I guess I am one of the few owners of a Cardmatic 121. I think mine has the standard card set with a few additions. It would be nice if 121 owners could share their card lists and trade scans of the uncommon cards. Attached is my list of 538 cards.

Cool, you have a few more cards than me. I just have the 322 card factory pack. Here's a scan of the original Hickok list of 121 cards.

Group 5 - Factory Pack (http://www.bobandersen.com/images/equipment/Hickok/121/Hickok%20121%20Factory%20Group%20105.pdf) (the 322 cards that came with mine)

Cardmatic Card order Form (http://www.bobandersen.com/images/equipment/Hickok/121/Hickok%20121%20Card%20Order%20Form.pdf) (list of all available cards)

Hmm, I wonder what the best way would be to post scans of the cards here? Four cards resized to 20% of the my scanner resolution in .jpg format is about 75KB each.

As a test here are three scans of some cards. They are a resized to the point they are blurry, but you can still read the card labels and tell which holes are punched.

Thanks. I can read them just fine.

I know of two or three that are(or were) in Florida. Several years back I saw them for sale at a FAWG meet in Orlando, thought they were cool, but cost way too much for me to justify spending. I think one of them had some supplementary cards. I seem to recall some red or pink cards that I believe were supplemental.

Here's what the Hickok Cardmatic 121 looks like in case anyone was wondering.
Don't confuse it with the Cardmatic 123 - the cards are NOT compatible.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4064/4587936298_9e0b13a31d_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/70039806@N00/4587936298/)

Here's what the Hickok Cardmatic 121 looks like in case anyone was wondering.
Don't confuse it with the Cardmatic 123 - the cards are NOT compatible.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4064/4587936298_9e0b13a31d_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/70039806@N00/4587936298/)

I took one look at the pictures of those Cardmatic cards and my mind went reeling back at least 40 years. When I was a kid in the late '60s-'70s, there was a pharmacy in the next town east of us that had a Hickok Cardmatic tube tester. I don't recall if it was the model 121 or 123. That was the first and only Hickok Cardmatic tube tester I ever saw in my life, until now.

BTW, what was the difference between the cards for the Hickok 121 and 123 Cardmatic tube testers? :scratch2: I'd think one set of cards would work in either tester, unless there were major differences in the card readers or other parts of the 121 and 123.

Also, I did not realize at the time that the Hickok company was located in Cleveland, Ohio (I grew up in an eastern suburb of that city). The "Cleveland 8" in the address is a dead giveaway as to the tester's vintage -- late '50s or very early '60s, before the advent of zip codes.

Unfortunately there is a considerable difference between the Hickok 121 and 123 tube testers. The 121 is a simplified version that does not use any internal vacuum tubes. The 123 uses several vacuum tubes to test the subject tube in representative circuits that it would be used in. Here is a link with some description: http://padgett.performanceresearch.us/tester/cardh.htm

Hmm, maybe I can find some low priced cardmatic cards on Ebay... Maybe this one:
180905730841
...Cough, splutter.... That's outta my price range! Guess there are others looking for these cards. Would be nice if the winner could share some of the card info.

They jumped for $303 to $850 in one bid less than an hour before the auction ended! With all the shill bidding going on lately I don't buy it.
Also, the 123 cards are archived here (http://www.theoldradiofixerupperguy.com/hickok_cardmatic_data.html) (or at least a bunch are) and reproductions can be purchased for $1 per card IIRC.

Who's to say there are any 121 cards in there beyond the standard factory set ?

The same seller also has a USM-118 cardmatic (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Used-Working-AN-USM-118A-Electron-Navy-Bureau-of-Ships-Tube-Tester-w-Adaptor-/170864312436) for sale. I wonder what it will go for ?

Hmmm... I've got a buddy with a desktop laser cutter. What are the cards made of? "Cardstock?"

Certainly overkill for one card, but for sets of specials...

The $1 per card mentioned above sounds good to take a doorstop to productive machine.

Chip

The cards are plastic and the holes are usually made with a hole punch. Hickok used to sell blank cards and a branded hole punch.

The $1 figure came from a guy in the western Chicago suburbs that used to (and may still) sell them.

