Yes, but they used transistor output stages with those, you couldn't drive a loudspeaker with 12v HT valves.
So the evolution sort of went:-
'Ordinary' valves using 'high' voltage (i.e. 100 volts or more) with a vibrator power supply stepping up the voltage from the 12v car battery.
12v HT valves for the RF and IF stages followed by transistor output stages, all running off 12v.All semiconductor radios when RF transistors became available economically.
Were they the Green Spot or the White Spot amongst those being sold off to amateurs from otherwise manufacturer's rejects?
I remember in the late 1960s, I owned one, only, germanium transistor which I did not dare solder for fear of causing further migration of semiconductors into a resistor!
I still have a soldering heatsink I made - a small crock clip with thick copper wire soldered into the jaws
And at some time, Practical Wireless gave an aluminium tweezer-like heatsink to clip onto leads whist soldering. I still have mine somewhere
well that IS a sort of invertor...
I didn't like to say vibrator in case there were ladies present.
Bill
I have always simply squashed the jaws of a small croc clips so they resemble serrated scissors and used them. You can three or four in a row as the squashed jaws are only about a mm wide.
Bill
Once when I was on some drug or other it made me randy as hell and I remember sitting in a pub eyeing up the coin slot on the jukebox. And my mate actually did put his knob up the silencer pipe of his Escort for a laugh.
Bill
Not after what I had done.
Bill
I used to use the simple method of holding the wire in a pair of small flat faced pliers while soldering, I don't think I ever destroyed a transistor or diode by overheating it. Much more common (destruction) in my case was the wire dropping off from fatigue after multiple re-uses!
Solder to the work, not iron. ;-)
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