RCA transistor

[johnabraham]

I have a Germanium transistor from RCA marked "34064". It's appearance is just as a RCA 2n408. Wondering if anyone can tell me what it is exactly, i have not been able to find it anywhere. Thanks.

[R.G.]

I have a Germanium transistor from RCA marked "34064". It's appearance is just as a RCA 2n408. Wondering if anyone can tell me what it is exactly, i have not been able to find it anywhere. Thanks.

Probably a "house numbered" device, custom marked for some specific user by RCA. Since RCA no longer exists as anything except a brand name, chances are that finding out what it is in terms of a datasheet will be a futile effort. The number probably had meaning only to RCA and whomever they custom marked it for.

[johnabraham]

Thanks. I checked a lot of sources but the RCA transistor manuals from back then. I suspect it's from the 60's and i was thinking that maybe it may be listed in one of those, but i don't have them. It may be where RCA did not even list it, i dunno. Thanks for giving me a idea here. I was thinking along the lines of a 2N406 or 2N408- but its code is funny as you say... I got with the fellow i got it from and he used to do a lot of car radio work if that means anything....

[R.G.]

Even if you knew exactly what RCA once said it was, you'd want to test it to find out what the one you actually have in hand really is.

Test gain and try it in a breadboard circuit.

[Mark Hammer]

Go find a university technical lab; preferably one that doesn't have a great budget and has to make do with older stuff.  There is a chance they may have one of those old mammoth books that listed cross-references for all extant semiconductors, including equivalences between house numbers and actual part numbers.  It's tough slogging through hose books, I have to say (you'll need someone to guide you), but I was quite surprised what could be found in there.

Last time I looked at one was in 1990.  Given how many new semiconductors have been in production since then, I can't imagine they publish those any more.

[petemoore]

  What it was supposed to be Vs. What does it actually do.
   Or: A blurb about what it might-should have been was it/is it still [who knows] ? Vs. What it actually does [testing gives present day condition-numbers so you can tell what you have to work with.