Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:13114 rec.ham-radio:22431
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!brian
From: brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,rec.ham-radio
Subject: Re: Has anyone made any homemade valves (tubes), semiconductors ...
Message-ID: <16238@ucsd.Edu>
Date: 26 Jul 90 06:14:38 GMT
References: <872@massey.ac.nz>
Followup-To: sci.electronics
Organization: The Avant-Garde of the Now, Ltd.
Lines: 19

Well, actually, I've never made any vacuum tubes, but I have made some
semiconductor material - there used to be these nifty science
experiment kits that Bell Labs put out, and in one of them you made a
photocell from a wafer of silicon, rat poison, and some other wonderous
stuff.  I like to think it helped me pass the semiconductor physics
course I took much later in college.

My Grandfather, on the other hand, used to make triode vacuum tubes all
the time.  Of course, he was working for Lee De Forest at the time.
(BTW, gramps was a ham too - his call was 2RH, and somewhere around here
I have one of his licenses, signed by Herbert Hoover.  He didn't keep
any of the tubes, though.)  He got bored with vacuum tubes and went to
work as a test pilot for Igor Sikorsky.  At the age of 85, legally
blind, he used to race his motorcycle around the trailer camp where he
lived down in Florida, terrorizing women and children alike.

And you guys think I terrorize the net?  Just wait until I get to be
as wild as grandpa was....
					- Brian