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De Forest Audion Box
Dec 24, 2009
Audion Project
I have a friend here in Macon, GA (a retired ENT physician) who collects and rebuilds old radios. He also collects old pieces of electronic “stuff” and one of his prizes is an authentic 1914 (?) De Forest RJ5 Audion Detector tube, but he didn’t have the whole box. My project – a Christmas present for him – was to build the box for him and mount all the hardware, which he provided. The box is made of Honduran mahogany, which I had left over from another project, and I milled to 1/2″ thick and is a 6″ cube. The discerning observer will note that the real RJ5 is NOT mounted in this photograph. This is just a modern light bulb that has about the same shape. He will put the real RJ5 in it when he gets it home. I think it’s worth $3K to $5K. None of the internal wiring is hooked up and he does not plan to “light it up” – the filaments don’t last very long. 🙂
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Comments
Very cool. What exactly is it's purpose?
Sorry to take so long... the audion was the first vacuum tube, used to control electric current. This one is not a working model - actually turning it on uses up the filament very quickly.
Contact me for a working replica Audion tube or see Glasslinger on youtube. Ron makes Audion as well as other vacuum tubes to order. He is one of about 3 people in the world doing this. He says a working Deforest RJ-5 is the Holy Grail of radio's.
One more thing I forgot to mention. Ron's Audion replica's look identical to the originals but Ron improves the filament to modern spec's so the filament will last indefinitely. The replica audion's are also hi vacuum unlike the original's. This means the tube has more gain and works better.
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