Hello all,

Have had a long-time fascination with valves, initially introduced when I joined the RAAF back in 1978 as an electrical fitter. I hit that sweet spot when RAAF trade training was transitioning from valves to semiconductors, so benefited from both technologies training, was even trained on Mag-Amps which were used in the Sabre aircraft.

Later in my career (1990-1992 inc), I was posted to the Radio School as an instructor. The irony of this was that I initially wanted to join as a RADTECH, but my maths was considered weak, but here I was now being posted there as an instructor, go figure.

Anyway, one of the subjects I was required to teach was valves theory. To enable this, I had to increase my knowledge of them, and this just further increased my interest and fascination with them.

But I never took it any further until a few years back when a cousin of mine, who operates an antique store in Temora, advised me that she had a few old valve radios for sale, so I dived in and purchased them. Two mains powered, one working and one not. The third turned out to be a battery-operated model. Also just purchased another off eBay, also a battery-operated model. It is the latter that has led to me joining this forum, so will post the question in the appropriate area.

Welcome to the forum, we look forward to your questions.

G'day Lloyd and welcome to our happy home.

I never cease to be amazed at the stereotype that people cannot join the electrical or electronic trades if their maths isn't up to snuff. I was hopeless at maths at school yet I managed to score high results in all the sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc) and I am in my 30th year as a trade qualified electrician. I've always believed that if someone wants something badly enough, barriers can be broken down and we are all the living proof in one way or another. I'd like to see the look on the faces of ome of my school teachers who thought I'd never amount to anything because I wasn't academic enough - those smart alec common room gossips would get a surprise as these days I am the Chief Engineer at a large hospital and run the whole maintenance and building works programmes.

This is a fairly disruptive position as it requires me to be on call though it is made up for with the results that can be achieved at the end of the day. Fortunately I do not get too many phone calls and there is a system in place so that load is not so much shared but filtered by giving others the authority to make phone calls to service providers when something breaks down. It all helps.

At the moment, I am in the middle of planning holidays but the rain is causing issues there.