Germanium Transistors ?

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MrAl

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Hello there,

Anyone know where to get germanium transistors these days at a reasonable price?
Mouser wants over $7.00 USD just for one NTE103A NPN transistor. Any cheaper?

...Thanks
 
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Germanium transistors had many problems that were fixed by using silicon transistors instead.
Germanium transistors have not been made for 40 or 50 years.
NTE doesn't make anything. They simply buy "real" transistors, mark their own number on them and sell them for 10 times the cost they paid.

My first job was with Philips 45 years ago and I still have some of their old germanium transistors. Maybe I should sell them to old Geetar people on E-Bay.
 
Deleted, abusive posts to other members are not permitted.

ericgibbs. mod
 
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CarbonZit, please grow up and stop being nasty!
MrAL never said what he will do with the antique transistors. Most are used to make severe distortion in Electric GEEtar circuits.
 
How many do you want/need?
You can get small quantities on Ebay.
 
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CZ, I believe you were asked once before to avoid personal nastiness and sarcasm in this forum but obviously you haven't taken the hint. This is a technical forum and most of us are interested mainly in technical discussions, certainly not in what your personal feelings are about someone else. You seem to have a bug up your butt about Uncle $crooge and that's your prerogative, but keep it to yourself. If you can't play nice in this forum then please play elsewhere...
 
Hi,

I didnt mean to imply that i wanted an NTE transistor, i just used that part number for an example of one available out there.

In this modern world of battery operated equipment, germanium transistors have the advantage of low base emitter forward bias which is almost three times lower than silicon. That's what i am after.
Apparently i am not alone, as there is some interest in reviving this dead technology with the germanium/silicon hybrid. I dont have time to wait for those to hit the market nor am i going to want to pay for them i bet so i thought i would look into regular germanium transistors instead. It's a shame they are getting hard to find or expensive.

I'll check out ebay.
 
Old style germanium transistors have (had) a high leakage current, were very sensitive to temperature changes and have (had) a poor high frequency response.
Today there are hearing aids and other single-cell battery powered circuits (like a Cmos 555 timer) that operate from a modern Cmos circuit.
 
Hi audio,

I was mainly looking for low base emitter voltage drop.
 
Hi Al, Iv collected old Germanium power transistors over the years from old equipment, & use them for the same reason but found using shotkey diodes as a better alternative. Now keep the old transistors for restoration jobs.
 
Hi there debe,

Oh yes, i prefer Schottky diodes when possible. When you need a low BE drop transistor though you can't use a diode of any type to replace it.
 
Yeah this kind of bugs me too. I have plenty of schottky diodes here with 0.11v Vf so why can't they make transistors with such a low forward drop?

Considering the trend is toward much lower voltage computing I would have thought it was cutting edge to make low Vbe transistors. There is so much we could do with them!
 
Hi MrAl
How many are you looking far? I checked my old stock and so far I have found 2 that have about 0.2V BE drop with 1mA of base current. I will send you a PM
 

Hi MrRB,

That was my thought too. I guess that's why the hybrids are being considered now. Dont know when we will see them though, if ever.
 
Modern hearing aids and CPUs use low voltage Cmos, not bipolar transistors.
 
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