The AM Forum

This might be interesting reading for you folks.  Raytheon came out with the CK722 in 1953.  I have a GE radio that is still working from a little later on in that era.  It's nothing like the leather covered Raytheon 8TP2 portable radio. 

Raytheon knew a little about marketing too.  Part way down this web page is the cover of a March 22, 1955 LIFE magazine featuring Sheree North a supposed rival to Marilyn Monroe.  Raytheon had sever ads in that copy of Life - a sure bet for the man who held the purse strings in those days  ;D

Tho't you would enjoy:

http://www.jamesbutters.com/raytheon8tp2.htm

Al

PS: Allow time for the images to load - it's worth waiting for, in my opinion

I think I have some CK722s ....

On another subject, when I hear Raytheon, I think Radar.  Has that been the main thrust?

Chris

Chris

I'm starting to sound like the company spokesman but here are some answers to your question:

Development of RADAR

http://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/history/leadership/index.html

Oil from shale

http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/feature/oil_shale06/

My office is located next to the guy who was heading up the oil from shale program - he was hard of hearing so I got to hear a lot of the dialog between him and his colleagues while he insisted on using the speaker phone with the volume turned way up  ;D  Actually it was fun and I always could take a break in one of my antenna labs

Al

Al, I still have a couple Raytheon 100 watt BB solid state amplifier strips from marine radios I bought at Deerfield around 1984. They were easy to shift up to 10 meters with 3 cap vlaue changes. They work well.
I remember buying CK722s at Radio Shack

I remember buying a CK722 for a science project in the mid/late-50's.  Can't remember the exact cost, but remember it was pretty expensive on my newspaper boy budget!

Nice Raytheon radio (Sheree is also very nice! ;) BTW is this name, Sheree, coming from the French "chérie"?)

I have a GE P780,powerfull and very good sound.
http://www.transistor.org/feature/jutson/details.html

About RADAR:
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/articles/who-invented-radar.htm

NO TUBES!
NOTHING TO PLUG IN!
NEVER WEARS OUT!

No were talking.

Just for Al's 50th Raytheon Anniversary and retirement celebration I have linked to a youtube video of Sherrie North's famous audition TIGER DANCE in the 1950's. She of course would later become famous as an actress in many B films and on many 1960's and 70's TV and movie westerns like the Shootist and TV programs like the Fugitive and Hawaii Five O and you will recognize her in the photos attached.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7TNDrmOdj0

Mike WU2D

Just a bit of Horological history, Bulova used the Ck722 in their early
caliber 214 and 218 Accutron watch line back in 1960...

I purchased my first Accutron 218, I think, back in 1964 and in a recent
inventory found 18 in various working conditions including the one on
my wrist today (keeping accurate time to original spec)... ;D

Ralph

I am so jealous!  I've always wanted one.  Great watch - especially the spaceview one.  Oh yeah. Where's the CK722 in the watch?

Al

Al,

Here is an explanation of the electronics in the early 214 watch that has
the setting adjust (hack) on the back and a battery hatch there as well.
No crown on the side of the watch...
 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
The Electronics

While it is relatively simple, it is nevertheless interesting how the electronics driving the Accutron works. The electronic circuit combined with the tuning fork forms a servo system . Each of the iron cups of the tuning fork has a little magnet inside it, surrounded by a coil. The fork provides the resonant or tuned part of the circuit while the electronics provides a sustaining circuit and feedback control from the fork, which is created by induction by the fork into the feedback coil.
---------------
(My comment, it's really an oscillator with the tuning fork (@360hz) the resonate circuit)
---------------
Power from the battery flows through the transistor, and then through both of the driving coils. One of the coils (the one which is attached to the plate holding the transistor and its components) also has a secondary coil built into it. When the fork springs one way, this secondary coil provides a feedback voltage which causes the transistor to almost stop the flow of current in the driving coils, and stop driving the fork. When the fork springs back the other way, this feedback coil generates a "reverse" voltage, which causes the transistor to allow current to flow in the driving coils again. The fluctuating current in the driving coils produces a varying magnetic field, which alternately attracts and repels the tuning fork magnets. Thus it keeps on vibrating. The system is self-regulating. If the watch receives a jolt which adds to the fork vibration, the circuit automatically reduces power to the fork until it reaches the normal amplitude of vibration. The reverse is also true. While I said it is simple, it took quite a lot of work to develop the electronics to vibrate the tuning fork at the right amplitude, and yet work at such a low current that a battery would last at least a year.
 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The above text was extracted from "The Accutron Watch Page". For the full
comprehensive information do a Google search with that header...

This link will lead you to the schematic with the Bulova part numbers on it.

           "http://members.iinet.net.au/~fotoplot/214el.gif"

The 218 & 219 movements are similar with different mechanical and case designs...

Yeah, yeah I know this has nothing to do with AM radio, sorry bout that...

Very interesting nonetheless.  Say, isn't a 60khz modulation of a tuning fork at least CW?

My father bought all the components for I. Queen's "A shirt pocket radio," I think in a 1957 magazine... I'll have to look it up. Anyway we had 4 ea. 2n112's, the minature IF transformers, the (first time I ever saw one) minature, plastic two section variable cap. and a earpiece.  We were supposed to build it in a plastic box.  I got as far as cutting and filing the IF strip plastic 'chassis.'

A couple of years went by..
 
I in my not yet educated hamboney style tried to build a transmitter without bias and destroyed three of the transistors before realizing that there was something I didn't know and so saved the last one.  They got very hot and I didn't know why.

