"Paul_Morphy" ) writes:
"Ken Scharf" wrote in message
. ..

Be carefull. You'll burn your fingers with those!

Funny how they never have the remote controls. I haven't bought one yet. I'm
lamely waiting for someone to tell me it's worthwhile to tear one apart.
This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I read. I
see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

"PM"



I have no idea what's in them, and not even a good idea of their
function (well obviously it's something to do with tv).

Assuming these are for use with cable, I suspect there is less of
interest in them than some other items, at least given the price.
Cable converters (ie they don't do descrambling but convert cable
channels down to where an old tv set getting channels 2 to 13 can
receive the channels) have a wideband converter, usually double
conversion, that have been used in some "spectrum analyzer" projects.
But I find those in the garbage (or did, maybe they have now become
too old).

VCRs have wideband tuners too, though the ones I've taken apart
tune in segments like tv tuners rather than all in one range like
the cable converters. VCRs are plentiful and free, and you can pull
pretty much all the plastic basic purpose transistors you need off
them. As long as it's older, then the components are not surface mount.
They are much cleaner than the TV sets that I noticed when I was a kid.
If I was starting out, I'd be pulling the resistors and capacitors off
the VCRs too.

I once found a satellite receiver waiting for the garbage outside
a repair place. Besides the nifty case, it came with a diode ring
mixer, I think with a known brand on it. I pulled some other things
off it, but it was less than I would have expected (though, I didn't
really have expectations).

Old cellphones, the big clunky kind, tend to have interesting parts,
and since we're talking old they are cheap since nobody wants them
and the parts are less integrated and often not surface mount. TCXO's,
FM-bandwidth crystal filters often in the "roofing filter" range, indeed
complete FM IF strips, UHF prescalers, NE570 companders or direct
variants and if they are old enough, CPUs and their peripherals that
are recognizable and reusable. I've bought old cellphones for as low
as fifty cents, and have paid up to five dollars because I could expect
a reasonable return.

What sort of parts are you looking for? That might help to solve
whether something is worth actually paying for.

Michael VE2BVW

Ken Scharf ) writes:
This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I read. I
see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).

I'm not a kid, but I still carry tools around. And I think there's
a much better selection and quality of electronic junk being tossed
than when I was a kid.

Back then, over thirty years ago, you'd be lucky to find tv sets
and AC/DC radios. And the heat from the tubes tended to collect
all kinds of junk from the air (or maybe it was mainly because people
tended to keep such things in use for so long) so they were terribly
messy. And of course, the components tended to be big and bulky, though
of course since it was in the late tube-era that's the sort of thing
needed for building anyway.

I was out somewhere yesterday, and came across a monitor that had
a bunch of BNC connectors on it. If I hadn't been trying to get somewhere
on time, I would have taken the time to get them off. As it was, there
was no easy way to get that assembly off, so I left them there. I did pull
two boards off, one digital, to strip down later.

Having the tools is great. You can be selective. When you start out,
most of such equipment can be useful, but as the decades drag on, it's
too much trouble to bring the whole thing home. With tools you can
get the equipment open and extract useful parts right on the spot.
So you can pull the variable capacitors off any radio you see. Or
pop open that computer to pull out any memory. I've been grabbing
switching supplies from computers, partly because they are easy to
extract, and originally because I thought I'd reuse them as power
supplies. But there are more than enough for that, so I've started
pulling the boards out of the boxes when I get home, and using
the boxes for other things.

Michael VE2BVW

Ken Scharf ) writes:
This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I read. I
see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).

I'm not a kid, but I still carry tools around. And I think there's
a much better selection and quality of electronic junk being tossed
than when I was a kid.

Back then, over thirty years ago, you'd be lucky to find tv sets
and AC/DC radios. And the heat from the tubes tended to collect
all kinds of junk from the air (or maybe it was mainly because people
tended to keep such things in use for so long) so they were terribly
messy. And of course, the components tended to be big and bulky, though
of course since it was in the late tube-era that's the sort of thing
needed for building anyway.

I was out somewhere yesterday, and came across a monitor that had
a bunch of BNC connectors on it. If I hadn't been trying to get somewhere
on time, I would have taken the time to get them off. As it was, there
was no easy way to get that assembly off, so I left them there. I did pull
two boards off, one digital, to strip down later.

