[ARC5] Survey Question

Fri Aug 1 18:25:43 EDT 2014

Wow It's like baseball cards...ya gotta collect the whole set!
People seemed to leave the transmitters that were out of the hams bands alone. It's not too hard to find a pristine T-20 , for instance. I have 2, one is perfect, the other was "gently hacked".

Some of the hacks I have encountered make me wonder what they were thinking when they did them! I guess the things were so cheap that they were considered expendable. 

On Friday, August 1, 2014 6:08 PM, Mike Everette via ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net> wrote:

I have several unhacked Command Set transmitters... started collecting back in the very early 70s.

T-17 (new & unused as far as I can tell -- Not For Sale)
T-18 (new or lightly used)
T-18 (used, unhacked, but missing top and bottom covers)
T-19 (recently acquired -- free -- from a pile of stuff about to be dumpsterized, filthy dirty but in nice shape)
T-20 (new)
T-21 (new or close to it)
T-22 (very nice but used)
T-23 (used, missing bottom cover)
T-126 (used)
ATA 2.1-3 (used)
ATA 3-4 (new or close to it)
BC-457, silver (new in original box)
BC-458, silver (looks like a zombie from a WW2 crash site, but all there except for both tube covers)
BC-459, silver (used but in nice shape)
BC-459, black, RCAF tags (used but in nice shape)
BC-459, black, US tags (used in nice shape, unhacked, but loading coil ceramic mount broken)
BC-696, silver, MAYBE -- not positive I recall having an unhacked one, but it's possible

There could be one or two more, but I've forgotten.  Some of this stuff has been packed away for a long time; but all except the "maybe" BC-696 on the above list has recently had my eyes upon it.

I probably have a dozen or so that are hacked to one degree or another.  This includes a T-19 and BC-459 that have seen considerable use on the air over the years, on CW, with an AC power supply.  There are others that could generously be described as hulks, or "residue of."

By the way... even the ones we all have that look the worst are extremely useful for amazing the Kodeless n' Klueless:  "GAAaaaAAAAAAAH-LEE!  Y'mean that thar thang ack'chully WORKS?  DAY-yum..."  "Ah ain' neva SEED no raidyos lak THEYat...."

Back in the day I was always looking for a T-15 and T-16 but never found either.  Now the prices for those are so high it's ridiculous.  I lucked out when I found the T-17; bought it through a Ham-Ad in QST (remember those?) in 1975.

Yes, eBay prices are usually high but there are occasional good deals.  However, I've only bought one transmitter on eBay (so far at least).

Maybe this has been mentioned before... one of my high school ham friends was the son of a physician (a ham, of course) who deemed this a form of madness:  "ARC-5 Fever."  He further said, "There's no cure for it.  It may go into remission, but always comes back worse than before."

May have said this before as well.... but it bears repeating.  This stuff is FUN!  So much in The Great New World of Ham Radio, is not, after the first few minutes....

73

Mike
WA4DLF
--------------------------------------------
On Thu, 7/31/14, Robert Eleazer <releazer at earthlink.net> wrote:

Subject: [ARC5] Survey Question
To: arc5 at mailman.qth.net
Date: Thursday, July 31, 2014, 9:44 PM

All this talk about the T-20 on ebay
led me to wonder:

How many of y'all have at least one totally unhacked Command
Set transmitter?

I have a 4-5.3 ATA I mildly hacked back in the early 70's
(connector change to an octal plug and removal of the
antenna relay).  The frequency range I left
unchanged.  I did not have my ham license then so it
did not matter what frequency I used.  In any case I
was only transmitting from my bedroom to the kitchen.

I have a 5.3-7 ATA that someone removed everything inside
except for the osc coil and associated tuning cap.  It
has a cover from a 3-4 ATA.  I figure it will one day
make a marvelous basis for a Something on 40M.

And I have a perfect BC-457-A, unhacked and original, even
with the center cover plate.  It does have a cracked
dial but I figure the one from the gutted ATA will move over
there when required.  And I paid $10 for it on ebay
back before people went insane.

Wayne   

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