On Friday 28 February 2025 08:50:13 am wn4isx via groups.io wrote:
Note: "Battery" sizes, "D", "C", "AA" "AAA" have nothing to do with function.
There were "B" cells at one point. I think with the introduction of the "AA", the "A" and "B" cell went away, this would have been the late 1950s.
I've wondered about that, never saw an A or B cell.
(...)
In the good old days, 1960~1970, US lantern batteries consisted of 4 "F" cells. A "F" cell was the same diameter as a "D" but longer. Today most US lanturn batteries use "D" cells
I remember those, REAL bright light. You could get those batteries with springs on top for contacts, or screw terminals. Didn't know if they were still made or not, I haven't looked.
An "AA" and "C" are the same length, I've wrapped tape around an AA so it's work in my wife's wall clock.
I didn't feel like running out and buying a "C" cell. Hillbilly Engineering at it's finest. The "C" cell lasted about a year, the "AA" lasted about a year.
I have exactly *one* device around here that uses a C cell. Had one in it when I got it, corroded all to heck. It's a Heathkit transistor tester, and the short leads that plugged into it tended to touch each other and drain the battery if you weren't careful. I remember lots of "transistor testers" in magazines and such, can't say I've used the thing in many years.
Almost everyone is familiar with the rectangular 9V battery, at one time, 1960ish, there was a round 9V battery about the size of a "C" cell. It had more amp hours [ok mA hours] then the rectangular one but transistor radio design improved to where the extra capacity wasn't needed and the single double contact snap was easier for people to use.
I remember those, and also some bigger ones with rectangular cases, 9V and other voltages.
Heath offered a 100mW superheterodyne CB HT that used the round 9V battery. I was at an air show in 1964 or 65 [or 66 or 63] and a CAP member had to change the battery in his HT.
I wonder if you can still get any of those?
Technobable nonsense. If you reversed the receive and transmit crystals for US CB channel 10, the HT would be on the CAP 'channel.' You'd have to retune the RF stages for optimal performance, but it was an inexpensive way for CAP members to get on the air. I had a Lafayette HT with a blown TX stage and reversed the CH 10 Rc and Tx crystals so I could listen to CAP. They were extremely active for a few years in Lexington, then sort of faded away.
No experience with CAP for me, excepting maybe I ran into a guy once who was into that stuff. I never had any CB gear that used a whole mess of crystals like that earlier stuff did, the first one I used was synthesized. I at one point modified that with a small toggle switch on the back of it to give me some "extra" channels below the regular ones, some guy down the road was on there a lot with a very dirty signal that would splatter up into the conversations I was having on channel 7. Got one rig now that I was given a while back, I think that part of the electronics is in the base of the antenna, which is a mag mount. Tried it here, and got nothing, but I don't suppose that there's anybody using CB anywhere around here anyway. Never bothered to try it elsewhere.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
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Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
