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Re: [OM] IMG: Old radios (especially for Paul Braun)

Subject: Re: [OM] IMG: Old radios (especially for Paul Braun)
From: Peter Klein <pklein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 14:34:39 -0700
It's really fun to hear about other OMers memories of shortwave radios. Here are mine in more detail:

When I was a kid, my father's parents had a glorious old 1930s floor-standing radio. It was as much a piece of wooden furniture as a radio. It had shortwave bands and marks with world capitals on the dial. I don't think they ever let me try it ("you'll break it"), but that radio sparked my interest in shortwave and ham radio, which helped lead me to my livelihood in computer work.

My first SW receiver was a SW-broadcast-only Hallicrafters five-tube S-200. It was easy to tune, but so broad you could almost always hear a 5 kHz squeal. I added a Heathkit Q-multiplier to add some semblance of selectivity. When I got my ham license at 15, I had a Hammarlund HQ-170 (ham band only), and listened to nighttime SW broadcast on 7.1 mHz, or with the S-200. I too heard Radio Prague during the Prague Spring and subsequent Soviet invasion. I think that listening to SW and having a ham license broadened my outlook immensely, and gave me my first realizations that what was reported on any country's media had a point of view, and that included my own country.

After college, I sold all my ham stuff and moved away for my first job. But soon I picked up a used Hallicrafters SX-122, which I loved. I worked out a way to use a 100 kHz crystal calibrator and a programmable calculator to use the 80m ham-band bandspread scale as a nearly frequency-linear "logging" scale for the SWBC bands, so I could find exact frequencies repeatably and easily. Later I added a frequency counter for the first IF oscillator, so I had digital readout with an old tube radio! I used the Hallicrafters as my receiver when I first got back into ham radio. Eventually it got sold when I got out of tube gear completely in the '90s.

I still have a Sony ICF-2010 for SW. I mostly listen to the international radio on the Internet now, but every so often, it's still fun to tune around.

--Peter

> >
> >> My grandfather had a surplus Hallicrafters short wave receiver at his
> >> house in Maine. I used to spend hours tucked in the corner with that thing. > >> (Surplus headphones as well.) The Boston Marine Operator was particularly > >> interesting. She/they were unflappable. Always a treat to get something
> >> neat on a skip, such as something out of Australia.
> >>
> >> Listened to a lot of dits and dahs, comfortable in the absence of
> >> knowledge that within a few years I would be intimate with such
> >> communications methodologies, and able to undertake copying them while
> >> being shot at. <g>
> >>
> >>
> >My first SW receiver was one of the transistorized portable units. After I
> >discovered the wonderful world of Heathkit, I built the SW-717 and used
> >that for years. I think I still have it on a shelf, although I'm not sure > >it works anymore. In addition to my ham gear, I have a Yaesu FRG-7 that I > >inherited from my dad. If my nephew ever shows an interest in radio, I'll
> >set up an antenna for him and let him have it.
> >
>
> My first SW receiver was a Heathkit GR-64, and I still have it. Got my 10 > and 25 countries certificates with it. I was using it to listen to Radio > Prague the night that the Warsaw Pact overran the Check frontier. I later > graduated to a Heathkit GR-78, which I also still have. About 12 years ago I > came across a GR-54 and then an SB-310 (the SWBC version of the SB-301). I
> have the SB-310 in my lab room for listening when I'm tinkering.
>
>
> Chris

--
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