the Monsanto MAN-2 bitmapped LED display. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=637 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=637 We have added several unusual new items to the site over the past few weeks. The Burroughs SD-11 is a sphericular optical display, a niche numeric display device that may look like a projection display, but does not function even remotely like one. ETL's GS12C is one of the most unusual dekatrons that the company ever made, a base 12 selector with a rare 'maintenance' style base, which has lugs instead of pins for easy direct connection of wire leads. We have also added a number of Western Electric integrated circuits to the Solid State Logic section. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=628 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=628 Well, early last week I finally lost a hard-fought battle against a very nasty malware package, and our main business PC went down, hard. This thing has worked itself into the boot sector on my hard drive, and due to the logistics of daily life it probably won't be fixed for a couple more days. Anyway, we lost about 6 weeks of data (not affecting the webserver), thanks to my lax backup policies. Of most importance are several E-mails we received from several different individuals (you know who you are), for whom I have now lost their contact information. So, if you've E-mailed us in the past few weeks and are wondering why we're being unresponsive asses, please contact us again so I can get back to you. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=620 Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=620 The assault of new components continues, we have added two new diodes to the newly splintered Solid State Indicators section, a Western Electric Trimline 220 Series LED and a slightly humorus green epoxy diode with a red GaAs die trapped inside. We have also added a 0Z4G tube to the Gas Filled Rectifiers section and a CV359 bargraph indicator to the Variable Indicator Tubes section. Be sure to also take a look at Tiny Tetris, one of the smallest electroinc Tetris games ever made. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=616 Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=616 Twenty years ago, engineers and hobbyists alike told tales of the mythical blue LED, the Kwisatz Haderach of LEDs. Silicon carbide (SiC) devices had existed in the lab for decades, but were too dim for practical use. SiC eventually made it to production, only to be quickly swept aside by the development of indium gallium nitride (InGaN) devices. InGaN LEDs are now available in any color from green to ultraviolet, and are anywhere from 100 to 1000 times brighter than SiC. SiC is no longer produced as a primary die material, only as a substrate for InGaN devices. We've also added some LED die images, under high magnification, to the Hewlett-Packard HPDL Series, HDSP-0962, HDSP-211x Series and Monsanto MAN-1 Series detail pages. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=608 Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=608