Millen 92101 Preamplifier
The James Millen Mfg. Company, of Malden MA, was a long-time manufacturer of radio equipment and parts, particularly for the Ham Radio market, and was reknowned for its conservative, high-quality designs. Styling was universally "industrial" with black panels and silver or white accents and labels. The 92101 Antenna Matching Preamplifier was introduced in the late 1940s, and was still in the 1960 catalog, as the "R9er." More info on James Millen and his products can be found at the James Millen Society site.
The 92101 was made for Ham use, with plug-in coils (center of the panel) for different frequency bands. The circuit is simple, with a single 6AK5 tube, and no built-in power supply. The "Peaking" control varied the preamplifier's gain. Variable capacitor tuning allowed for only a single TV channel to be tuned per coil, and the input and output connectors are low-impedance UHF coaxial types. Such incoveniences limited the Millen's use by ordinary TV viewers, so it was most likely sold mainly to engineering-oriented set owners. Still, they show up now and then with TV channel coils, so they must have been well thought-of as TV boosters to have survived so long.
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| Rear panel | Close-up of channel coil assembly |
Click here for Schematic, in pdf (Adobe Acrobat) format.
Updated November 4, 2003