The AM Forum

In another thread I was discussing some equipment that I had picked up that is obsolescent, but still cool (too me).  I think it would be interesting to see what other folks think of as "neat" items that are no longer with us...
Items can be full up equipment or just ideas that were really good, but seemed to have fallen away in our faster-cheaper-plastic world. They can be radio related or not.

I'll start with -

Reel to reel tape decks,

Bumper Jacks on cars (dangerous, but neat, you don't have to lay down on the ground to use em).

IBM selectric typewriter - probably the only typewriter that could type at max speed with out jamming, all mechanical design.

Those little glass bowls on the carburators of small engines

Slide Rule - I was in the last slide rule class offered at my college before they eliminated the course.

Those clear glass 115V lamps that had a metal flower or something inside that glowed purple.

Those glowing eye tubes used for relative metering.

Dymo embossing labelers.  Do they still even make them?

Scientific calculator watch (log, trig, exponentials, scientific notation, etc.).  Casio stopped making them and would not repair mine.

CFX-400:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b5/Cfx400c.JPG/200px-Cfx400c.JPG)

http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm301/nort242/Casio%20CFX-400/Zoom.jpg

Floodlights for your yard with 500W halogen bulbs. I just went to looking for them, at both Home Depot and Lowes, and all I could find was 50W florescent fixtures which cost twice as much, don't put out as much light, and must be left on for 20 minutes to reach full brightness.

Vinyl record turntables.

Asbestos sheets you can buy at hardware stores for patching mufflers.

Medicine with caps that an adult can get off.

Big jars of Potassium Nitrate you can buy at the drug store for making rocket fuel.

1 HP motors for table saws that weigh 40 pounds instead of the 5 lb 1HP motors that emit smoke under load. (Did horses get smaller somewhere along the line?)

big jars of Potassium Nitrate........Buy stump remover at the hardware store..Most brands are 100% KNO3

when I was a kid, I had one of those big jars of KNO3, and mixed it with some powedered sugar to make a rocket motor. (worked well, but messy).

I had the bowl of the concoction on the bench next to me while I was sorking and a spark or something set it off  :o
filled the shop with smoke and a 4 foot flame.  It wrecked the bowl... and scared the bejesus out of me..

luckily the only damage was a big mess of molten sugar goo and the stink...

Wow, things aren't as bad as I thought.

You can buy KNO3 stump remover on ebay.

There is hope for the world after all.

Of course, I'm about 45 years past the age of mixing rocket fuel.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tree-Stump-Remover-Potassium-Nitrate-Powder-KNO3_W0QQitemZ370101120418QQcmdZViewItemQQptZFertilizer_Soil_Amendments?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

Houses made of real wood, not glued wood chips and plastic.

Evening AM broadcast radio dramas. (Not the Marconi net)

Neighborhood hardware stores that keep the small, slow selling items needed by the radio ham, and don't require you to buy 100 of something when you only need 2.

The milkman and home grocery delivery.

The neighbor's boy who would mow your grass.

W2OY.

Double silk covered wire, the great green colored wire for winding coils in old buzzard gear.

The corner radio store, with the big curved glass windows filled with the latest and greatest in wooden radios.

The neighborhood electronics jobber who actually stocked parts.

Radio Shack selling electronic parts, "Science Fair" kits, and other items of interest to a ham. Also Radio Shack catalogs.

Hardcover books - nearly.

Elected officials who understand they are public servants.

Flapper dresses with the feather headband and beads, for the YL, not for me.

Glenn Miller, Kay Kyser and Tommy Dorsey.

Wooden boats - almost.

Standard transmissions in late model cars, most now "slush boxes".

People who routinely say, "please", "thank you", "sorry to trouble you" and "pardon me".


And finally, CUSTOMER SERVICE, given the in English language.

Still being sold:

(http://global.dymo.com/img/compel/r4l2ETsfwNbNEcsauVx4TEzOArdu_NGn.jpg)

(http://www.lightbulbsdirect.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/flick-ca-8_tn.jpg)

(http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/eparty_2042_462861565)

The scientific calculator watch probably was replaced by the TV/Cable Box Remote watch:

(http://mod.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/p1170774dt.jpg)

Halogen Floods:
http://www.bulbs.com/eSpec.aspx?ID=8408&Ref=Halogen+Bulbs&RefId=22&Ref2=Light+Bulbs

Vinyl records and turntables are on a new resurgence. Expect more manufacturers to start turning out turntables as more new vinyl starts hitting the markets.

