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The R4c receiver came from a friend's estate. I picked up the T4XC transmitter on E bay, and a friend gave me an MS-4 speaker and AC-4 P/S. I made a few contacts with the station on 75 and everything works great . I also picked up some nice vinyl dust covers.
Attachment 16690
Great station with all the goodies you need on today's crowded bands, Drake is famous for that. Poor kitty is disappointed, no nice warm tubes.
Nice rig! Word of these will spread and a certain collector will blame you for the rise in price on ebay.
Needs moar C-4 + L-4B + MN-2000 +TC-2/TC-6 + CC-2/CC-6 ... :lol:
Nice!
Omitted the SPR-4 and SW-4A. Gotta have those in order to round everything out!
I have the solid-state equivalent of that station plus the matching amp and all the peripherals. Got to play with a Sherwood-modified R-4C in high school and it was a nice receiver.
Very nice, George! Closest rig I had to your setup was the TR-4C. Ran like a tank for years, and I really enjoyed using it!
I've never operated radios quite like that. I visualize it to be akin to full contact radio, gladiator school style.
Cool.
You need a slide ruler to figure out what frequency you're on.Quote:
Originally Posted by WZ7U
Nice set of Drakes
If it's slide rules you want Collins and a load of other boat anchors have them, the classic slide rule dial. The pictured 75A4 is the tube equivalent of the Drake R4C with the T4 and R4 analog dials. That makes it a Drake 4 line station incidentally. Unfortunately hams who have cut their teeth on today's digital readouts look at analog dials with wonder and amazement. I cut my teeth on a metal 6SK7 avoiding glass tubes that would have broken, I fell right into analog dials.
Attachment 16697
I lived in West Creek, NJ during the 1999-2000 sunspot peak and spent my days at the K2PG DC to light station working the world with his Drake TR4. Phil had the external VFO for working DX operating split frequency. With dual VFOs splits are easy and sneaky when you want to break the dog pile. With the RX VFO on the DX I'd find the station he was working with the TX VFO. When he signed I'd pounce, it's called coat tailing, the DX heard me before he had a chance to tune away for another station to work. Although I only missed one on 20M and a rare African on 6M using every trick in the book and a few I wrote, the best way is tuning around for a rare station calling CQ before the dog pile starts. Call it the early bird gets the worm trick. Obviously that makes the DX clusters on the Internet quite useless, by the time the spot is posted the dog pile is well underway.
Unfortunately for DX hounds we're in a prolonged solar minimum with the bottom next year. If that's your bag George, now is the time to search for an RV7, if failing that there are others that may be fitted with slight modification. Just don't ever forget Boat Anchor Rule Number 1, NEVER irreversibly mod a classic, for if you do it's ruined. That means full documentation so it may be returned to original condition for resale and collector value.
You'd have conniption fits if you saw some of the mod jobs I've done to so-called "classics".Quote:
Originally Posted by kb2vxa
My rules are...the mod looks "stock" (uses the same style components, knobs, what have you) and adds desirable functionality. In other words, the mod should look like it came from the factory and incorporate something the manufacturer left out.
An example is a couple of Drake R7s. These now have Squelch controls, concentric with the Notch knob.
I'm also going to equip the rigs with N4YG DDS VFOs and keep the dial escutcheons looking Drake-esque. Instead of the numerical dials, backlighted letters (A, B, S - corresponding to VFO A/B and Split) will appear in the dial window.
When I wrote that I was thinking of some of the butcher jobs I had to rework just to get the rig working. From your work posted here I know darn well you do good work, and you're right about "factory" upgrades after the factory closed. <snickers> My favorites were "Stereoizing" (my CB handle) AM transmitters made before 1959 with 11M on the band switch giving them AM Gangsta audio. We used likewise modified ham receivers and hi-fi speakers and appreciated the sound, even CBers raved about it. That BTW was before over modulating "power mics" splattering across 10 channels with cheese grater audio became the norm. "Turn it up, it's not loud enough!" When I got to know Timtron WA1 Henry Yell Arr and his famous mods I noticed mine were what's called a parallel invention. I also got a lot of work fixing messes made by truck stop engineers' golden screwdrivers. (;->)
The last rig I worked on was K2PG Phil's Johnson Valiant feeding it with 600 ohm balanced audio from the processor rack that fed his 1KW AM broadcast transmitters re-tuned for 160M. FYI those made for 1000-1600KC (this was before the honor went to Hertz) are good up to 3MHz without modification. It proofed out pretty flat 40-10,000Hz or in other words a 20KHz maximum occupied bandwidth, but so far only one AM Gangsta has attracted "criticism" from the FCC. You guessed it, Timtron's testicling and atomic yealos. This is a bit long, but you'll appreciate Sir Riley of Hollingsworth's subtle humor.
August 20, 2001
Mr. Timothy M. Smith
RFD 3 Box 3695
Skowhegan, ME 04976
Re: Warning Notice: Amateur Radio license WA1HLR
Dear Mr. Smith:
The Commission has reviewed monitoring information from your station on July 26 and 27, 2001 on 3.885 MHz. The transmissions from your station indicate an alarming lack of understanding of the basis and purpose of the Amateur Radio Service. The transmissions are characterized by sound effects such as belching, coughing directly into the microphone, and sound effects of other bodily functions probably best left undescribed. Furthermore, the repeated transmission of "testicle-ing" is not only juvenile but absurd as well.
There is no place in the Amateur Radio Service for the conduct reflected in the transmissions. It degrades the Service for other users and will not be tolerated. Please review Sections 97.1 (basis and purpose of Amateur Radio), 97.101 (general standards) and 97.113 (prohibited transmissions) of the rules.
