amazing gift: Peterson electronic device

[bloke]

I was shocked when a long-time/rarely-seen (distance separates us) friend GAVE me this amazing gift, yesterday.

Apparently, it is the FIRST device EVER built by Peterson (the tuner manufacturer).
It features no needle nor graph (does NOT electronically/mechanically detect the tuning of other instruments), but is a TONE GENERATOR, and was used to tune organ pipes (matching - "by ear" - their tuning to the tones of this device).

I was also told that (with "Chicago" on it - as they very shortly moved to a suburb) it may well be from the company's first year of production.
Reportedly (??), no one working at Peterson has ever seen one of these - other than in pictures.

It WORKS - with a few quirks...probably due to a slightly weak tube or two...

It's QUITE loud, but - if not loud ENOUGH - (as shown below) there is an "output" female phone jack.

Anyway...I'm really amazed (honored/embarrassed) that I was given this device.
It's not something I'll use often, but will enjoy displaying and demonstrating it, and think of my good friend every time I happen to glance towards it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite

[Casca Grossa]

[Three Valves]

Next Halloween, wear a doctor get-up and lug that around with you. When you great people, say you have come to tune their organs.

But then why wait until Halloween??

I love gizmos.

[bloke]

Next Halloween, wear a doctor get-up and lug that around with you. When you great people, say you have come to tune their organs.

But then why wait until Halloween??

I love gizmos.

Halloween of 1998, I took my ten-year-old son around Trick-or-Treating. I wore a full-head Clinton mask, a white dress shirt, a navy blue blazer, a red tie, wingtip black dress shoes, long men's socks ("hose"), carried a cigar, and ONLY wore BOXER SHORTS (no trousers).

[Three Valves]

I always say I’m going to do crazy Shirt like that, then stop myself.

[YorkNumber3.0]

.

[the elephant]

I would kill for one of those!

[Jperry1466]

That’s no good. How can you clip it to your bell and prove you’re in tune at Band Festival? Pffft.

I was asked to do a clinic for a band getting ready for Band Contest a few years ago where every kid had a clip-on tuner on their bells. Every few minutes, the director would say "check your Concert F", but never any other notes. The F was fine; it was just that all the other notes were out of tune. When I pointed out things like when playing a unison concert C the trumpets would be flat and the flutes would be sharp, and all would have to make the appropriate adjustment, he looked at me like I had just invented band. I said, "You could also teach them to use their ears..."

Several years ago, I was given a perfectly good working Peterson Node Tuner by a band director who was cleaning out his storage area. It takes up some room in my office, but I find it far preferable (and I think more accurate) than anything clip-on, hand-held, phone app, etc. It's nice to be able to check where my own pitch falls throughout the instrument at sight.

Bloke, you got a very cool gift indeed.

[bloke]

“Check your concert F sharp.”

... Do graded band music composers even write that note in their pieces graded lower than “Grade 6”?

hands up:
“What’s an F sharp?”

[Three Valves]

Every day I am more and more amazed.

This forum turns common excrement into a torso covering.

Watch!!

Shirt show.

Shirt from Shinola.

Shirt head.

Shitty Shitty Bang Bang.

[jtm]

“Check your concert F sharp.”

... Do graded band music composers even write that note in their pieces graded lower than “Grade 6”?

hands up:
“What’s an F sharp?”

Maybe for the saxophones?

[Mary Ann]

Jperry said
I was asked to do a clinic for a band getting ready for Band Contest a few years ago where every kid had a clip-on tuner on their bells. Every few minutes, the director would say "check your Concert F", but never any other notes. The F was fine; it was just that all the other notes were out of tune. When I pointed out things like when playing a unison concert C the trumpets would be flat and the flutes would be sharp, and all would have to make the appropriate adjustment, he looked at me like I had just invented band. I said, "You could also teach them to use their ears..."


Oh you have just jumped on one of my pet peeves, and I'll attempt to steal the thread. I go NUTS when a conductor also thinks that the tuner is in tune, and will tune chords in sections based on what it says. I go NUTS. If band directors and conductors with music degrees don't know what intonation is outside of the tuner, how will music survive?

[bloke]

...to the broader subject of “too much reliance on computerized electronics, vs. one’s own efforts and one’s own skills”

Fewer and fewer people are able to do much of anything - if it doesn’t involve some sort of keyboard and some sort of screen.
As our rulers push all of us towards fewer and fewer chances at prosperity, young people would be wise to become highly skilled at things that people actually need to have done, if for no other reasons: to maintain running water, electricity, and heat at their own abodes. I was lucky enough to have lived in America’s best days (formerly: with hope of things becoming even better for even more people). I suppose – in a way - young people (who never will have known those days) are lucky, due to their ignorance of what they will not enjoy.

[Jim Williams]

I have hundreds of tubes for my older amateur radio sets.
If you need anything, perhaps we can work a deal for some
Blokewashers or that mythical euphonium Blokepiece.

[bloke]

I have hundreds of tubes for my older amateur radio sets.
If you need anything, perhaps we can work a deal for some
Blokewashers or that mythical euphonium Blokepiece.

wow... Thank-you!
I guess I should find someone with a testing machine…assuming I can figure out the nomenclature of the tubes, if some of their markings on top have disappeared…??

I can wire 110 or 220 (even 3ph.) - and not burn down a house, but I don’t know much about this DC/resistance stuff at all.

[Jim Williams]

Did you also receive a manual?
Tube gear from that era often has problems beyond the tubes. These problems stem principally from dried-out electrolytic capacitors, most critically any capacitors associated with a unit’s power supply. When I acquire a “boatanchor” radio from the ‘40s or ‘50s, I start by putting the unit on a Variac, starting at low voltage and building up slowly to 110. That helps to revive the capacitors if they are salvageable.
In any event, one of the other problems with that era of gear is frequency drift. On an old receiver, that means a ham talking sounds fine now, but becomes Donald-Duckily unlistenable after three minutes. On a ham radio set, all you need to do to fix that is twiddle the dial to restore the proper frequency, but frequency drift on a device used as a pitch reference is problematic. Many hams leave their vintage gear turned on 24/7 because frequency drift is worst when tube gear is first turned on.

[bloke]

I just emailed them re: the existence of a schematic or manual, but the previous owner was told that no one - who works there, today - has ever actually seen one of these...

[Jim Williams]

You can open the thing up and take out ONE tube at a time. Each tube should have an ID such as 12AX7, 6BA6, etc.
Make note of each ID, replace the tube, go on to the next & let me know the IDs.
Having said that, I might not hold out too much hope for an accurately performing device for reasons I outlined in the earlier message. Pitch-drifting pitch sources are hardly reliable. Unfortunately, there are few tube testers around any more. Additionally, the ones that still exist used tubes themselves & have the same capacitor issues, so tube testers are largely unreliable unless well maintained.

Jim "Used to listen to Radio Havana and heat my basement with the same radio" Williams

[bloke]

The Walgreens - one block from my boyhood home - not only had a tube tester (just to the left of the pharmacy), but an elaborate fountain as well...
...and hey, the pharmacy was microscopic in size - compared to my pharmacies today…because there were way fewer people on meds, and there were way fewer meds that existed.

[Yorkboy]

Wow, that's a really cool thing - what a wonderful gift!

Regarding portable tuners (apps, etc) - I've never found one that is accurate enough (for me) to tune low frequencies; I find drone tones to be much more useful and reliable.