What ever happened to the new generation CD's that were supposed to have about triple the sample rate of standard CB's, and audio quality comparable to vinyl?

Something I don't miss about vinyl is the inevitable pops from dust and scratches.  I  like the dynamic range that CD's are capable of.


Now to add to the list...

Carbon tetrachloride

Chemistry sets

Real wood siding

Cars that I can repair myself

Ceiling fans with real cast iron motors that require lubricating oil

Incandescent light bulbs with durable enough filaments that you can drop them more than one inch without destroying them.

Consumer electronics junk with an on/off switch that actually turns the thing off when not in use.

Stuff at the grocery store that is sold in full size pint, quart, half gallon and gallon containers.

Sodas and other items sweetened with real cane sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.

Standard, low-tech windows made of wood, with replaceable window panes.

Carbon composition resistors.

Car radios with excellent AM reception capability.

Radio stations with real, live local announcers.

Local news and weather on the broadcast radio.

Sheets of plywood that really are a full 3/8", 1/2", 5/8", 3/4" and 1" thick

Cheap furniture that is not made of particle board.

Turns counters with a mechanism made of metal.

Sony MiniDisc

Interesting, non-religious shortwave broadcasts in English.

TV shows with one commercial break every quarter hour.

Clear channel AM broadcast stations that play music.

Any AM broadcast stations that play music.

I sold a Chemistry Set at Dayton last year. It was one of the tables when you stopped by.
Here's another source:
http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3001651

Carbon Composition Resistors - Here's one source:
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?N=254365

Cheap Furniture:
http://www.beanbags.com/
or
http://www.verycheapfurniture.com/

AM stations that play music:
http://www.ontheradio.net/states/tennessee.aspx
Scroll down the chart for the AM stations that play music. You could probably search your neighboring states for the same type of info (Google - "state of interest" AM Music stations)

•    16-2/3-RPM records
•    3- and 5-speed bicycles
•    33-1/3-RPM records
•    45-RPM records
•    8-Track tape
•    A "bad air day" was when someone ate beans or Mexican food the night before
  
•    A "bad fit" referred to clothing or shoes
  
•    Adjusting a radio, TV, etc. meant turning a knob -- not pushing a button
•    Aluminum Christmas trees [couldn't use light-strings, for safety -- had to use a small flood-lamp with color-wheel]
  
•    AM Broadcast radio that was more music than piss-and-moan, I mean, talk
  
•    AM car radios with one speaker [luxury cars had two!]
  
•    AMC Gremlin [my sister had one in 1979, she should've never sold it]
  
•    American Flyer trains
•    An "uncomfortable workplace" was either too hot or too cold
  
•    Archer Space Patrol walkie-talkies [27 MHz]
  
•    A used anything still had years of trouble-free life remaining, because people took better care of things then
  
•    Automakers who "won [races] on Sunday, sold [cars] on Monday"
  
•    "Bowling For Dollars" [locally-produced TV program]
  
•    "Captain Kangaroo" [childrens' TV program]
  
•    CB radios, when everyone had and used them -- at home and in the car
•    "CD" meant Civil Defense, not a type of savings account or music / data storage medium
  
•    Chevrolet Chevy II / Nova [the real one, not the Toyota-built version of the mid-1980s]
  
•    Chevrolet Corvette [when it was a sports car, not a yuppie-status-symbol]
  
•    Chevrolet Luv pickup [built by Isuzu]
  
•    Chevrolet Vega
•    Children were never left in the car alone, especially in the summer
•    Children's games / toys that didn't need batteries
  
•    "Coke" was Coca-Cola
  
•    Computers were inconceivable as automotive controls
•    Computers were inconceivable as household items
•    "Cool McCool" [cartoon, a parody of James Bond / Derek Flint / Maxwell Smart, et. al.]
  
•    "Crack" was something in the sidewalk, on the wall, or on an egg
  
•    Disney's "Wonderful World Of Color" [when color TV was still a "new" thing]
  
•    Disputes were settled with discussion, or physical action if necessary -- not in court
•    Druggists actually mixed preparations, not merely dispensed them
•    Duct tape was used only for ducts and other AC / heat needs
•    "Easy-Bake" oven [girls' cooking toy]
  
•    Elvis Presley's death
•    Evel Kneivel's death-defying motorcycle jumps [and crashes]
  
•    Five-and-dime stores [Mott's and M.E. Moses here in Dallas]
  
•    Ford Courier pickup [built by Mazda]
  
•    Ford Escort [before it went "upscale"]
  