Section 308(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, gives the Commission the authority to obtain information from a licensee regarding the operation of his station. Accordingly, you are requested to respond to this letter within 20 days of its date. Please be advised that if this type of operation is not corrected, we will take enforcement action against your license, ranging from proceedings to restrict your operation to non-voice modes to designation of your renewal application for an administrative hearing to determine whether it should be granted.
Tape recordings of the transmissions described above are available should you need to review them. Finally, you may also wish to review Section 95 of our rules, which sets forth other, less regulated, radio services available to you.
Sincerely,
W. Riley Hollingsworth
Special Counsel
cc: FCC Northeastern Regional Director
That's rich. :lol:
Also heard 'HLR on 75M many years ago with an inadvertently keyed microphone, engaging in quite the discussion with an irate customer of his. May still have the tape of it around here somewhere.
I heard about that transmission but never heard it, you may have the only recording extant. AM Fone has HLR and others in their recording archives but I can't find any way to play them. I have recordings of his music played and sung by Steve "The HUZ Man" on 3885 loud and clear in remarkable hi-fi when the original AM Gangstas rocked 75M, and Timmy himself singing his version of The Piss Weak Mobile Blues in his piss weak mobile, the famous Cadaverlac. The video of him singing it with Steve on guitar at a hamfester is still floating around the Internet and of course I put it in my Henry Yell Arr archive.
Yep, Tim is a real piece of work proving the fine line between genius and insanity is often blurred. I wish I had tape rolling New Years Eve 1969-70 The Night Of The Slime O Tron. The one pictured is nothing like the much larger original that reduced pissolene to a concentrated liquid that can only be described as a cross between toxic material and radioactive waste. The reduction chamber was based on a vaporizer, a large glass jar with two carbon rods connected to the 230V 40A sub main in his Porkrot (Rockport, MA) studio, a converted chicken coop that some enemy burned to the ground. He played Howard Cosell giving a blow by blow running description of it operating until round about midnight when one of the celebrants who had generously donated converted beer (pissolene) bumped into it. The carbon rods touched creating a hot arc in the already boiling toxic/radioactive waste causing the reduction chamber to explode splattering everything and everyone with hot, smelly, whatever it was, and the lights went out, WA1HLR was off the air mid transmission. Others were calling with no response for several minutes, is the infamous Timtron alive or dead? When he restored power and got back on the air coughing and sputtering in the heavily polluted atmosphere 3885 came alive with heterodynes and laughter.
Attachment 16703
Speaking of tapes and an incident rather like the above, back in my CB daze my good friend Jack WA2V (SK) played a prank on Jimmy, a new CBer and recorded it. The tape sat on a shelf for several years, meanwhile the prankee got a Valiant and became a CB god full of the usual "advice" and I was de-pinging Browning Eagles for $20 a pop. I didn't tell them it was simply removing a 20uF electrolytic across the receiver mute terminals. (;->) I was again at Jack's house when the CB god was on surrounded by his worshipers when Jack asked him if he wanted to hear what he sounded like way back when on his new Browning. Naturally he agreed and Jack played back the tape. When he unkeyed all we heard was mass heterodyne with an ocasional laugh popping up out of it. Then above the cacophony that Valiant roared "Jack, I"LL KIIILLL YOU!!!" My best prank was conning a guy into replacing the battery in his power mic with an AC line cord and plugging it in..........
BTW I would just LOVE to add that Timtron broadcast to my archives. If you can digitize the tape into a file of 12MB or less I'll give you my e-mail address in a PM so you can send it to me.
I'll have to source another cassette deck before I do, as the original is on one of the many tapes in my archive.
As are a bunch of 14.313 follies from yesteryear. Those clowns put serious time and money into turning a single frequency into their own private cesspool. QRMers of the modern day have nothing on them.
4 track audio cassettes, they used to be the cat's meow, the bee's knees, etc. (No, I'm not THAT old!) They were lots of fun when they jammed in the mechanism and you had to take it apart and carefully hand wind the tape back into the cassette. Then every time the tape got to that spot you could hear the crinkles. The worst case scenario was jammed in an in dash player, getting it out of the dash was one major job!
That having been said, I'm surprised you haven't digitized your music and ham nonsense onto HDD. I lost my entire record and tape collection to a basement flood, but over the years recovered it and more from various sources. It is now on a 4TB HDD along with all sorts of audio and video weirdness. Digital is IT (down here they ALL float) today and I can wait.
Oh good grief, The 14.313 Follies with a Canadian ringmaster, I remember them well. There was another frequency near 3890 75M that is best described as The Tequila Mocking Bird Channel with a recording of a group singing something about "Pork Butt Al" mostly unintelligible. Then there was the infamous K1MAN broadcasting with an over modulated and splattering Collins KW-1. Thankfully the FCC finally nailed him good, Glen Bastard will never hold any FCC license again. My favorite listening was to the AM Gangstas' antics on 3885 led by the illustrious Timtron WA1 Henry Yell Arr... ARR ARR ARR!
I picked up these vinyl covers off of E bay, for about $35 a piece. Attachment 16715
<growl> <hiss> Translation: Kitty no like! Houston, we have a problem. When you post an image in the normal way it comes up as an invalid image number. The workaround is first post the message only. Next edit, then add the image(s) and post again. The last upgrade messed it up, but there is a massive overhaul coming that hopefully will fix it. FYI posting videos works normally, only posting stills is messed up.
Can also be done with advanced edit, manage attachments. Select and drag the new attachment to the lower attachment window. Save, preview. Then, you can delete the bogus (looks like misnumbered/indexed) attachment.
Picky picky picky (@ 1:06)
https://youtu.be/x4kWLUnorTU
George, that was the same station Doug, WAØOHG(SK) had.
He gave me my novice exam waaaaay back when.