Germanium substitutes…

[Plaidesaurus]

I don’t have any experience with germanium transistors. I understand that the hfe/gain needs to be staged upward from Q1 - Q3 but I have a couple of questions.

I’ve got a cheap T7 tester but that will not give me those values. Should I get a Peak DCA55?

Due to so many of these transistors being hard to find I see a number of members say “any germanium” will do. Maybe this applies mostly to diodes but I’m walking in the dark. Can someone give me some input here?

Thx

 

[drgonzo1969]

I bought a dca55 a few months ago. No regrets. Great tool to have in your arsenal. Worth the investment

 

[spi]

If you use sockets or build on a breadboard you can just swap 'em and see which sounds best to you. For example, I found I liked the tonebender mk3 when I put the lowest gain on in Q2, which is not the usual recipe.

Also, I measured the gain and hfe of mine using this technique http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/ffselect.htm

 

[Cybercow]

If you have a PC and would like see/visualize the trace curves on BJTs, diodes & such, get the Peak Atlas DCA75 - it comes with a bit of software for the PC run trace-curves on such devices. Either the DCA55 or DCA75 is a great investment if you're serious about building and learning electronics.