A Crummy Commercial

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275196571870 I saw a picture of one of these on Face, interesting idea.  Since Bliley was a crystal maker, their take on an alignment oscillator used a bunch of crystals using an interesting drum switch: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275196571870 I've seen some of these units for sale on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275196571870 A previous blog entry on the Bliley VF-1: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-bliley-vf-1.html   The manual is available online courtesy of a Bliley scion:    http://bliley.net/XTAL/docs/manuals/CCO-1/CCO-1C_Tech_Manual-72.PDF   An interesting design. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

 I was looking at the July 1967 issue of Popular Electronics on the World Radio History web site and saw this ad: Popular Science did a review in April 1968: https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-06/archives-popular-science-tests-microwave-oven/ That $545 price inflates to $4834 in 2022, not a cheap unit.  And I doubt there's a crystal inside :) See the previous blog posts on the Model 1500 CB transceiver: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/02/more-info-on-international-crystal.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/02/international-crystal-model-1500-cb.html In addition to crystals International Crystal made some really interesting products at a premium prices.  They closed shop in 2017: http://www.arrl.org/news/international-crystal-manufacturing-going-out-of-business Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I was reading about the death of Ross Hull, the editor of QST, in the November 1938 issue of QST. https://archive.org/details/QST_1938_11    Then I browsed through the rest of that issue and came upon an ad for the Bliley VF-1, variable crystal.  I'd never heard of this before    Wow, what a neat idea although I can see why other crystal companies never got into the act.  Selling someone one crystal versus a handful probably wasn't considered a good business decision. Doing a little internet searching came up with a boatload of info, especially this page. http://www.bliley.net/XTAL/Variables.html    The frequency was varied by mechanically distorting the specially ground crystal.  There are patents, promo info and other ads on the internet.  Also there was a VF-2 and patents for a variable crystal that would have covered 200 kHz of 40 meters, take that super VXO ! theVF-1 patent drawing 2079540 Plugging $7.50 into the BLS calculator:...