Ham radio collection

[Officerbob]

I just got into ham radios recently. Its quite a fun past learning about these beasts. Ive gotten a few boat anchors and such. Going to get my license soon I hope. I was wondering if anybody shared a interest in them as well. I also buy them to put in my collection. Here's a few of mine so far hah. Let me know what you think.

Regards,
Shawn Huddleston
#2320

 

[CW Spook]

Had one of those HW-12s mounted in my 1959 VW Bug when I was in college. I added a totally separate 12v electrical system just to run the radio. The FT-101 is like one I used while operating as KA7CW in Hakata, Japan in 1970-71. 'Never owned a Hammarlund receiver, but I did use an SP-600j a time or two when I was CT A-School in Pensacola.

 

[sipowicz]

I used to have one, but the first guy I spoke to honed in on my signal and came over unannounced and made me play Parcheesi for 9 hours...

 

[bamabiker]

Dad was a Ham, WB4ANG, for many years. I just never got into it. Mother gave his equipment to his youngest brother and I think he uses some of it while doing disaster relief work.

 

[K38]

I used to have an FT 101EE and a TS 530. I use a TS 140 when I get on these days. Not the greatest radio, but good enough. Glad you are having fun with it. All my antennas are down at the moment, need to get busy.

73 DE N5WRW

Dwight

 

[Officerbob]

Thats great to hear that people have something to say. I want to get on the airwaves here pretty soon. I'm wanting to get some Johnson Viking's. Its why I posted a wanted add in the forum as well.

CW Spook,

That's awesome to hear that you used one. These radios are in a way like guns. If they could talk they could tell a story.

 

[Jellybean]

Nice collection. I've had a ham license since 2002 but have never talked on one yet. Mama don't want no antennas sticking out of her mobile home, she thinks they'll make the lawn gnomes look like rednecks or something.

 

[Gutpile Charlie]

I was never a ham, however, after WWII I was a kid and "played" with a lot of radios. Many military surplus receivers and and a/c transceivers were available then. It was like the "Golden Age" of radio.

I made a power supply for an SCR522 aircraft transciver and had a lot of fun with that. Also, spent much time with the old BC348 receiver. This was the one that you saw at the radio operator's table in the B-17. That was also a classic radio.

Somehow today, radio just does not have the appeal to me as it did then. I could draw, from memory schematics of basic transmitters and receivers. All kinds of "neat suff" abounded. Tubes, coils, transformers, pots, switches, etc.

Today it is all different. Just a micro chip does all that stuff and you can't very well "homebrew" these circuits.

I guess everything changes...just like it has in photograph. Nothing remains the same.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

As an after thought, but on the same subject, here is a link to a story about an old transmitter that I saw and was aware of "back in the day."

http://amfone.net/ECSound/BartlesvilleTX/bvilletx.htm

A kid that was in elementary school with me had a father that was an electronics technician. He built this transmitter for another guy in the neighborhood.

This transmitter was used just a very few times prior to Pearl Harbor, and then ham radio was shut down...as well as this transmitter.

Back about 1947 the son of the owner of this let me have a peek into the ham shack. I remember it well. This is the same building that held this equipment until recent years when it was sold at an estate sale. I was so surprised to find these pictures.

 

[LESMITH]

I got my General ham license in 1962, WB6AYE. But after I left Adak Island I stopped using it and dropped the hobby due to lack of $$$.

 

[Raider]

I have an Icom 751A HF and have had my General License for 5 years. Haven't talked on it much lately because of too much time hustling to make a few $$$. Its great fun to talk to people all over the world though.

Charlie

 

[Ignatz]

I turn on my SP600 everytime I'm in my reloading/gun room. I listen to the same old buzzards around 3885 for the past 20 years. My backup rig is a HRO 60. They are always talking about mods on their Vikings and other rigs.

 

[Lenshappy]

See if you can get a hold of a Heathkit "lunchbox" early starters kit from the 60's - one crystal at a time....2 meters if I recall.

 

[enfield]

Nice equipment - you have taste.

The TS520 and FT101E are classics, not to mention the Hammarlund.

I still have a Hammarlund HQ170 in a box in the garage waiting to be rebuilt.

 

[Ogandydancer]

I had on the FT101EE's it was my first rig that I got on the air with. Prior to that I had a Viking 50 watt CW X-mtr and a real cheap national X-cvr which I never got on the air. I now have an Icom IC735 w/the 500 watt tuner; however all my antennas are down so haven't been on the air in quite awhile.

73 es gud luk

 

[Ohio Outdoorsman]

Here are a couple of pictures of Steve's Radio station. His call is NI8F and mine is N8UNL.

