englishmoon

Is this the warp-drive?

Or is it the timer from a thermonuclear device?

It needs a 12AU7. But what will it do when it gets one? Will it be happy?

Perhaps on completion of the circuit with that 12AU7, the tuned coils will transmit through time and space and summon those who created us? Is inserting the missing tube the key to enabling the second coming?

Who knows? I actually just want to know what this is. The problem is that I have managed to get the amplifier going (on one channel), but I can't get any radio signals on either AM or FM. I thought it might be the pre-amp for a turntable, but there seem to be separate leads for the phono input, and this input goes to the selector knob.

Well that's all for now. I hope you are all as intrigued by this ancient set as I am (but I doubt it).

The image above is the area next to the multiplex circuit board. I wonder if this is a serial number of a model type? I thought the chassis number ought to be punched in, but anyway, it might help to identify this stereo.

This pic shows the underside of the chassis. In front of the chassis is a pre-amp of some kind. I'm not yet sure if this is a pre-amp dedicated for the (now non-existent) turntable? Or whether it is the main pre-amp for all the inputs. This pre-amp is connected to the main chassis via a long wiring harness and plugs in the back. One of the tubes on the pre-amp is a 12AU7. My friend is going to see if he happens to have a 12AU7 in his 'box.' I hope he has.

The above pics are of the left and right sides of the facia panel. I hope this helps to identify it. If anyone knows where I can get the circuit diagram for this I will be very happy.

One last picture. Does anyone know the circuit diagram for this? On the facia panel it says "Columbia" "GUARANTEED HIGH FIDELITY" "FM MULTIPLEX" There is no visible model number.

Generally I like cooking. I almost always eat what I cook, but as my cooking is usually some form of experimentation, the flavour is often not what other people usually expect. This habitual 'experimentation' with food preparation has had the effect of causing people around me to be somewhat wary when they try my cooking.

Anyway, I usually manage to create something that is edible. Here is such an occasion. It's bread.

Yeast is easy to find at the supermarket, so is baking powder. Of course flour is easily accessible as well. I used olive oil instead of butter. I cooked the bread in a big old toaster oven. I had to stand near it so I could manually adjust the temperature, and I stopped the top from getting toasted by covering the cooking dough with a sheet of aluminium foil. The foil was useful because I could watch the foil edge moving upwards to gauge how much the bread was rising.

Here's another pic.

The pic above also shows my kitchen table as it often gets, with various parts and bits of machines with tools mixed-in.

Anyone can make bread. It's probably more expensive to make it yourself, but I find the stuff I make myself is heavier than the bought stuff, and I can add any number of things to make the bread interesting (for me anyway).

I would have been around six years old. It was the middle of the night. The curtains were drawn, and it was very dark. Around the edges of the curtains I could see a faint light. The light was from the stars, and there was no moon in the sky.

There was no wind and it was absolutely silent. I didn't know why I had woken up. I must have been woken up by something because I was instantly wide awake. I opened my eyes and tried to see details of my bedroom but it was far too dark to do that. Then from the distance I could hear footsteps. I heard the sound of someone wearing shoes walking with a slow and steady gait. At first the sound of the footsteps was inaudible but at some point it crossed over the threshold until I could discern not only that there was someone walking, but also that the person was walking towards me. I began to feel afraid.

The house I grew up in in England was very old. It was nearly five hundred years old at the time I was a young boy there. The house had been in my family for generations. Actually half the village was at one time owned by my ancestors though successive generations had lost the wealth and most of the property and the big old house was just about all that remained in the family.

My bedroom was on the first floor. The first floor in England refers to what is known in US English as the second floor. My three brothers slept in the room above mine. My parents slept in the room next to my bedroom. Because our old house had been used for various purposes over the centuries, it had a curious system of staircases and rooms were accessed by passing through another room. From the living room below, by bedroom could be entered via a staircase. Then to reach my parent's room one needed to go across my bedroom. To get to my brothers on the second floor (US third floor) one walked across my bedroom and took a different staircase.

The house was made of oak beams and the walls were made with interwoven lathes of wood. the walls and the ceilings were covered with a plaster made with horse hair. The floors were made of oak, and my father had spent time exposing the oak beams in the walls and they were stained black.

That night it was so quiet. The curtains didn't move even the slightest bit. It was late October and it was very cold outside my bed. I hoped the footsteps would go away but they just kept coming nearer. They seemed to be coming from somewhere in front of my bed and to the right. Suddenly I lifted my head because the steps were so near I could hear the sound of the oak floorboards reflecting from around the room. Suddenly I saw a pair of shoes emerge from through the wall which was between my room and my parent's room. They were women's shoes. They must have been hard shoes because the sound of the footsteps was very sharp.

The room was almost completely black and I couldn't make out any details, but the shoes were a vivid pale yellow/green colour - they looked luminous like the figures on an old clock are luminous. The shoes never hesitated. They continued in a straight line and walked under my bed. Then the footsteps stopped and there was silence once more. I wanted to call my parents but I was too afraid to make any noise.

I lay in bed too frightened to move. I just lay there awake and all the time it was completely silent and cold. There were many trees in our huge garden and it was usually possible to hear the sound of the leaves moving, or sometimes a small animal or a bird would make a sound in the middle of the night, but this night there was only silence ... silence broken by the footsteps coming closer and then silence again. As morning approached, I could see a little. With the increasing light I felt less afraid. I looked under the bed after what had seemed an interminable length of time and I saw nothing.