Links Page

Radio and electronics forums

There are some forums and cooperation sites that are particularly interesting interesting for the valve enthousiast and radio collector.

• EEWeb electrical engineering community, a site with projects, interesting discussions and more.
• Lots of Dutch valve radio fans on the Dutch Forum on Old Radios.
• NVHR, the Dutch association for historic radios.
• Jogis Roehrenbude tips and descriptions to make ancient components yourself, schematics and designs using valves, plus a valve discussion forum in German.
• The radiomuseum.org database contains a forum and tremendous amounts of interesting data.
• The Eddystone User Group has information on the history of Eddystone radios and manuals.

Radio collector sites

Some sites offering information on old radios, radio repair and restoration and home-building of ancient radio designs:

• Nice collection on Otto's radio en TV museum .
• Gerard's Radio Corner has good background articles and a large collection.
• Robbie's Amroh and Beatles page about the famous Amroh kits and components.
• Gidi Verheijen has some really old models and describes his restoration projects.
• Enrico Tedeschi's Vintage News is an interesting site.
• Information on Eddystone radios and other radio stuff on Radio Aktiv.
• Vintage Radio World about domestic valve radios. Restoration info and links, too.
• Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration a site with very good tips and hints.
• The SBR Radiomuseum "Eeuwfeestpaleisje" has interesting info on Belgian radios. There are circuit diagrams. Most interesting: there is a real museum you can visit.

Valve data sheets

If you need data sheets on valves, information on valve equivalents or other reference data, here are a few useful sites:

• Frank Philipse's tremendously complete and detailed valve data pages. Could that be his real name? (mirror)
• Erik Putz has put together some nice-to-knows on valves.
• Nostalgia Air presents schematics and a lot of data on valves.
• Kytelabs have some reference lists, mirror.
• List of tube data sheets by Tom Jennings of World Power Systems.
• Besides vacuum and neon valves datasheets, Mike's Electric Stuff has a lot of neon lights, sparks and electric explosions. Mike, just undo it!
• Åke Holm from Sweden has a lot of information on exotic electron tubes and presents a number of his hobby projects. Nice background and lovely pictures of nixies.

Nixie tube sites

• Decodesystems has a page on nixies. They seem to have collected a lot of nixified equipment and publish some manual pages.
• Frank Bemelman has designed a nixie clock and is offering kits. As a matter of fact, I bought one and built it.

If you want data sheets, there are a number of places on the Net where you can find neon and nixie tube data:

• Frank Philipse has a site with a lot of tube data sheets. Here's page Z, containing Philips and Mullard ZMxxxx nixies.
• Mike's electric stuff, among other things, contains data on nixies and a clock as an application example.
• Åke's tube data contains data on tubes and on the ZM1000 nixie.
• Sam and Don have a FAQ page on gas discharge lamps and a few words on small neon tubes. And they have kept up with progress and dicuss LEDs.
• World Power Systems have a page on “obsolete technology” , and a collection of tube data sheets.

Valve equipment manuals

Some sites on electronic measuring equipment using valves, such as scopes, signal generators etc.:

• Richard's Tekscope-Museum has photographs, specs, material etc. on Teks with valves.
• Ebaman's site is all about Tektronix scopes.
• Bill and Stan's Tektronix Resource Site states that old is not necessarily bad.
• The Museum of Tektronix Scopes ...unfortunately closed down now.
• Stefan Graef collects vintage test equipment.

Valve projects and circuits

Yes, there are still people who build electronic equipment using valves. Internet gives us a way to express ourselves. Some interesting links to radio amateurs devoted to regenerative receivers and other types of historical DIY radios:

• A complete and comprehensive description to build a one dollar radio with a single valve, using homebrew parts for the rest.
• Visit the tinkering pages on Jogi's site. He has lot of tube info and a number of regenerative receivers.
• Information and links on The Glowbugs page of Jan, SM5GNN
• Nice transistorised design by Australian radio amateur VK3YE

And of course, valve amplifier fanatics.

• MachMat contains a lot of schematics of old amplifiers and kits for new ones. Its author, Matthijs is a knowledgeable and enthousiastic valve amplifier enthousiast.
• Triode Dick's site contains a lot of interesting valve amplifier designs and thoughts and observations about valve amplifiers. Dick is a true believer and his writings about his amplifiers are boiling over with enthousiasm. His site is in Dutch and he is a quite famous valve amplifier designer in The Netherlands.

Electronic designs & projects

A number of sites that contain sample schematics and descriptions of electronics projects by other hobbyists.

• The Circuitsonline site is a Dutch site that contains a lot of designs, circuit diagrams and data sheets. Every electronics hobbyist should visit it!
• EEWeb also has a projects page.
• The Hobby Electronics from Japan page by Seiichi Inoue describes a number of projects and gives useful information. He describes his projects in much detail and explains useful crafts such as PIC programming and PCB making. His project descriptions, illustrated with bright and clear photographs, are like carefully composed flower arrangements. Don't forget to have a look at his pages on Japanese traditions.
• Defpom's CB and ham site contains a lot of projects, schematics, repair tips and reference info.
• FC's Electronic Circuits is offering a number of designs and links.
• The site of the late Bob Pease, the analogue electronic design guru is offering a lot of knowledge in his columns.
• Tony van Roon of the University of Guelph in Canada is offering a lot of crcuits and some interesting high voltage stuff.
• Kytelabs Philippes has a blog where sometimes funny projects such as smart lightbulbs are presented.

Electronic kits

A number of sites that contain sample schematics and descriptions of electronics projects by other hobbyists.

• Almost All Digital Electronics (AADE) is offering a small number of nice kits of their own design. I really like their LC meter. In addition, they offer a lot of useful tips and hints and a huge list of interesting links.
• Frank Bemelman is offering a few kits of his own design: nixie clocks, a scope clock.
• KitsRUs offers alot of kits.

Electronics Magazines

Reading about electronics is interesting and necessary to gain knowledge and develop your ideas. The best magazines are those that contain good tutorials, experiences of electronic engineers and good and tested descriptions of projects. A few of the magazines I like or liked:

• Elektor, an international electronics magazine that originated in The Netherlands. It contains useful information and nice projects. But beware of their "leak".
• ELV, a German magazine that contains good basic articles and project descriptions. Despite the fact that its obvious purpose is to sell kits by ELV, it is worth reading. They always print schematics and parts lists and even masks to make the PCBs.
• Electronic Design is an American magazine that offers a lot of interesting information on their website. You can also find articles and columns by the National analogue design guru, the late Bob Pease.
• Electronique Pratique magazine is a French magazine that publishes interesting designs every month.
• Circuit Cellar magazine is a magazine devoted to embedded systems and microcomputer applications. It has a lot of interesting stuff on-line.
• Radio Bulletin magazine has ceased to exist, its heritage is kept by Bureau Belper. This magazine has initiated many Dutch radio and electronics hobbyists. But times changed, subscribers went, the magazine had become only a shadow of its past. The rights to the name and most of the copyrights of their publisher, "De Muiderkring" have been bought by Bureau Belper, who have tried to keep RB alive, but the tide could not be turned. But they still have a nice list of electronics links and some downloadable magazine articles.
• Electronics world is what is left of "Wireless World", Britains oldest and most venerable electronics magazine. In the early 2000ś they still had very good articles on hi-fi and electronic engineering. But the magazine had lost focus and weight.