Trivia question for younger board members.

If you know the answer to this question please hold up posting for a couple of days and let the younger board members guess. Don't Google it, try to figure it out on your own and post your guesses.
Here it is. Tubes require high voltage but the old tube car radios only had 6 or 12 volt batteries as a power source. How did they deal with this problem?

I'm neither young, nor do I know the answer. Now I'm depressed.

I, too, know the answer and even remember tearing up - oops, I mean disassembling such radios!

Captain Coconut wrote:I'm neither young, nor do I know the answer. Now I'm depressed.

Clue > What item is used more by an UNMARRIED female than a MARRIED female ?

Bob

Bob Latino wrote:

Captain Coconut wrote:I'm neither young, nor do I know the answer. Now I'm depressed.

Clue > What item is used more by an UNMARRIED female than a MARRIED female ?

Bob

Ummmm .... a condom?

Bob, I can't comment on your hint without making it easier.

Hint 3: what do you plug a home solar array into?

Another hint: Using the radio in your vehicle always had a teltale "HUM" eminating from the dashboard created by the item in question. I know from experience that you can run down the battery very quickly without the engine running.

Clue > What item is used more by an UNMARRIED female than a MARRIED female ?

Bob

Unmarried? You haven't met my wife. Woke up to the sound of a jackhammer near by one morning. That's what I thought until I looked in her undies drawer. The thing nearly jumped out and bit me!

Cheese wheeze, I must be the young one, so it must be a DUI, I mean a UID.....cryogenated ?

LOL

I scavenged a car radio in my teens so I know the answer.

What looks like a can capacitor but plugs in like a tube and goes hum. Hum, I guess that is the point or points of the whole discussion.

Actually hint 3 above would be an inverter which was way, way to high tech for these radios. Remember no semiconductors. They had to shake, rattle, and roll in a different way. Hum, I wander how.

A vacuum?

I just crack myself up... :-D

Kind of like an inverted heavy metal rock band DC/AC

Dynamo Hum?

A generator on the wheels. The fast you went, the more B+ you generated!

Tomorrow morning I will post a site that has pictures and a full explanation. The battery is the power source. The point I made in an earlier post probably is lost on anyone who has not worked on a 1975 or older car.
This has been fun.

Until then I will be waiting with bated breath wondering how you tune in a good FM station with a condom? Gee, I don't think even McGiver ever pulled that one off (no pun intended).

I think I know the answer but will wait. Plus, the guesses and hints are WAY too much fun.

Was wondering though, why worry about DC when there's an AC supply available onboard so to speak?

Or is that the answer?

Cars in the old days had DC generators so there was no AC source in the car. The word we are looking for is vibrator. Not the kind with the motor that goes hum but one with points that click off and on and goes hum. The switching off and on created an AC supply out of DC so it could be sent to a transformer to get the needed voltage. Transistor radios don't need the high voltage and can run directly off the battery.
If you look at an old radio you would probably mistake it for a can capacitor but they plugged into a socket like a tube. My father, a TV repair man, replaced tons of these on truckers radios who burned them up on a regular basses. Thanks everyone it's been a lot of fun, the link has pictures and goes into detail.
Speaking of vibrators, if you want an unbelievable story look up why the other kind of vibrator was invented and by whom. Hint, look up the treatment by doctors for a no longer accepted health problem called Female Hysteria around the 1900. I guess you could say it's now a home remedy.

http://oddmix.com/tech/vct_vibrator_anode_supplies.html

Oh, alternators didn't show up until the 50's - my "youth"(?!?) is showing.

No reason to get hysterical. Netflix the movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1435513/