On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:08:15 -0800, Bob Macklin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I did but that was 50 years ago! And they weren't anymore when I got done!
I confess to having hacked one up back in 79-80 when I went off to school. One of my professors was a bigwig with the Navy in WWII, he had a NIB BC-455B which he traded me for a Radiola III sans tubes that he wanted to transistorize. Silly me, I just thought the Command set was so cool. He, from memory, helped me rewire the filaments and do a few other things including a BFO. I used an old electro-dynamic speaker from a Philco radio and WOW did it work well. The tuning is so granular on it that tuning was a breeze, and it did work well on CW, but wandered all over hell and back. Today it sits on the desk of my office at home, used mainly for AM SWLing. Tim's program on WBCQ comes booming in with just a short (10-15") copper wire sticking up from the antenna terminal. I don't regret having modified the rig because I not only learned a lot from it, but also developed a greater appreciation for preserving old rigs. As Bob points out, these things aren't getting any younger or anymore plentiful. The 'investment' crap is lost on me, though - I'm a user first, preserver/collector second. There's just something about this kind of 'living history', along the same lines as seeing a P-51 flying at an airshow. I do wish I'd picked up more stuff which, even in the 80s, was still quite cheap. Finding a NOS ARC-5 receiver in a box for $10 was considered high. Guess I just thought they'd be around forever? ~ Todd/'Boomer' KA1KAQ
