Stuff You Wish You Still Had

[jwt873]

I wish I still had my old 40's vintage Philco 'Hippo' radio..

My parents used it as a kitchen radio back in the 60's when I was a young teen. They bought a new radio and passed the old Philco on to me to use by my bedside. I was a fan of the pop/rock music of the day. We had two stations with that format.. One at 580 kHz and the other at 1470 kHz. The radio had continous tuning which meant that I had to crank the tuning knob to get the dial to go from one end of the band to the other. Because of the tuning knob gearing, it went slowly.

One winter night when I was swinging across the band, I came across an unknown station playing the music I liked. I listened for a while.. It was from Chicago which was 700 miles away! I wondered if there were more... There were.. Little Rock Arkansas, Denver Colorado, Omaha Nebraska... I soon became a broadcast band DXer. That started my passion for radio. It led to shortwave and eventually ham radio, scanning and all that other stuff.

Every now and then I browse eBay. There are always some for sale there and I'm always tempted to buy one

 

[Fast1eddie]

I miss my Icom R70.

 

[mbott]

The Icom R71 and it's VHF/UHF cousin the R7000 were cutting edge for their time. Personally I felt they performed better then their replacements the R75 and the R8500.

View attachment 77341

I sold my R75 to make room for my R71A. This one had been through the Electronic Equipment Bank in Virginia.

 

[TailGator911]

My Grove SP200 speaker unit, and my old Hammarlund HQ-150 shortwave. I still see the Hammarlund on eBay now and then and always think about reacquiring it, but no room on this desk. The Grove I have not seen for sale in years.

 

[MrColad]

A BC-348-M, no idea why it was a boat anchor when I had it in the '60s. My 66 'Stang

My first girlfriend, or maybe it was the 2nd one

I always wondered about these vintage military boat anchors in the Fair Radio catalog. Once they mentioned that you needed dynamotors and other things I never heard of I just left good enough alone.

https://fairradio.com

Couldn't find a photo or a video of an M series.

 

[TailGator911]

Fair Radio Sales is a great company. I've bought military field phones from them, and they were a pleasure to deal with.

 

[riverrat373]

Yaesu FRG-7 and Drake SW8.

 

[MrColad]

 

[MrColad]

I got this ex-Gummint Marconi R1475 as a birthday present when I was about 11 years old....

View attachment 77326

..and I still had it in the late 60' s when I was living in an apartment with my then girlfriend. I was in the process of reconditioning the radio with a nice coat of Hammerite but we split up. I was full of good intentions of going to patch it up with the girlfriend and the radio but it never happened. I wonder where they both are now.....

Wow that's excellent clarity.

 

[MrColad]

We had a console radio, too. It was a Crosley. I wish I still had it. It looked and sounded great. (At least I think it did, I was about 8 or 9 back then.)

Still in business.

Crosley Antique Radio Page, Bob Dobush

All about collecting and restoring antique Crosley tube radios, featuring pictures and descriptions of antique Crosley tube radios and radio advertising from the 1920s to the 1950s.

www.crosleyradios.com

 

[MrColad]

Yep that radio looks about right, could have been a little older but the round dial looks right on.

I guess it was a bit of a learning curve when I was 10 but by the time I was 12 I had the HyGain collinear 2 ground plane on the roof and a Lafayette he90 CB and a tunable Police monitor hahaha. I took to it like a duck to water.

My dad was also ham operator and knew you either have it or you don't in understanding radios, he knew I had it.

My mother didn't know what to think of it, LOL.

By the time I was sixteen and driving I was stringing with the local newspaper and had my own darkroom. It was the start of a terrific career as a newspaper man, I retired from a large daily as a department editor.

I'm embarrassed to say how much equipment I've accumulated or bought over the years but I don't think I'm any different than any of you.

HE90 huh? TB you're showing your age. Lol.

 

[trentbob]

HE90 huh? TB you're showing your age. Lol.

View attachment 77816

Hey that's my radio! But the dents in the speaker seem to be in a different place. 6 Channel Crystal controled but you had the tunable receiver to receive all 23 channels. That's my baby!. I got it used in 1966 and it was a terrific radio, especially for an 11 year old going on 12. Worked great with that Hi Gain CLR ground plane, I'm 66.

 

[trentbob]

HE90 huh? TB you're showing your age. Lol.

View attachment 77816

Thanks again for posting that photo, between the guts/ chassis only of the zenith stand up shortwave radio and this CB radio which I think I actually got in 1965 used, that was my shack at age 12. I appreciate that you are able to get photos of everything on the internet.

Looking at this CB it was a terrific radio and I enjoyed it for years. Only had 6 Crystal controled channels I could transmit on but I could of course receive all 23 channels using the tuner. You know I can still remember the channels I had crystals for... Channel 7, 9, 11, 14, 19 + 21... I was in react at that time monitoring Channel 9 on a schedule but Channel 21 was our working Channel. Amazing stuff, so long ago. Of course the tunable Police monitor came later that year. Egads. I wish I had all of those radios now.

 

[MrColad]

Hey that's my radio! But the dents in the speaker seem to be in a different place. 6 Channel Crystal controled but you had the tunable receiver to receive all 23 channels. That's my baby!. I got it used in 1966 and it was a terrific radio, especially for an 11 year old going on 12. Worked great with that Hi Gain CLR ground plane, I'm 66.

I got three years on ye son, lolol.

 

[TailGator911]

Second that FRG-7, still have mine. R75 sits on top of it, a mix of the old and the new. Still have my R71, too. My R8600 sits on top of that. Talk about a contrast. A solid reminder of how fast technology advances.

 

[N4DJC]

I got my FRG-7 early 1977. Seems like it was from a radio store located in Newington, but I’m not sure. Great little radio, I kept mine until I bought my R-71.

 

[TailGator911]

My FRG-7 has seniority over all the radios on my desk

 

[richardbritt]

My GLB synthesizer. Dual controls, one set for transmit and the other for receiving. I used it on a Mocom 70 I modified to the lower end of the VHF high band. Worked great on 2 meters. None of the Icom, Yaesu or Kenwood rigs sounded that good.

 

[richardbritt]

My GLB synthesizer. Dual controls, one set for transmit and the other for receiving. I used it on a Mocom 70 I modified to the lower end of the VHF high band. Worked great on 2 meters. None of the Icom, Yaesu or Kenwood rigs sounded that good.

 

[richardbritt]

Shoot i aint, i had a hord of radios when i was 17, i had an old plector station alert monitor (5 bucks at a swap meet and worked for klamath county fire oregon and still i miss that radio!
and then had a grunding sw radio with a c.b. radio (i lived on top of a 300 foot hill, and it was killer awesome)
and the old radio shack pro 7a radio i used till 2000.
my how we let go of so much and miss it, even when it is unusable now a days.
simple times back then

The Plectron monitor's were good. I also had a Instalert fire monitor when I was a volunteer fireman in Virginia Beach. Later came Motorola alert monitor and a Minitor pager (the red brick later called a minitor 1) . I have three minitor 1s with working amplified chargers and two Motorola alert monitors that I refurbished bought off ebay. Plus a bunch of minitor 5s with amplifier chargers I keep on 24/7. I still volunteer where I live in NC years later.