The AM Forum

... you find something neat.

I was pulling components off of an old board that I had scarfed up to salvage.
One of the things on it looked like a BIG neon bulb, Welp when I pulled it off and could read the lettering
it was a Corotron  G35V - 700   WTF??  well a quick Google and LO I have found a 700 volt voltage regulator.
Way cool. Seems they made quiet a few, back in the day.

Also something that looks like a spark gap in a tiny glass vial. Probalby is, and I think it was used for OV protection.  Maybe when I get that off, I'll figgure out a use em on SOMETHING just for coolness factor...

You could always tell people on the air that your rig includes a push-pull pair of Corotron 700s.

Before the FCC swoops in.

Corotrons were top-secret WWII radar pulse modulators, obsoleted by the Scrotron.

They stopped making them because the anode alloy, scrotonium, was too difficult to machine properly.

many old high voltage regulators used neon bulbs as a sloppy reference source.
scrotonium is that the stealth element?

They must have resolved their manufacturing difficulty, as they also used that alloy in the Eimac 4-1000

The stealth element is Noseemeionium. Difficult to find in it's pure state.

Scrotonium was frequently alloyed with brass spheres...

Scrotonium is generally thought of as a stiffener or hardening element/agent, which is why machining anodes made from the alloy was so difficult as Bill mentioned.

Stacked above my garage is a pile of black wrinkle WWII surplus aviation low pass filters of some sort which used Scrotonium as a key material. MrMike was at the Randolph 'fest years ago when I scored these and quickly ran out the door with them. He identified them immediately. I've been told they are priceless.

And I thought that so much of this electronic "stuff" that we all crave nowadays was made from that now-unavailable material Unobtanium.

73,

Bruce

there was once a man named Cass
whose BA's were made out of brass
when they tinkled together,
they played 'Stormy Weather'
and lightning would shoot out of his a$@

Bill, yer right about scrotonium being difficult to machine, but that's not the worst of it. The worst part is that it's extremly sensitive to inambient temperature variationia. Basic scrotonium emits seminarium at a rate inadvertanly proportionate to the Celsium. In additorium, when the Fahren-height exceeds criticalnia the seminariums are burnt toast. This often happens when one is so upset over political differentia his underware gets too tight.

Walt, W2DU