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(no-MV) road trip DFW-Roswell-Los Alamos May 31-June 6

OPCOM

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I am leaving Sunday to pass thru Roswell, Albuquerque, and to Los Alamos. Pickup truck trip this time, as the M8109 is not road ready yet.

The goal is to retrieve a 42uF 12,000 volt oil capacitor. It's free. It can't be shipped because of PCB, but it is no leaking.

I am not yet sure exactly why I need this, but i'll think of something.

So, anyone along the way want to meet up for a burger? It will be during the week.
 

OPCOM

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Any last minute suggestions of MV/surplus related places to see or rummage in New Mexico?

Come on, it is going to take me exactly 15 minutes to find the aliens in Roswell, haha..
 

hndrsonj

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Seen Roswell, White sands missile range was cool, but I believe it's south of your route.:roll:
 

OPCOM

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Remember Memorial Day!

On the way from Dallas, we passed some wind farms belonging to innovenergy. there are several open non-signed, unfenced entrances along the highwas and we went in and took some picutres, but stayed on the dirt road and well away from the machines proper as I doubt they want anyone near them.

Got into roswell about 11 PM. Today will see the Goddard museum and also the UFO museum, hopefully open. Tomorrow the VLA Very Large Array about 3 hours west.

White Sands looks like about 140 miles WSW of roswell. If time allows, it would be worth it!
 

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OPCOM

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In Roswell is the Roswell Museum and ART Center in Roswell,NM. (This is the official museum, not the UFO museum.)

Goddard is the father of rocketry, and many military rockets come from his research. There is his entire workshop preserved there and you can see the innards of the earliest of his rockets. The serious real home made innards.

In the Goddard exhibit, the museum has also shown Goddard's prowess with vacuum tube invention. The section says that he invented a tube called a Gammatron.

Three items are together.
One is a picture of him making a tube with seems like it might be a prototype of the device shown in the patent.
One is a picture of the drawings of patent 1,159,209, which is a vacuum oscillator using a magnetic feedback method via a coil to switch an electron beam back and forth between two anodes.
The third item is a reproduction of an advertisement for the Heintz and Kaufman Gammatron, which is known to be an electrostatically grid controlled triode.

I do not know the connection between the Heintz and Kaufman product and the patent device. When I was done at the museum which includes all sort of exhibits besides the preserved Goddard laboratory, I asked the counter staff to take a look at this with me. They sent one employee to explain the exhibit. I ended up explaining the principles of operation of the patent device and the Heintz and Kaufman product, and concluded that they were two different types of devices operating on different principles regarding oscillation. The staff member, now understanding the difference, was rather at a loss to explain the connection. Gamma is a vacuum tube parameter. Was there a marketing trademark arrangement between Goddard and Heintz and Kaufman to allow them to use the Gammatron name?

All I succeeded in doing was to annoy the employee. Who knows the rest of the story? ell anyway, here are some pictures of the rockets. More will be online in the usual place later.

Can anyone spot the knife switch?
 

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OPCOM

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no, that's the "other" knife switch in that picture. The one I'm asking for is easier to see.

But as a consolation prize you get to look at these armor pics.

-a surplus place in Roswell, with an MV. I don't know what kind, looks modded.
 

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neatocj

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are you going through el paso? If so you might be going down montana on the way east coming from roswell so you can get to I-10 to head back to dallas. If thats the case look to your left as you enter el Paso on montana and you will see a huge un-official off road park called red sands. Lots of sand dunes and quarries and people will like your MV there, they like to give out beer there if your lucky!

Then go down to my house 10 minutes away and say hi to the fam. you know pet the dogs and stuff...Im in south korea :cry:
 

OPCOM

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That sounds pretty good. I am driving the pickup truck this time though because time is too short. -looking at military surplus, and electronic surplus on the way.

Made it to the VLA today. nice setup. The "tour" is self guided and the facility has a video that describes how the array works, how it focuses, and the like, but the walking path of about a mile was restricted to only certain areas, so my scientific curiosity was not very well satisifed (I guess if you have friends there, it would be different. What would I have liked to see? the correlator, the new correlator if it is built yet, the spectrum display of the signals being received, data for the object being studied..) . However, it is most impressive and well thought out, and is being upgraded to cover 1-50GHz, 120GB/s data collection per dish. It is well worth the trip to see this instrument in person. There is a large system diagram on the wall showing the basic block-level schematic. Although the dish is almost 100FT in width, the base is small enough to fit in most HOA-estricted city lots. They also have thier own VLA toilet paper. Now that is class! It is a wonder it's still hanging there.. I spent about 3 hours enjoying the VLA site. I recommend it.
 

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OPCOM

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Not having the benefits of a wife, I am surely not entitled to the benefits of an in-law.

The knife switch, I suppose I can give it away, is in the 9th picture of the topic. I suppose one is to straddle the rocket like Slim Pickens, close the switch thereto attached, and see what comes next.:eek:

Picked up some rocks..
 

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phreatdawg

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If you come back by ruidoso, take a small detour and see Lincoln, NM. If you don't mind going a bit out of your way come south from Roswell and see the Carlsbad Caverns. South from Carlsbad you will hit IH-20 in Pecos and can go home that way. If you want to detour further, south and west of Pecos is Balmorhea State Park, it is one of the coolest (literally) places you will find in TX at this time of year, its a BIG spring fed swimming pool. The Sand Hills State park in Monhans, TX is very nice, but will be hotter than the hubs of **** this time of year. If you do come home on IH-20 the Commemorative Airforce Museum is in Midland as well as the Petroleum Museum. I know the Petroleum Museum sounds a little hokie, but it is much more interesting than you might realize. If you have any interest in how we get fuel, they have a demonstration to show you how. Also, Chapparal race cars were at one time in Midland and the Petroleum Museum has some there on display. East from Midland 20 miles in Stanton is Sam's Surplus, he is right on the highway and has a small outdoor display of several MVs. In Abilene there is a small outdoor display of aircraft at Dyess Airforce base. If you do pass thourgh Midland during the week PM me and I'd be happy to do lunch. Hope you have a nice trip.
 

