Mullard OC44 questions

[B9 Robot]

I have been noticing a few OC44 transistors on Ebay lately. Most of which are described as being Mullards. However, it appears that there are at least three different types that all claim to be made by Mullard. There are some that are black glass with a rounded top, others that are black glass with a flatter top, and finally some with a yellow sleeve around them. Can all of these possibly be genuine Mullard OC44s or is somebody misrepresenting something here? If they are all Mullards, is a certain type preferable to the others. Which did the original Rangemaster use?

Thank you.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I believe Mullard manufactured in more than one country. The earliest ones were glass (painted black) IIRC. I dont think it would make any difference what era they were, the manufacturing spreads were so wide anyhow.

[petemoore]

Seems like as much as these are prized archeological finds. [at least the good ones] with the original odds of getting a great one, that with the time that has passed and the value peolpe place on them that they may have been well picked over by now, I mean firsties is firsties, seconds is seconds, I don't know exactly when they stopped making them, but the demand seems greater than the supply...
 I've never tried buying NOS Ge's like that, I wouldn't know.

[Manolo Dudes]

I've got a photo of an original Mullard OC44 in my  Rangemaster page in pisotones.com:





I've read that Mullard made semiconductors for other manufacturers. I think that this Philips is Mullard made:





OffTopic: B9 Robot... wanna see yourself?... go to the very end of my Gibson Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge modification page  :wink:    

[Dai H.]

Philips owned Mullard and a bunch of other companies. They even owned a part of Matsushita until fairly recently IIRC.

[B9 Robot]

Thank for all of the replies.

OT: Hey Manolo Dudes. I take it you are a Lost In Space fan also? They have released the first season on DVD in case you did not know. I remember watching reruns of this show when I was a very young boy. My wife bought the DVD set for me for Vanentines Day and my 5 year old daughter loves it as much as I do. I hope there are plans to release seasons two and three soon.

Back on topic: I have visited Piso-tones before and I have found it to be a very good site even though I am far from fluent in Spanish. It has been too many years since I studied it in high school. I did notice that you recommend keeping the 68K resistor at that value and just try tweaking the 3.9K to bias the transistor. I will try this with my next build. My first Rangemaster clone I decreased it down to 56K and although it sounded okay, I did feel like it was missing something. Some of it could be due to the transistor I used as well. I biased it according to the article on Geofex.

Thanks again.

[Manolo Dudes]

I take it you are a Lost In Space fan also?

You bet!  :lol:

They have released the first season on DVD in case you did not know. I remember watching reruns of this show when I was a very young boy.

I know!.. I've got it too!  :wink:  On the other hand, I watched the show when it was originally released, not reruns. I think I'm a bit old  :roll:

I too wait anxiously for the other two seasons in DVD.

P.S. Sorry for the OT