Steve was the Store / Service Manager for Universal Radio In Reynoldsburg, Ohio for many years. In recent years he has been the IT manager.

Steve & Charlene
NI8f & N8UNL

 

[CW Spook]

The Collins S-Line was the absolute best. I wish I'd never sold mine, nor my 75A-4/KWS-1 combo or my KWM-1. (I bought the KWM-1 at a garage sale for $100...sold it 8 or 10 years later for $750.)

 

[CW Spook]

See if you can get a hold of a Heathkit "lunchbox" early starters kit from the 60's - one crystal at a time....2 meters if I recall.

Actually, they made the Benton Harbor Lunchbox in 4 versions..2, 6, and 10 meters and CB. I never owned one myself, but I had a chance to play with a friend's 2 meter version while I was in college. At that time I was running an Eico 720 transmitter and a Drake 1A receiver out of my 3rd floor dorm room with a wire dropped down the side of the building for an antenna.

 

[beemerphile]

Nice selection for someone who doesn't even have their ticket yet. I like the old rigs. Fine business. 73 de K4LAD

 

[pberry]

Thats all good equipment. When you start collecting Collins equipment then you will be hooked. I have been into Amateur Radio for a lot of years. I am not active at this time. Guess I got tired of it. I usually cycle through something every 10 years or so. Been through radio three times. My latest call and the one I've had for the longest is N5PF. I worked satellites for a while. That equipment really cost me. Talked to several NASA folks on the MIR and the Space Station. I got so involved at times that I guess I got burned out on it. Have fun with it. Lots to do but be careful. Antenna's will get you killed.
Phil N5PF

 

[Officerbob]

Wow, its great to hear alot of people share there stories. I don't have any to be honest, well not yet. These radios I've actually acquired thru ham fests and such. My father is the one who got me into them. Back then those where the hay day of there time. The quality of the vintage radios is amazing. I don't like the LCD Digital ones. Ive leaned into the vintage tube types.

 

[MK]

Lots of nice ones in there. The original TS 520 has some of
the smoothest receive audio of all the old Kenwoods..
I used to fix/overhaul a lot of those for people.. I can tell the difference
between the original 520 vs say a 520SE just by listening to it..
But I sold off the last one I had.. I still have a gold label TS 830 and
the digital VFO-230 though.
I always like working on those hybrid Kenwoods because they were
generally easy to work on. Heck, I can realign one in most cases
with just a VOM, and the internal calibrator signal.. Maybe a frequency
counter with some of the molested ones.. Not much to them.

Still have a lot of old Drake gear. R4, R4C, T4XB, 2C-2CQ for a few.
My first transmitter I built when I was in 8th grade, and didn't have a
ticket yet.. It was a single 6V6 circuit from the 1949 ARRL handbook.
But.. I fell out a bit and didn't end up getting a license until I was 20
in 1977. When I was a novice I used a HQ-110 and a Viking Valiant.
I was lucky that the FCC did away with crystal control for novices
right before I got mine. So I was able to use the VFO in the Valiant.
That thing was a hoss.. Big mercury vapor rectifiers that glowed blue,
and five 6146's.. Three for the finals, and two as modulators for AM
phone. I never used it for phone though.. Only CW..
These days I use my little IC-706mk2g more than anything..
I've been into radios since I was 7, and got my first six transistor
AM portable for my birthday. Even then I used to like to tune the
far off stuff. I'd wake up really early in the morning and scan the dial
for new cities to listen to before school. I was a rabid SWL from
late elementary age to junior high when I started getting into ham
radio.
I got my ticket in Mar 77, so I'll click over 33 years in Mar 2010.

 

[tallpaul]

I had an old heathkit one my dad put together... it was a reciever only and I gave it away years ago... it was neat when I had it working. I keep thinking about buying a radio for emergency use or maybe even a no tech license use... I have too many hobbies as it is...

 

[kennyb]

i have the yaesu 101 as well as the ft102....many consider the 102 one of the finest radio's of all time...boxes and boxes of NOS tubes sitting around here as i used to collect those as well...lots of classic 11 meter (CB) gear as well....trams,cobra 2000,etc.i still dabble in it

 

[Jim Shugart]

!

I got into it when I was in Junior HS. Got my General Class license when I was 13YO (K4YEW). Got a notice to quit using "Kilowatt Four Young Easy Women" as phonetics from the FCC, because it was obscene and inappropriate.

I wound up with a Hallicrafters SX-100 (receiver) and a Heath DX100 (transmitter). I assembled the DX100 (it was a 'kit') and it actually worked!

My dad would come into my room and glare at me while I was reading circuit diagrams and laying out wires across the chassis -- like, that damned thing had better work after dropping $180 (or whatever) on it. Big bucks in those days (late 1950's).

