[NJARC] Reflexed Superhet?

[Jim Whartenby]

John
You are overlooking the "economy of scale".  The more vacuum tubes of
one type you make, the less expensive they become to produce.  I'm
pretty sure that the tube manufacturers also bundled all of the tubes
required for the assembly line and shipped them in big boxes; both of
which would drive down the price.  Also, the tube sockets were cheap
wafer affairs, resistors and capacitors were 20% tolerance or more and
there were a lot of capacitors with voltage ratings that exceed the
circuit requirements, I assume among other reasons, to get a price
break.

As you know, the only component that was successfully eliminated from a
radio that made it less expensive to manufacture is the power
transformer.  But that created it's own problem, the hot chassis;
economy over safety.

The Gernsback magazines and others from the mid 1930s to the mid 1950s
had lots of articles on reflex radios, some of which were superhets. 
If you need a reference, I can look a couple of them up for you.

Muntz is the only manufacture I know of to use reflex circuits
commercially and that was in his TVs.  Would that qualify as a
commercial superhet?
Regards,
Jim

--- John Ruccolo <jr6v6gt at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Visit our web site - See http://www.njarc.org
> _______________________________________________
> I agree, but you gotta consider not only the cost of
> the tube, but the socket and some addtional assembly
> time. When you're in a price competion for selling
> miilions of 19.95 AA-5's (or AA-4's in this case), if
> you can shave 50 cents in parts and labor off the cost
> of the set, that makes a big differerence, IMHO. I'm
> still surprised no American manufacturer (that I know
> of) tried it. Probably somebody did, and it was a
> flop, for whatever reason. 
> 
> Back then, folks were trained to think "the more
> tubes, the better the radio." So most folks wouldn't
> buy a 4-tube set, even if it had the *same*
> performance as a 5-tuber that they could buy for a
> couple of bucks more.
> 
> JR
> --- Al Klase <al at ar88.net> wrote:
> 
> > Visit our web site - See http://www.njarc.org
> > _______________________________________________
> > Hi John,
> > 
> > Check out the Radiotron Designers Handbook - Fourth
> > Edition.
> > 
> > Apparently the Australians did this a lot. Perhaps
> > they were being TAXED 
> > on the number of tubes. Otherwise the $0.25 or so
> > for another tube is 
> > not a big deal.
> > 
> > Al
> > 
> > John Ruccolo wrote:
> > > Visit our web site - See http://www.njarc.org
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Hi Al/Folks,
> > >
> > > Al, your mention of a possible reflexed superhet
> > > design got me to thinking (!) on they way home
> > from
> > > the meeting. Why didn't the big-time 5-tube AA
> > > manufacturers try that to cut costs? They could
> > have
> > > used a crystal diode detector, and eliminated one
> > > tube.
> > >
> > > We've all seen those cheapy 4-tubers that
> > eliminate
> > > the IF stage (Arvin made lots of them), and are
> > weak
> > > performers only good for metro areas -- "City
> > Mouse,"
> > > as you would say. But your design (in theory)
> > would
> > > have given the same performance as a 5-tuber but
> > with
> > > 4 tubes (and a diode). I wonder if any production
> > set
> > > was ever built like that? Or perhaps the 12SQ7 or
> > > 12AV6 was just too cheap and convenient to
> > optimize
> > > out of the circuit.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > JR
> > >
> > > PS -- no, I'm not stealing your design for the HB
> > > contest. I already have my own quirky superhet on
> > the
> > > drawing board.
> > >
> > >
> > >      
> >
>
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> > >   
> > 
> > -- 
> > Al Klase – N3FRQ
> > Flemington, NJ
> > http://www.skywaves.ar88.net/
> > 
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> 
> 
> 
>      
>
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