Having the tools is great. You can be selective. When you start out,
most of such equipment can be useful, but as the decades drag on, it's
too much trouble to bring the whole thing home. With tools you can
get the equipment open and extract useful parts right on the spot.
So you can pull the variable capacitors off any radio you see. Or
pop open that computer to pull out any memory. I've been grabbing
switching supplies from computers, partly because they are easy to
extract, and originally because I thought I'd reuse them as power
supplies. But there are more than enough for that, so I've started
pulling the boards out of the boxes when I get home, and using
the boxes for other things.

Michael VE2BVW

"Ken Scharf" wrote in message
. ..
This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I
read. I
see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).

Ahaha! I did the same thing. I had a basement full of CRTs. Finally came the
day to discard them, just lined 'em out on the street on garbage day. I
didn't bother to break the seals. I was looking out my bedroom window as the
trash collector tossed the first one around the back edge of the truck. It
blew up! Nice cloud of white phosphor. He treated the rest of them like
nitroglycerin. My Elmer told me how to break the seals so that wouldn't
happen again.

I still get a fair share of parts from salvaged gear.
http://tinyurl.com/34np2 It just doesn't feel like homebrew otherwise. None
of the pictured items remains intact.

Doing a run on QRZ.com, I am wondering if you were at this free flea? I live
up in Stuart but I made it to this one. Passed on Hollywood today to finish
a project, but I'm going to be in Gainesville next weekend.

73,

"PM"

"Ken Scharf" wrote in message
. ..
This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I
read. I
see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).

Ahaha! I did the same thing. I had a basement full of CRTs. Finally came the
day to discard them, just lined 'em out on the street on garbage day. I
didn't bother to break the seals. I was looking out my bedroom window as the
trash collector tossed the first one around the back edge of the truck. It
blew up! Nice cloud of white phosphor. He treated the rest of them like
nitroglycerin. My Elmer told me how to break the seals so that wouldn't
happen again.

I still get a fair share of parts from salvaged gear.
http://tinyurl.com/34np2 It just doesn't feel like homebrew otherwise. None
of the pictured items remains intact.

Doing a run on QRZ.com, I am wondering if you were at this free flea? I live
up in Stuart but I made it to this one. Passed on Hollywood today to finish
a project, but I'm going to be in Gainesville next weekend.

73,

"PM"

This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I read. I
see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).

This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I read. I
see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).

Paul_Morphy wrote:
"Ken Scharf" wrote in message
. ..

This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I

read. I

see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).


Ahaha! I did the same thing. I had a basement full of CRTs. Finally came the
day to discard them, just lined 'em out on the street on garbage day. I
didn't bother to break the seals. I was looking out my bedroom window as the
trash collector tossed the first one around the back edge of the truck. It
blew up! Nice cloud of white phosphor. He treated the rest of them like
nitroglycerin. My Elmer told me how to break the seals so that wouldn't
happen again.

I still get a fair share of parts from salvaged gear.
http://tinyurl.com/34np2 It just doesn't feel like homebrew otherwise. None
of the pictured items remains intact.

Doing a run on QRZ.com, I am wondering if you were at this free flea? I live
up in Stuart but I made it to this one. Passed on Hollywood today to finish
a project, but I'm going to be in Gainesville next weekend.

73,

"PM"


Figures, the one free flea I missed and there were some nice goodies!
My kids were reading stories they wrote for school at Walden books that
morning so I had to go. There was another free flea in Coral Gables
this month, didn't make that one either. Well maybe I'll see you in the
fall at Cy Harris. There used to be a free flea up in Lantana, whatever
happened to that one?

Paul_Morphy wrote:
"Ken Scharf" wrote in message
. ..

This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I

read. I

see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).


Ahaha! I did the same thing. I had a basement full of CRTs. Finally came the
day to discard them, just lined 'em out on the street on garbage day. I
didn't bother to break the seals. I was looking out my bedroom window as the
trash collector tossed the first one around the back edge of the truck. It
blew up! Nice cloud of white phosphor. He treated the rest of them like
nitroglycerin. My Elmer told me how to break the seals so that wouldn't
happen again.

I still get a fair share of parts from salvaged gear.
http://tinyurl.com/34np2 It just doesn't feel like homebrew otherwise. None
of the pictured items remains intact.

Doing a run on QRZ.com, I am wondering if you were at this free flea? I live
up in Stuart but I made it to this one. Passed on Hollywood today to finish
a project, but I'm going to be in Gainesville next weekend.

73,

"PM"


Figures, the one free flea I missed and there were some nice goodies!
My kids were reading stories they wrote for school at Walden books that
morning so I had to go. There was another free flea in Coral Gables
this month, didn't make that one either. Well maybe I'll see you in the
fall at Cy Harris. There used to be a free flea up in Lantana, whatever
happened to that one?