Do any of ya'll remember MARS? Wonderful military WWII surplus stuff at great prices. My buddy and I would visit this old retired guy after school. He had a whole attic full of stuff from MARS. He spent all his time up there hamming, drinking beer, and peeing in the empty beer cans. We'd switch the cans on him. He didn't like that.

I had everything up and running, working mostly 20m and 40m. Then we moved into a valley with power lines all around. I couldn't get an antenna up that the power company would accept.

Sooooooo.....between that and the discovery of GIRLS, ham radio kinda fell off the boat.

I've got a bunch of QST magazines up in the attic (late 50's to early 60's). So let's have a kinda small karma here.

If you email me your call sign and a snailmail addy, I'll send you five of them, randomly selected. The ad's are better than the articles now. I've got no idea what they're worth, if it's $$$ then you're lucky! Cutoff is this Saturday 2400 2-6-2010.

 

[Pop's2]

Started as a SWL in the late 40's using my Dad's radio/phonograph with shortwave bands; CB in the 60's and finally got my ticket in 1968 or 69.
Owned a retail Ham radio store in the 70's and now as a snobird have a Yaesu FT-900 and FT-2500. Not very active but I remember all of your equipment and then some. Enjoy you new interests,

 

[truckemup97]

I've got a couple of Galaxys that are converted to CB. Much better radios than anything Cobra or Uniden makes. The 99 will still do 10 meter, but I've never gotten a license.

 

[NCTexan]

I used to have one, but the first guy I spoke to honed in on my signal and came over unannounced and made me play Parcheesi for 9 hours...

Sip,

I've heard of those Parcheesi stalkers... and the are not to be trifled with.

At first you think that they're just after your pawns... but they are never satisfied... never satisfied... and it does not stop there.

Enough said.

 

[Ogandydancer]

I got into it when I was in Junior HS. Got my General Class license when I was 13YO (K4YEW). Got a notice to quit using "Kilowatt Four Young Easy Women" as phonetics from the FCC, because it was obscene and inappropriate.

First station I ever operated wasin high school HT100 Transmitter and SX110 Reciever call sign was W4SQK and we used the phonetics We're 4 Surely Queer Kids. If memory serves me it was one of the first SSB rigs on the market. We used a Vibroplex keyer and a Crystal mic.

We were all gathered in the club room the day the first space capsule splashed down and heard the carrier Randolph radioing Rando can do, man did that ever excite us. Just wanted to share that little story.

 

[LennyLames]

My SGC-2000 with remote PowerTalk head, I "salvaged" from my sailboat when I sold her a couple of years ago. It was designed for marine radio use, with marine ITU channels and transmit/receive over the full HF spectrum. I was using my sailboat's insulated backstay as the active antenna element. The ham license really opened up communications when I was offshore or in a remote anchorage. Prior to getting my ham license, I was restricted to using the separate marine channels/frequencies, but I had little use for chatting with land-based commercial stations (phone relays, etc., for a fee, of course). Once I got my ham General license, I was able to contact amateur stations all over.

Later on, I got a Yaesu FT-857D. Amazingly compact multi-band from HF to 430 MHz.

I bought both brand new, because I felt that with such complex electronics nowadays, I wasn't capable of fully testing and repairing a used set. However, if I find an old working radio for a good price, I may acquire it. I'm fascinated with vacuum tube radios.

A few years ago, I met this guy at the marina. He had purchased an abandoned sailboat. He said the previous (deceased) owner had ham radio equipment on it, but he himself had no use for that "stuff" so he cut all the wires, ripped all the equipment out, and tossed them in the dumpster. He had no idea what equipment they were. I remember thinking to myself that this guy wasn't too bright, but that's typical of the area; and they use boats as cheap, substandard housing, and not for going out to sea. I wasn't there when it happened, or I would have picked them up.

It's too bad that there aren't too many young people embarking on ham radio. When I took my classes for Technician and General just a few years ago (5 WPM Morse code was still required for General), I was the 2nd youngest in the class, and I'm not that young. I was lucky enough to pass all 3 in the same exam session. I still entertain thoughts of getting my Extra, when time permits.

 

[IcarryS&W]

WA5JR Here...

Some of the best vintage equipment I ever operated were the Collins 75A4 Receivier with matching KWS-1 transmitter.

My current station has a Drake pair, R-4B / T-4XB, W-4, and MN-2000 which is my vintage rig beside a Kenwood TS-850SAT. Two amps are available on line as well, a Heath SB-200 and an Ameritron AL-811H. Never did need much power as it's all in the antenna, a Cushcraft Classic 33 at 55ft.

73