Articles
Technical information
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International Crystal and the crystal synthesizer
I have always been intrigued by the International Crystal CB radios which had a unique appearance with a channel selector that resembled a telephone dial. The high end "Executive" models were big and expensive and sported an aluminum trim ring that no other radio had. So I had to buy one to play with. |
ranickels 02/19/2021 |
Vintage Radio |
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KBCX - US Forest Service Regional Radio
Hams, especially those who enjoy operating AM and QRP should be aware of the pioneering efforts of the US Forest Service to adopt and advance the radio art in the early decades of the 20th century. The history of radio in the USFS literally takes a book to cover, but an interesting example can be found in station KBCX, the Region 1 Radio Operations Center in Missoula Montana. &... READ MORE |
ranickels 02/11/2021 |
Historic |
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The R-1451 HF Manual Receiver aka WLR-6 "Water Boy" System
Working on various vintages of equipment gives one a better appreciation for what we have today. Example - this is a frequency counter from the "HF Manual Receiver" which was part of a wideband surveillance receiving system that extended from VLF to microwave frequencies using a bank of front-ends to cover the range. It was designed as "ESM"... READ MORE |
ranickels 02/09/2021 |
Vintage Radio |
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The John Meck T-60 Transmitter
Plymouth Indiana might not be famous for too many things, but John Meck Industries was the first manufacturer to start producing radios for home us in the US after World War II. He'd started the namesake company prior to the war but like most others in the radio business it was converted to wartime production, making quartz crystals among other things. Later, thousand... READ MORE |
ranickels 01/30/2021 |
Vintage Ham Radio |
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The amazing Transcom SBT-3
If, like me, you enjoy flipping through old issues of 73 magazine from the 60s, you're bound to have at least seen the ads for the Transcom SBT-3 three-band SSB tranceiver. Being made in Escondido CA in the mid-60s, my guess has always been that engineers from other San Diego SSB compnanies such as Don Stoner, Les Earnshaw from Southcom, Herb Johnson, founder of Swan or Faust Gonsett m... READ MORE |
ranickels 01/16/2021 |
Vintage Ham Radio |
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Model FP-1 "FORESTPHONE"
This short article about the AWA Forestphone was the last one put on the Midwest Classic Radio Net website by for former webmaster George K9GDT before he unfortunately became a Silent Key. MCRN article Now that a longer version has been published in Electric Radio magazine I thought I'd include it here as well. Throughout most of the 20th century AWA was Aust... READ MORE |
ranickels 01/13/2021 |
Vintage Ham Radio |
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Alexancer Lewyt - inventor and entrepreneur
Alexander M. Lewyt died in 1988 at the age of 79, a holder of patents on scores of inventions. His penchant for invention, he once said, was so strong that he had chronic insomnia from lying awake at night envisioning new products. When he learned of undertakers’ difficulty in fastening neckties on corpses, the teen-age Lewyt devised a new kind of bow tie that clipped on. He sold 50,000 of... READ MORE |
ranickels 01/08/2021 |
Historic |
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AN/GRC-9 Bias Battery replacement
The Korean-war vintage AN/GRC-9 is one of the most useful and fun military field radios for ham use, as with AM and CW modes and 2-12 MHz coverage and a VFO it's all ready to go on several ham bands. The battery tube superhet receiver is also power-friendly and sensitive and stable enough to copy CW and SSB but has one annoying flaw - the 4 volt bias battery used by the aud... READ MORE |
ranickels 01/03/2021 |
Technical | |
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Beware of the LED Noisemaker!
Halogen type MR-16 lamps are commonly used in track lights and other spot lighting applications so what would be cooler than to drop in LED replacements! A lot, as it turns out. The LED replacements are HORRIBLE RFI emitters that totally trashed several ham bands when I unknowingly installed them. Halogen spot lights are 12 volt devices so it's lon... READ MORE |
ranickels 01/02/2021 |
Technical |
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Ham radio operators honor legacy of Mars Hill company
Here's a link to a nice story in the Madison NC newspaper about area hams paying tribute to the former Hammarlund company that manufactured radios in Mars Hill NC for decades. There are some neat historiic photos as well The paper has a paywall but it looks like you get 5 free articles: HAMMARLUND ARTICLE ... READ MORE |
ranickels 12/12/2020 |
Historic |
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