|
Other
discarded transistors included Raytheon devices painted blue, red, and
yellow. It is likely that these were bought from Raytheon as fallouts,
then tested and color-coded by Trans-Aire to keep component costs down. I
found other bulk transistors from the Fairchild 2N718 family, plus samples
from General Transistor, Germanium Products, Philco, and others.
Trans-Aire
built their own testers to sort the transistors. I recall small
slope-front meter boxes with transistor sockets, switches, and a large
meter which had the grades marked on its face. The primary test was for
gain or beta, with the “hottest” transistors being assigned for RF
(converter) use, the next highest gain were IF transistors, and the lower
gain devices being assigned to audio stages. They must have also tested
for open-short, leakage, and breakdown, but I don’t recall specifically.
Some of the parts which failed the transistor test were used as detector
diodes. Sometimes they counted those diodes as transistors, which was
common in those days. So a “6-Transistor” radio consisted of (1) converter,
(1) IF, (1) audio driver, (2) audio outputs, and (1) transistor used as a
diode detector.
What
types of work did you do at Trans-Aire in the mid 1960s?
It
was fun. I went to work with my father in the summers when school was out,
also some Saturdays. Mostly I worked in the stockroom, but also helped out
in the engineering lab.
Go
To D'Airo Oral History, Page 4
|