OPCOM

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The return route is still open, but I remember passing more than one interesting place on the way to Roswell including on I-20.

Today I checked out a few places in Albuquerque.

Jones Surplus Barn Inc
10921 Central Avenue Northeast
Albuquerque, NM 87123-2729
(505) 298-9295

This is an Army Store with bonus electronics items such as RT-68 items, some piece parts like switches, etc, . There are also a few hundred books, mostly eclectically related to military/politics/cold war, etc of the 50's-70's. There is a set of books there, something like "the 60's day by day" that tells what happened during the 60's. I am sure that would be useful for those that lived through it and now cannot remember it.

Items that interested me:

An aircraft application vane-axial fan for 400Hz , of about 12" diameter. It is sternly warned on the side of the unit that it is not to be used below 40,000 FT. It was $59.95, and had been obviously sitting in the bin for a decade. The fan blade assy is slightly bent (1mm or so) so you would not want to run it near full speed. I think at a lower speed (reduced Hz and voltage) it would be excellent and very interesting as a ventialtion fan. I pointed out it was bent, and tried to negotiate, they would have none of it. So I suppose it will be there for the forseeable future, as who would pay so much for a high speed fan with a bent hub?

There was also a big handheld light for signaling aircraft. About 10" diameter, two handed operation, twisting the front handle changes the light from red-white-green. 6-volt 50 watt lamp. This had some dents and two small holes poked in the case, and they wanted $45 which I thought was too much for it considering the problems, so I left it with a little regret.

The item I bought was a military transport case having 19" rack rails mounted inside. This was $65.

The next place was
Surplus City
10805 Central Avenue Northeast
Albuquerque, NM 87123-2727
(505) 292-7131

If you like electronics or chemistry this is the best place in Albuquerque. I found switches, vacuum tubes (304TL,HY-5430, 7213, VA-162, and a NL-1052A ignitron, etc), PRX CM300HA-24H brick transistors, small relays to large contactors, rackmounted TEK 485 scopes, "large" heatsinks, breakers all sizes, toroid coils, 4000 series ICs and old USA-made transistors, HP/TEK plugins, power resistors, oil diffusion pumps, Photomultipliers, a Rexon Scintilator with a CaF XTAL and Hamamatsu R1307 PMT, roughing pumps, 10 racks with "Sandia Labs" logo, all full w/ power supplies and static freq. converters, 5" square 2-wire klaxons for 6VDC and 12VAC, 10-50A "variacs", a 12" dia. 500 Ohm 1.25A dual rheostat (actually a power potentiometer) raw speakers in 2-3" round and 4-5" square, "Plastic Capacitors" 3-15KV for $5-10, Burroughs 122P224 Nixies were $4, Chemistry glassware and thermal mantles, military 18kBTU a/c units, Miller and Sureweld welders up to 400+ Amps, CO2 laser power supply, a 2.8uF 60KV cap, an X-ray tube and power suply, Dewars, and all the usual items of electronics. Also, ultrasonic transducers and laser levels. They also have some militay surplus and other clothing, nuts and bolts, etc. Out back there is a huge yard full of junque.
I bought some ultrasonic transducers and photomultipliers.
This will interest geiger counter fans:
I almost bought the scintillator, but went to the hotel and called the manufacturer about it first. It was then I found out it is sensitive only to the 17KeV X-rays from plutonium, and would not be useful to me. I was connected to the president of the company who is a physicist and he gave me quite an education. The reason for interest in scintilators is that sometimes radium dials and the like are found, as well as other items. It is a pain to have to sweep everything with a geiger counter. With a scintillator, the sensitivity is much better and counts will accrue 100X or more faster. This means you can be at a greater distance and still discover the material.

If the geiger counter has a sensitivity of 1x, then here are the sensitivities of various scntillation crystals when used with photomultiplier tubes:
100x NaI(Tl) Sodium iodide activated with thallium
125X CsI Cesium iodide
200X BGO Bismuth germanate

the above technology are way more costly than a geiger counter unless found surplus.


The last place was
Kaufman's West Army & Navy Gds
1660 Eubank Boulevard Northeast
Albuquerque, NM 87112-4115
(505) 293-3229

This is a regular army store plus a police goods store. The vast majority of the goods are new. The optics are mainly Leupold with prices to match.
 

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OPCOM

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Visited the Black Hole yesterday, Great surplus place, Ed the owner is a veteran of 25 years and a great guy.

108 pictures here:
The Black Hole

and the pictures of that capacitor for Armada attached

The cap there, it has an energy storage of 3096 Joules. In English, that means it can hold enough energy to light a 100 watt bulb for 30.96 seconds (or a 3096 watt lamp for one second). That might not seem like much when we think of batteries that could light the same lamp for hours, BUT- the capacitor can release its energy in very short times, easily in 1 ms (1/1000 of a second). The peak power then becomes 309,600 watts. If the discharge is made 100x faster (discharge time is mostly related to the external circuit), such as 10 microseconds, the peak power is then 30.9 Megawatts. Therein lies the scientific value of this sort of capacitor.
 

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Armada

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Thanks for the pics and explanation, Patrick. That's a lot of poke in an instant. Might come in handy for educating squirrels in the bird feeder maybe? Thanks for the trip write up. Always enjoy reading your adventures.
 
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