A different NPN germanium transistor for use

[Mark Hammer]

Boxing up a Fuzz Face type circuit that I made using 2SC281 transistors.  One tends not to see these talked about, but I have to say, they sound respectable in this application.  As the "prime candidates" begin to disappear, it's nice to have other choices to turn to.

[PRR]

Some guy "Mark" was doing these a dozen years ago.

https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=99898.0

Radiomuseum lists it as "Silizium Mesa NPN". Mesa construction may be different enough from planar to matter.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_2sc281.html

[Mark Hammer]

Is there an emoji for facepalm-drawing-blood?

I have a small storage unit with a bunch of populated boards, perf and PCB, that aren't wired up.  I pulled this one out and decided to box it up.  Ironically, the name I legended on the enclosure was "Are You Positive", alluding to the supply voltage and transistor polarity.

I just pulled one from the bin and the forward voltage between base and the other leads. And yes, it reads over 700mv so it's a silicon unit.  Crazy thing is that I obtained these Hitachi transistors as part of a blister-pak of actual germaniums I bought from a local surplus place that was going out of business.  Each blister-pak was a variety of 5 or 6 Japanese transistors (including 2SB33, 172, 173, 175, and others) that all have the exact same appearance.  These were commercial blister-paks so it wasn't anything devious on the part of the store.  The same rack had blister-paks of capacitors and 1W resistors, etc., each one having a visible uniformity of contents (e.g., five identical "tropical fish" caps).  I guess whoever packaged them originally, and sold them to the store had simply shoved a bunch of Hitachi trannies onto these cards.

Weird.  But your memory impressed me, Paul.  Can I at least claim that, since it was 12 years ago, (I can be forgiven for forgetting?  Mind you, this abundantly illustrates just how long an "almost-finished" circuit can sit around my bench, waiting for the last lap.

[antonis]

this abundantly illustrates just how long an "almost-finished" circuit can sit around my bench, waiting for the last lap.

Still far from eternity..

[PRR]

your memory impressed me

No memory. That thread was one of the first hits for the part number.

> Each blister-pak was a variety of 5 or 6 Japanese transistors

One application I saw was a full radio (actually CB) mostly PNP Ge like (not same-as) the numbers you cite, but the 2nd audio was this NPN Si. So maybe someone was stripping radios or found a lost supply bin.

Ah, this is mostly NPN, but does have the odd genders in the audio.