•    Ford Falcon
•    Ford Fiesta [a re-badged Fiat Strada, IMHO]
  
•    Ford Granada
•    Ford Maverick
•    Ford Pinto [seems ever so often, Ford would come out with a new "people's car"]
  
•    Ford Thunderbird [the real one, not the yuppie-status-symbol]
  
•    Full-service gas stations -- where the attendant would fill your tank, check oil, wipers, tires, etc. and clean windows
•    Gasoline trucks had chains dragging the pavement to bleed off static electricity [to prevent explosions]
  
•    Glass pop bottles with 5-cent deposits [picked up from around the neighborhood and returned to buy batteries for pocket radios, see below]
  
•    Going to the "mall" was a not-too-commonplace experience
  
•    Groceries were bagged in paper sacks
•    Having an "alternative lifestyle" meant that you lived in a mobile home [which was called without shame, a "trailer"]
  
•    "Johnson" was a US president or a radio -- not a male body part
  
•    Kids were taught in school -- not said to be "hyperactive" and medicated into a stupor to keep them quiet
  
•    Kids would be home by a certain time
•    Kids would go outdoors and find something creative and fun to do -- and not get arrested, in trouble, injured, kidnapped, or killed
•    Laser- and CED videodiscs [they were 12 inches in diameter!!]
  
•    Leaded gasoline -- in "Regular" and "Ethyl"
  
•    Lionel trains
•    Locally-televised professional wrestling that didn't look fake [Dallas area: Fritz Von Erich and sons]
  
•    Low-to-mid-market stereo equipment that was halfway-decently built
•    "Made In Japan" -- and better than today's other Asian offerings
  
•    Mechanical clocks -- analog and digital
  
•    Mini-bikes [with the infamous Briggs & Stratton 3-1/2 HP engine, fast enough]
  
•    "Mister Peppermint" [childrens' TV program; especially at the beginning -- he was based out of Dallas]
  
•    Mobile telephones that looked like a telephone ["common carrier" -- and you could legally listen to them on a VHF scanner!]
  
•    Movie special-effects were photographic, not computerized
•    Open-reel tape recorders
•    Pagers were called "beepers" and actually beeped [and the only people with them were medical and legal professionals…and drug dealers]
  
•    Parents could spank their misbehaving children without fear of arrest or legal action
•    Parents didn't worry about violence in cartoons [because the average child didn't like falling from a chair or bike -- nevermind a 300-foot cliff]
  
•    Passing airplanes would cause your TV picture to flutter or have "ghosts"
  
•    Pocket AM radios [if your parents were affluent, it was AM/FM]
  
•    "Ports" were for ships and airplanes, not computer connections
  
•    President Johnson's funeral
•    President Nixon's resignation
•    President Reagan's "outlawing" of the Soviet Union [he was joking, but the remark was recorded]
  
•    Putting aluminum foil on the ends of "rabbit-ear" TV antennas, to improve reception
  
•    Radio / TV shops
•    Record-changers were more prevalent than "turntables"
  
•    "Ripcord" [both the TV program and the school prank -- untying someone's tennis shoes]
  
•    Rotary-dial telephones
•    S&H Green Stamps [given with purchases at the supermarket; collected and redeemed for merchandise]
  
•    Sapphire styli [needles] that came with your record player -- which you upgraded to diamond when the original was worn out
  
•    "Sea Hunt" [TV program]
  
•    Sears & Roebuck's annual catalog [the infamous "Wish Book"]
  
•    Slot-cars [the real Aurora Model Motoring / AFX -- not the cheaper Tyco]
  
•    Spam was something you ate
•    Spraying ether or pouring a bit of gasoline down a carburetor to start a stubborn engine
•    The American hostages held in Iran for 444 days [one was a Marine from where I live]
  
•    The Hemi [the Chrysler engine, not the yuppie-status-symbol]
  
•    The only controls on a car's steering column were the turn-signal and gearshift
•    Tubes [and tester!] at the Eckerd / Sun Rexall / Skillern's drugstores, and Radio Shack
  
•    Tube-type radios and televisions -- and one could get them back to working just by replacing tubes
•    Turner "+2," "+3," "Road King 70," and "Super Sidekick" microphones [popular with CBers]
  
•    TV-channel indicators on the channel selector, not the screen
•    TV stations came on-air at 5 or 6 AM, and went off-air at midnight, with the National Anthem
•    "Whirlybirds" [TV program]
  

* * * * * * * * * * *
 
For some reason, I like dragging out this list. ;D

My Libido... hah! just kidding folks!