There's one on ebay right now (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380526998102) that has some extra cards. I hope whoever wins it can share those cards :yes:

There's another guy selling off 121 cards in small batches. I lost out on a batch this morning, but I sure hope the winner is kind enough to scan and share the hole patterns.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160974972160

Yes it would be nice to collectively put together a database to make the tester more useful for all. I took a look at the 121 schematic, but I doubt there is enough information to try to reverse engineer it and come up with card designs from tube specifications.

Dave

Yes it would be nice to collectively put together a database to make the tester more useful for all. I took a look at the 121 schematic, but I doubt there is enough information to try to reverse engineer it and come up with card designs from tube specifications.

Dave


Not sure about the 121, but you can develop your own test cards for the 123 and 1234, and the different variations on these, including the military AN/USM-118. I have the Western Electric variant (KS-15874-L2), and the instruction manual has explicit instructions on how to make up a custom test card given a basing diagram and basic tube specifications. Mine came with a good supply of the blank cards and the hole punch.

I don't have the "full" set of test cards, but most of the ones that I am missing are the "later" types, mostly series string stuff.

I just picked up about 140 more cards for the 121. Mostly series string stuff in the 2-5 filament volt range. That's cool because I mostly do TV tube testing, but I'd really like the 6 volt cards too. Luckily, I do have some overlap like a 5BR8 / 6BR8 or 3CB6 / 6CB6. There only seems to be a two hole difference between them. I figure I can use those like a Rosetta stone to decode the filament holes.

I took a shot at trying to figure out the correspondence between the punched holes and their function. Maybe what it did before I quit will help you some. Attached are PDFs of four pages of the punch card switches and their function.

Dave

And here is the 121 schematic.

Dave

Thanks for the info Dave.

Here's what I've figured out so far by comparing cards to the schematic. I think you were off by one with your FIL1 & FIL2 chart,

Filament voltage

A9 - K9 = 0.1's
B11 - K11 = 1's
A16 - G16 = 10s

2BN4 - H11 (2) + G9 (0.3) = 2.3 v
3BN4 - H11 (2) + A9 (0.9) = 2.9 v
3CB6 - A11, D11 (3) + J9 (0.1) = 3.1 v (this one is a bit odd, why not use H11 + J9 ?)
4CB6 - F11 (4) + H9 (0.2) = 4.2 v
6CB6 - D11 (6) + G9 (0.3) = 6.3 v

I picked up an RCA, card type tube checker, for a buck.
It's novel, but kind of a useless piece. Some of the cards were home-punched. A lot of the tubes, I normally use, I don't have a card for. Plus, it only has four sockets, Octal, loctal, seven pin and nine pin.
Built really well, but just a novelty, at best.

Is it a WT-110A ? It's actually a pretty good tester. Like the Hickok, it uses mutual conductance. Here's one that sold for $250.

www.ebay.com/itm/RCA-WT-110A-CARDMATIC-TUBE-TESTER-EXTRA-CARDS-ADAPTORS-PUNCH-/150999237542

Is it a WT-110A ? It's actually a pretty good tester. Like the Hickok, it uses mutual conductance. Here's one that sold for $250.

www.ebay.com/itm/RCA-WT-110A-CARDMATIC-TUBE-TESTER-EXTRA-CARDS-ADAPTORS-PUNCH-/150999237542

I have to look at it again! The one shown, has a lot more cards. No other pictures available.
When testing it out, I thought it was better than the simple emissions testers. It's an interesting piece, to be sure. :yes:

I am new to this group, but also a 121 Cardmatic owner (plus many other tube testers), and mine seems to have a very large card inventory (takes several boxes to hold them all). My main interest is industrial and audio tubes, not TV tubes, so if anybody needs a specific card, I am happy to search for it, and send you the details, or the card if it's not one I require. Anybody got a full manual PDF available?

all the best,
walter
sphere research corp.

Hi Walter. Welcome to Videokarma :wave:

I could be persuaded to scan my manual in exchange from some cards scans or details.

I'll try to come up with some TV tubes I need cards for, but in the meantime I'd love to get some more early radio tubes like: 24A, 27, 37, 30/44, 42, 45, 47, 71A, 75, 78.
I think that would cover all my late 20s - mid 30s radios.