Audio Probe - Uncle Jimmy

[aron]

Uncle Jimmy was the person that told my friend Craig about the audio probe. I thought it might be cool to tell him:

Where you are from
What you are doing with the audio probe
Maybe wish him well

and perhaps send him a scan or so (optional) from your town?

I made this email address so you guys can write him and the messages will be printed and mailed to him (he has no email!)

Would be cool if you guys would participate; here's the address:

unclejimmyhi@gmail.com

[troubledtom]

done, so be it :wink:
-tt

[aron]

come on guys. A little more participation if you use the audio probe.

[petemoore]

Thanks is Emailed !!!
 I mostly indirectly benefit because it helps everyone out around here.
 Excellent, necessary debug tool !!!

[vanhansen]

Sorry, aron.  Been a bit busy.  I just sent an email.

[barret77]

sorry for my ignorance, but which audio probe?

[Bill Bergman]

Is Uncle Jimmy not well? Are you talking about the cap/jack probe? What do you mean by "a scan"? Sorry, all this is not clear to me. :oops:

[aron]

s Uncle Jimmy not well? Are you talking about the cap/jack probe? What do you mean by "a scan"? Sorry, all this is not clear to me.

Good questions Bill!

Uncle Jimmy is well, but old. He's a wealth of tube knowledge and I thought it would be nice to let him know that a simple, simple idea he gave me to debug my circuits ended being so useful!

Yes, the cap/jack probe on here:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/debug.html

Scan is just a term for a digital picture.

Thanks!

[Bill Bergman]

Jimmy, you've got mail.
.....forgot to tell him I live in Houston, Texas.

[aron]

Yes, this post was a long time ago, but Uncle Jimmy passed away at the great age of 104! Again, he is the one that told my friend Craig about the audio probe. I have some cool pictures from some of his old stuff that I was able to check out.

[Mark Hammer]

Didn't know Uncle Jimmy, but it made me nostalgic to see Troubled Tom and Bill Bergman's names in the thread.  I wonder what they're up to.

Whenever we hear about someone who has lived almost, or more than, a century, we tend to think about the marvelous technological and social changes they have witnessed.  Uncle Jimmy would have been born at the cusp of the great influenza pandemic, been 20 when the Hindenberg erupted into flames, 24 when Pearl Harbour was attacked, 28 when that war ended, 33 when the Korean War began, 46 when Kennedy was assassinated and the Civil Rights movement got into full swing, 47 when those dang Beatles started making such a ruckus on Ed Sullivan, etc. etc.

But as someone with more than a passing interest in electronics, just think about all the changes to that domain that he had witnessed and had to adapt to: the development of vaccuum tubes, circuit boards, the transistor, magnetic tape, vinyl discs, the integrated circuit, the cathode ray tube, frequencies beyond 20khz, the earliest forms of television when he was 10, the development of FM radio when he was 16, computers, piezoelectrics, interconnected computers, the list goes on and on.

[stallik]

Didn't know uncle Jimmy either and, when this thread started, my interest in electronics had yet to begin. Today, the audio probe is the most useful de-bugging tool I have and, should I reach 100, I'll still be recommending others build it.

Is it known whether he dreamed up the idea or who passed the idea to him?

[anotherjim]

Bless him.
I had to look up "Compactron". How have I come this far without knowing of them? Really cool name.

[aron]

Mark, you are right. I never thought of it like that. He had a TON of transistors... But less germanium ones than you might think. He also had a number of tubes and a CRT tester in his house! There were more than 4 "areas" of the house with electronics. He was a die-hard electronics guy.
Pretty cool!

[ThermionicScott]

Bless him.
I had to look up "Compactron". How have I come this far without knowing of them? Really cool name.

Yeah, Compactrons were neat -- an attempt to keep tubes relevant by packing more functionality into a single envelope.  Fender used 6C10's in a couple of 70s/80s amps, but I suspect that was more about making use of tubes they could get cheaply than anything else.  (Think of a 12AX7, but with one more triode!)

[PRR]

Yes, this post was a long time ago, but Uncle Jimmy passed away at the great age of 104! Again, he is the one that told my friend Craig about the audio probe....

Sorry I missed this when he was with us.

Somewhere else folks were wondering who invented signal tracing. I found an article from an early wave:


Radio News, Mar 1940

[Ben N]

Bless him.
I had to look up "Compactron". How have I come this far without knowing of them? Really cool name.

So, no mid-60s Ampegs in your life, I take it, Jim?

RIP Uncle Jimmy. He left a worthy nephew in his footsteps.

[bluebunny]

RIP Uncle Jimmy. He left a worthy nephew in his footsteps.

This, on both counts.

[anotherjim]

No Ampegs here. I've never seen any in a music store. Too expensive after import duty for the UK market.
I know of mixed in the bottle tubes. Triode/Pentode mostly and there were some guitar amps using them but they had no special name.

[Ben N]

Yes, this post was a long time ago, but Uncle Jimmy passed away at the great age of 104! Again, he is the one that told my friend Craig about the audio probe....

Sorry I missed this when he was with us.

Somewhere else folks were wondering who invented signal tracing. I found an article from an early wave:


Radio News, Mar 1940

Signal tracer, signal chaser. As a practitioner of the law, I wonder if there is such a thing as an ambulance tracer.