What the hell is this? "Converts 120 VAC to 12VDC". Micronta? Red Led?  Sure I know. A man built this! It's a power supply!  Where'd it come from? What was it used for? Do I have any other stupid questions before I give up the answer? I'll provide you a question. How come all the cheap meatballs available frozen always taste like dookie and only the better ones cost a ton of money? Oh yeah, because there's MEAT in REAL MEATBALLS. What the hell is in those cheap meatballs? Do you make a meatball from "mechanically separated chicken, pork and beef"? Mom used to make them from ground beef and garlic. No bread crumbs, no egg. Hunts sauce. She must have used an egg bath to hold them together, but no stuffing at all. Even when we were so poor that my brother was stealing the last piece of American cheese from the bread in my lunch, mom made un-stuffed meatballs. . Maybe I just need to cook real food rather than using the microwave to resurrect Bologna balls from the depths of the freezer. 

In a nice steel box. With a real appliance switch. Paint job in that crinkled paint that was used on tools and heavy equipment. So, back when I was heavy into Citizen's Band radio, I used my radios in my car and that was that. 12V was cigarette lighter stuff. The only way to use something that was set up for 12V in the house, was to get a converter if it didn't have one built in. Most CBs didn't. Oh sure, there were base stations and other radio equipment but they were way beyond my pay grade back then.  Even this was costly. I think it was sold for $35, which when you were earning "triple gold" 25 hours a week 3.45 an hour (after 6 months) , it was a bit of an expense. I spent it so that I could talk on the CB to a nearby friend when he wasn't allowed to talk on the phone. He bought the very first portable Sony CD player and kept a quiet library of CD's but his parents would hear none of it. He had some strict parents. He must have a lead lined bedroom to be talking to me on the CB, or his parents thought he was praying... to a guy named Trapper and to the truckers on Ch. 19 from the nearby freeway.

That was my CB name. Trapper. It was also my Photon name. I guess I'd taken a liking to the name Trapper. Did I trap anything? Nope. Did I keep anything? Lots of stuff on this junk blog. Did I work in morning radio for years on a adult contemporary station in Cleveland? No. Was I from MASH? That's where I got the name. Did I ever get really good at Photon? Nope. Was I ever the top player at Photon? Nope. (Oh yeah, Photon was the first laser tag game and it was played on a sound stage similar to the catacombs of Star Trek: The Next Generation except in base grey rather than 80's pink and aqua.)  I forget what my friend's CB name was. You needed a fake "handle" if you were on the radio. Now, my friend Boomer would have something to say about this message on the bottom. "No user serviceable parts...blah blah blah" A lot of the CB peeps that had base stations at home usually did HAM radio and if you were a HAM likely you knew your way around the soldiering iron. Boomer BUILDS this stuff.

He recently replaced the blown caps on a cheap digital TV converter that I bought from a thrift store for four bucks because it had the remote. (How worthless are those boxes if they don't have the remote to operate them.) He also built his AM carrier current radio station. (Legal. Uses the wires that bring power to your home to broadcast for a few blocks.) His home TV was upgraded to 32" LCD after he picked one up from the trash and fixed the power supply. Okay, enough about repairs. I learned how to soldier when I worked cookie cutter repairs on CRT monitors for a few months. I still can't tell an OHM rating on a resistor. I guess I'm a user as well.

This was cheap tech, but it was damn good tech. It still works. As it did, as it does. It still has the plastic wrap that protected the back side from scratching. Better yet, it was a bunch of electronics MADE IN THE USA! Made in 1984. Made in the good 'ol USA! I would have thought sure it was made in Taiwan by then.  The only thing bad about this is you had to buy two jacks for the power outlet. I think later they were screws. When you wired up some speaker cable to output these jacks, hooked them to the wires of your CB, it sang! It powered two years of CB use until I lost interest and well, haven't used it since. So really, I don't know if this still works, but with the components it was made from, likely, it still works like a charm. It's outdated as hell now. With discrete chips doing all the work of these massive components nowadays, anything that's meant for 12V use only works on regular power for as low as $2. I have several that convert my Sirius and radio transmitters to home use for nothing in the size a little bigger than a 5V power adapter. Technology moves on. Junk Blog never sleeps.

-Ric