Ham Radio Ping ListPlease Freepmail me if you want to be added to or deleted from the list.
Posted on 02/12/2006 5:42:12 PM PST by Denver Ditdat
Ham Radio Ping ListPlease Freepmail me if you want to be added to or deleted from the list.
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I still have my Hallicrafters SX-122. :-)
I would love to check out this auction. If I bought any more old radios, I would have to build a bigger house. I restore and collect old Hallicrafters receivers, WWII and earlier.
I fooled around with radio and radio repair when I was growing up (b: 1954) and enjoyed it quite a bit. I especially enjoyed the "Sherlock Holmes" aspect of researching electronic faults that stumped me. I also accumulated many dozens of old radios and TVs (found in the trash) that I had either repaired or given up on; all of which formed a large wall in my folk's basement back in NJ. Yes, I had a "radiowall" LOL. Plus boxes and boxes of tubes and parts. I have to confess a soft spot for those old radios and the way they look, but to accumulate them now seems totally absurd, other than a rambling hankering for "the way things used to be". "Enjoy at a distance."
It's sad that they don't make them like they used to. Cheapness has taken the place of quality construction and good RF engineering.
Sounds like a great show. When I get a job and a place with a family room, I want to fill it with old radios. It would be great to listen to classic radio (see http://www.radiospirits.com) on an old wooden radio like my grandmother had.
For those who like radio entertainment, BBC 7 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/) offers dramas, sci fi, comedy and children's shows. I enjoy listening to Sherlock Holmes or radio versions of the Outer Limits over the computer. It's too bad that, as far as I know, American radio no longer puts out this type of entertainment.
Thanks for the post.
After reading I went up to the attic and pulled out an old Zenith Trans Oceanic probly 1952
Plugged it in to see if it still works, it does
I have tons and tons of 50's and 60's stuff up there.
Collins KWM, a Gates 1000W Broadcast transmitter, at least 5 Hallicrafters receivers, thousands of tubes most in their original boxes.
A friend asked me why do I collect and hang on to this?
Answer:
It might be worth something someday.
Used to have a neighbor who was *really* into collecting Art Deco-style radios. He had a TON of 'em.
Sitting here next to this computer is a:
Pro-2006 scanner
Heathkit Packkit 232
Kenwood TS-520
Kenwood TS-820
RS 10 meter tranciever
ICOM IC-2AT
Shure Model 444 Mic
(And a Midland CB) :-)
When I was five years old we had an RCA consol radio.
I used to spend afternoons listening to Hank Williams, Hank Snow and Elvis. I had to stand on tip toes to turn it on and dial in stations. If was one of the first radios with a cathode ray tube to dial in the tuning.
That machine was magic to five year old kid in 1957.
Several had a "magic eye" that was a tube whose top was visible on the front of the set above the tuning dial. As you approached a station it would close its "eye" to let you know when you'd reached the best reception possible.
As a young boy I learned how to take the tubes out and test them on a tube tester my Dad had and how to read the schematics from Howard W. Sams. And we'd order parts from Allied, Burstein-Applebee, and Lafayette.
I used to go to sleep at night listening to a crystal radio I'd built - with unbelievably heavy headphones.
Part of the lore was knowing not only the station call letters but that many had meanings -
WLS, Chicago, Illinois - Sears Roebuck (World's largest store)
WOWO, Fort Wayne, Indiana - Westinghouse (Think of a W with a circle around it)
WPTF, Raleigh, North Carolina - Durham Life (We protect the family)
Even Asheville, North Carolina, (the Land of the Sky) where I grew up, had a few stations that reflected the region - WWNC (wonderful western North Carolina), WLOS (wonderful land of sky), and WSKY (wonderful sky).
It was amazing that from Asheville I could hear as far away as KDKA Pittsburgh and WWL New Orleans on a radio powered only by a germanium diode!
I would not want to be the one who has to get a Gates 1000W transmitter out of an attic! Even worse would be putting it up there.
LOL
It was rough.
Took two big healthy sons and a couple of neighbors to get the monster up there.
It's been there for well over 20 years now.
I found it in it's original box with a model 4F speaker, both covered in pigeon poop, in a garage attic. The restoration took 2 years.
I just wish I had kept all of them, the best (the most rare) was a Spiltdorf model 3Z with hand wound spider coils.
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