surprise haul

[Electronic M]

Sometimes we find things in unexpected places, as was the case yesterday.
I've been to the Illinois American Science and Surplus store before, and was not impressed. Folks I know have been to the Milwaukee one and were similarly unimpressed with it, but when my folks decided to go there yesterday to return something I still thought it would be a good idea to tag along...Boy was I right!

While browsing through I found this stuff.
A SKL CATV signal amplifier.






I have not tested it yet, but given it was calibrated as recently as '74, the connectors were modernized to F-type, and that aside from the better part of a dozen 6AK5's there is only a selenium, and 4 in it to fail. I'm later going to try to use it as a booster for an agile modulator transmitter. I wonder if this was used in one of Zenith's engineering facilities as a test instrument. There is not much info on this out there so if anyone knows more I'd love to hear about it.

Next I spotted this piece of (early 50's?) RCA TV broadcast gear.








Anyone know anything about what this is, what use I could use it for(if anything), what value it is, and who might want it if I don't have use for it. I'm guessing it's some kind of synch stabilizing amp for a TV transmitter.

At 5$ a piece I could not pass those up.

I also found some VTR's, but took only this one because with only it's top lid missing it was the most complete one there (the others looked to be only good for parts or a wild goose chase to find them).


It records and plays video and audio, but there is a weird/annoying metalic echo in the sound that I will need to fix before it's useful to me. It only cost me 12$!

All in all I think it was 20 some bucks well spent.

[dieseljeep]

The old RCA unit, looks to have a lot of salvagable parts.
Better quality tube sockets and other components. Pots and maybe a power transformer. Of course, the caps are scrap, especially the bathtubs. They're loaded with PCB oil.