Let's talk about the Subscope theremin!

Yes Jan, those tube radios are well suited for theremins. Fortunately that specific radio has been defective so it didn't hurt too much to cannibalize.
Btw. Philips even produced such with spring reverbs inside. Some day i may catch one .. fleamarket saison started!

I've posted some pictures of the Subscope theremin I received last month in an album

Thanks you so much for always taking care Robert!

Really gorgeous!

While it is nice to have it modular for building any housings .. from time to time i want it to be one single PCB to avoid the time consuming offboard wiring. It doubles as meditation though!

I like that modular wiring very much. 

Some years ago my beloved 2N5484 FETs in the TO92 housing had been discontinued 

Tell me, Dominic, are these 2N5484s real?
https://aliexpress.ru/item/32854370845.html?spm=a2g2w.orderdetail.0.0.23f84aa6NPjMJ3&sku_id=12000027698374897

And they can't be bought?
I have bought them several times in these stores and they work like real ones. (not relabeled).
(I ordered 10 pieces again today. I hope they are still real)

Tell me, Dominic, are these 2N5484s real?

Hard to tell. I have ordered two times from China and two times they have been fakes. Either not at all working or just somehow but not usable. There may appear NOS ones. But i bought hundreds of the SMD equivalent and it's quite easy to solder them to swapable ports.

The Chinese basically fake (remark) powerful transistors. But, probably, small transistors can also be faked. Personally, I was once deceived by a re-marked small SMD chip. Only with photo-enlargement are the inscriptions on top of the old ones visible.

And as for the adaptation of SMD transistors (after all the torment with their soldering), I would now prefer the most factory options. No homemade). Probably something like this:

(thank you for expressing your pain over the events in Ukraine. It is terrible and bitter (and I, as a Russian, am terribly ashamed of my compatriots) that such human meanness and evil is possible in the 21st century).

Tell me, Dominic, are these 2N5484s real?Hard to tell. I have ordered two times from China and two times they have been fakes. 

Today I received this ten 5484.
Marking is very clear, real, factory. But alas, it turned out to be a fake ((. Instead of field-effect transistors, fakes came to me for the first time, bipolar NPN structures ((
You can try to buy in another store, where it is more expensive. (I don’t like SMD transistors because of their miniature size). Having warned the seller that it is not necessary to send a fake, because I will check with the device, return my money, and leave as many negative reviews as I can.

In 2023 i have been working on the PLEXI family. The model in the middle maybe is the first silent theremin in the world, a dream come true with its uber linearity and unlimited timbres.