I have shoehorned old mid-1970's AM radios into the dash of my 'new' cars.  I'm to the point where there is nothing I listen to on FM, and the modern receivers stink for AM.  I add another TO-220 audio amp IC to the radio so it can drive the 4 speakers in the car.  WSM's 'Grand ol' Opry' is grea Saturday night road-tripping entertainment.

Electronic things that plug in and don't have a wall wart.

Readable paper newspapers with news.

manufactured goods not made in China  :o

73,  Jack, W9GT

Electronic devices that actually turn off when you throw the switch, instead of staying partially powered up at all times...

Got  2 R2R's and plenty of tape.
Have a Selectric, it's getting finicky but won't give it up.  There a rare need to type something every once in a while.  It would be nice to make a computer/printer act as a typewriter for doing forms, etc.

bacteria that weren't multiple drug resistant

common sense

KNO3, crap we were happy to get a couple boxes of caps and scrape the powder out of them for a good sized fire cracker to blow a hunk out of the old pine tree in the woods.

Made in the USA

Get yourself a cheap dot matrix impact printer. They are still available and can do multi-part forms.
 
(http://www.okidata.com/common/product-art/ML186_AR.gif)

I have 2 dot matrix printers.  An IBM Proprinter XL and a MONSTER IBM color dot matrix.  Don't know if I should chuck them or hang on to them as "vintage" printers.

I got an Okidata 24 pin dot matrix for work for $5 and we have used it for many years printing pin feed labels. Obviously, it's more than paid for itself.  ;D

I have to admit, an IBM selectric followed me home from the landfill one day. It was left in a box at the "Recycle Center"  All it needed was a cleaning and a bit of lube.  My son uses it to write stories and song lyrics...
I find that typing a letter or something on it is relaxing, but I am an odd duck, acording to my XYL...

It did make a great mill for copying code  ;D  

Avocado Green..

lawn darts

USA made tools of real steel

tires you can actually balance so they don't shake your car at 70MPH

the 70 MPH speed limit

real gasoline with LEAD

real SOLDER with LEAD

the lead-free RoHS junk doesn't wet or flow properly, and looks like a 'cold' joint when it's cooled.

20 WPM Extras.

I stocked up about 2 years ago when the lead weenies started banning tin-lead.  Got about 40 rolls of good ole tin-lead, various sizes and brands.  Love the the rosin core stuff that smells like pine.  Reminds me of the times my old man would repair the old B&W TV set back in the 60's.

40 rolls man you could live to 400 and not run out.

Pilot Crackers,   Fish Chowder isn't the same and they were a staple on the boat.   Ed

candy cigarettes (cigars too!) that smoked powdered sugar when you "puffed"

Filling a paper sack with candy at the corner store for 25¢

movies that didn't have to show people gettin' chopped with a chain saw to scare the bejesus out of you (hitchcock could do it!!!)


and still there but on the way out,  real barbershops with barbers not "stylists"

Pilot crackers...Still available all over Alaska .... a staple for fishermen and trappers

The speed limit is 75 here in the West...(except the peoples republic of Oregon)

The Flat-top and Afro. (Though I still get a Flat-top from time to time.)

Women without tatoos 

There's a really good lookin' blond on Amer. Idol who has her whole right arm from the shoulder down tatooed in some sort of mural.  Really pretty face and can sing too.

I guess it's a cultural bias thing or age thing with me, but any tatoo that large sort of tells me a lot about the girl.   ..kind of cheapens the image. 

I must be really uptight. ::)

The Draft.

I find it odd, in a sad way, that to be vulgar (meaning base as well as crude) is the "In" thing.  No one dresses nicely, we swear in everday convesation, and tattoos and piercings are a-ok. 
I guess every generation has to do sometihng to alienate themsevles from the one prior...

Sunspots and the MUF above 18MHz.   I don't know if my imagination or my age, but it seems like this minimum is much longer than any I remember.

Twenty rolls would have  probably been more than enough for my lifetime. Got a good deal on them so I couldn't refuse. Yep, I went nuts gathering up tin/lead solder off of EBay when a thread a year or two ago appeared here about the RoHs BS and banning of lead solder was rolled out.  I think Tom/JJ went nuts too. 

My biggest gripe is things that are made of plastic when they could be made of metal.

I've been in an on going fight recently with my dishwasher that is 5 years old and all the plastic stuff that is crapping out would not have crapped out if it was made of metal.