Knight Star Roamer

[W1GUH]

I always thought it would be neat to turn on one of my old receivers and hear the same stuff that came out of the speakers back in the day. (cue the twilight zone music) It never ceases to amaze me how the sight or sound of something can transport me right back to a specific time and place many many years ago. I guess I'm amazed cause I can't remember yesterday.

The essence of vintage radios, IMHO. Ill never forget the sounds that came out of the AR-3 my dad built and then was my novice receiver. The hams, of course, but the most vivid memories are of teletype -- the distinctive sound without the BFO turned on, or the sound of Russian Jamming. The Russian jamming always sounded to me like a wind band playing a long, sustained chord. In my 7 year-old mind I thought that that's what the "band" switch and the "band" tuning was talking about!

[KD5FRE]

Dug out my old Star Roamer that I put together on me and wife's 1st wed anniversary(48 yrs ago)..I've hauled that sucker everywhere we lived..sometime along the way it stopped working so I just set it aside..I'm starting back in Ham hobby and it was in cabinet where I stored my old ham gear..Looked it up on web and saw a bunch of folks got old ones going..so I ordered some new caps to replace the single one..they came in yesterday and I'm going to start working on it in am..

[K4PIH]

Had a Span Master as a kid. My uncle (couldn't change a light bulb) bought the kit and totally f'd the build. If I remember it right he plugged it in and turned it on and immediately found his dumb ass on the floor. Threw it in a box and brought it over and said here nephew you can have it! My dad (a freaking electronic genius) took a look at it and told me unsolder every thing and cut out what you can't. Dad basically r e-file the parts list from his many parts boxes and erased all the check marks from the manual and told start from scratch. Took me about a week after homework but it fired up first time. It was a regenerative set and not superhet so it took some practice to tune. Wish I still had it would remind me of dad.

[kb2vxa]

It's nice to see a classic so easily restored and looking like it just came out of the box. AM BC DXing was my first love when I got my first radio, an "All American 5" in a Bakelite cabinet and discovered far away stations between the locals at night. That's when every city had its own local "flavor" so I recognized familiar ones and they IDed with their call letters every half hour. Oh the frustration when just as the ID started they went into a fade! Then the FCC dropped that requirement and we were left with duplicated and confusing logos, add satellite driven robots duplicated in every major market, I gave up. Wouldn't it be nice like an episode of The Twilight Zone with the old guy listening to Fibber McGee and Molly and Gang Busters on his antique radio? That Knight would take me back to the glory days of AM rock and roll. <sigh>

The circuit reminds me of my first shortwave receiver, a chassis I scrounged from a B&W TV, record player and radio combo, the radio had AM and SW on it. Without an RF stage the pentagrid converter fed the LO signal back into my 50ft wire antenna making a mess of the TV in the living room when I tuned above 18mc so I had to stay below it when the parental units were watching. Somehow I still prefer megacycles, now it makes mega Hertz in my head. So now does Mike R. Farad ride his Megahertz to do the wild thing with Milli Amp at ground potential by a flowing current? It sure ruined The Sex Life Of An Electron!

[WØTKX]

Stop eating those mushrooms from Headly O' Possum.