The metallic blue, neatness factor of that little transistor is still embedded in my psyche. When I pull it out of the envelope to look at it all the experiences of youth come flooding back. 

I was given a Bell Labs student experimenter kit by a physics teacher in the 70's and already it was antique; it included a transistor and solar cell. Later I got a box of Bell Labs assorted transistors in a big experimenter kit probably 100 early transistors of several types all painted yellow and hand tested and marked. I listed this stuff in Electric Radio in the late 90's and some crazy transistor collector immediately contacted me and meeting me at a restaurant in Wilmington Mass. and handed me a hundred bucks.

Mike WU2D

I have a bunch that look like miniature top hats with little colored beads on top, different colors for type I suppose, some brown some yellow labeled western electric but with no other ID.   About 3/16 dia, gold leads and have an index tab on the brim.  Any ideas?

I still have bunches of WECO transistors and other semiconductor devices from "the good old days". I also have most, if not all, of the data sheets for most of their manufactured semiconductor devices. Devices that were color coded were generally lab hand-tested to determine specific parameters for specific applications. Some were documented with an "X-Spec" or "F-Spec" classification, but most of this information never got into general distribution. So, if you have some with no identifying codes, the best you can probably do is determine NPN/PNP. Beyond that, they're probably just "drawer queens".

One of the Bell Labs Science Experimenter's Kit had this beauty:

(http://www.porticus.org/bell/images/bellkits/wef35022xstr_we.jpg)

You mean like this?

I have a couple of "Top-Hats" in my collection as well. Still test good.

In fact, I have a couple of those stud-mounted Germanium power transistors from an early inverter.

Phil - AC0OB

Identical except labeled 2n112.

they are so cool.

A couple Raytheon stories Al.

Maybe a half dozen years ago I sold a couple towers to the missile division located near Lowell (Tewksbury?).  I had to visit the site as they were a little confused about the installation (that is another story).  While waiting at the main building, I was delighted to spend some time in their museum, a display area that showed off many of their cool devices they made from marine radars to missiles and tubes.  It struck me that the general public could not see this as one needed a clearance to get into the complex.  Still a "secret".

30 years ago or so I installed a Raytheon radar on a sail boat in Camden, Maine.  In those days, a radar install was a couple days of work and in so doing I got to know the boat owner.  He asked me some technical questions about the radar (which was unusual) and seemed to be familiar with some of the components such as the LO and the magnetron.  He had recently retired from Raytheon and in fact was one of the original scientists who developed the microwave radar during WW2. 

Congrats on the retirement.

Pete

In 1963 a buddy told me I could pick up police calls by buying a single transistor at Radio Shack. So I went down there and bought one for $1.79.  ( maybe it was an FET, dunno)

I went over to his house and he showed me how it was done. To my surprise he had his transistor hooked up to a homemade RF converter circuit then into an AM band 6-transistor radio down converter.   I was mortified!    It didn't even work.

I immediately sold my transistor to one of his friends who also bought the dream.... :-)

He's the same guy who sold me a Burgess 67 1/2 volt battery to power my homemade one tube regen SW radio.  That didn't work either. I later found out the battery was dead all the time. I didn't have the BA's to stick my tongue on it to find out back then.

Then Corky sold me that Gotham vertical.  I was quite a radio-sucker in those days.

T

Tom,
You have to wonder how much money Hatry paid Corky. I never saw them sell much stuff. When I ordered my tower from them it was like they had a B52 coming in. The used stuff was the only stuff that moved and rigs sat there for months. I think they got 10%.

B-52 coming in - HA!   Some memories.

Yeah, I think they made their money on the used stuff.  They took a 30% consignment, but get this - if you traded a used rig back to them, they gave you full credit to what it was worth using the QST AWE used gear listings. That was pretty generous and caused many of us to try about every rig known to man on the shelves.

The downside was there was NO servicing there and the rigs just circulated around with the inherent problems from ham to ham. Just like the ham-clap.

There was a Ranger there for $125 that I was paying for every week with my paper route. Then in came a VALIANT! for $125 also. As much as I begged, Corky wouldn't let me transfer the deposit over to the Valiant. He said I'd be running 275 watts in the Novice band. Maybe he was right.  

Poor guy - every so often he had me go across the street to get him some donuts to mix in with the cigarettes. He had a heart.  Gave me the Novice test and drove me home with that heavy telescoping mast that I tried to carry onto the bus.  He was a ham's ham and just loved the hobby.

A year before he died he said to me.. "It's all mine!"   He paid his last payment to Hatry for his Collins S line.

T

Yup, a Saturday morning ride to Hatry's to watch Corky holding court and pick up a handful of 4 inch Johnson spreaders at 55 cents each.

from the multilevel, olive drab, rotary parts bins. I found Ward to be somewhat less of a 'wheeler dealer' and gave better advice than Corky. The parts counter guys were pretty helpful, too. Forget the one guy's name that was there for a million years. He'd ask what you were building and offer parts substitution advise.

Fond memories of the days when radio was 'magic' and a project that ended up working was a rarity.
 

Yup the green bins full of cool stuff. Ward gave me the license test. Ward was a good guy.
Doc was the guy behind the counter. Once I needed some ECL MC1648 parts and a hyperabrupt varactor diode.
I bugged Doc for months to order it for me because I didn't know any other way to buy the stuff.
Finally after many months he called and they finally came in. This was back around 1978.