[ARC5] Golden years, indeed....

[Mike Everette via ARC5]

I have a stash of original Fair Radio catalogs going back to the very early 1960s.  They must have added me to their mailing list when I got my Novice license, because the first one is Winter 61.

Talk about goodies....!  Now, they had 'em!  Brand new T-17 transmitters; brand new broadcast band receivers and 1.5-3 receivers; all sorts of mounts and racks... but, strangely, NO connectors.  In fact it's only with the advent of eBay that the connectors have come out of the woodwork.  Back in the day I figured they were all smelted with the airplanes.

But... I also remember buying things like NIB BC-348 racks and plugs for $3.50 and $1.00 each, respectively, from Fair as late as maybe 1970.  

I did take advantage of Fair's new or near-new Command Set stuff on several occasions.  Another company that had a lot of it was John Meshna in Lynn, MA; but their prices were higher.  Meshna went belly-up around 1973 or 74, and in their next-to-last catalog offered a selection of NIB/NOS ARC-5 control boxes for cheep-cheep.  I bought one of each and two of some, about a dozen or more, for the grand total of around $25.

Back up a bit... When I first realized that I ought to collect this stuff, which was circa 1969 or 70, I sent letters to lots of the old surplus houses that had advertised in 73 Magazine during the early to mid 60s.  Must have been close to 30 of them.  The ONLY ones I got responses from were Columbia in LA, Meshna, and G&G Radio in NY.  By that time, Columbia was almost out of the WW2 surplus business; I did get a NIB/NOS BC-457 from them which may have been among the last they had.  Turned out, G&G was somehow linked to Fair Radio and if you ordered from G&G, they usually had to get it from Fair and reship it.

Back to Fair... they had fabulous stuff; AR-88 and HRO receivers for instance, in the late 60s and early 70s.  Earlier, they sold BC-312, 342 and 348 receivers; but their prices seemed higher than a lot of the other dealers.  I myself preferred hamfesting, and bought my first BC-348 (unhacked, but no dyno) for $5 in 1967.  I also remember that Fair at one point offered RAS receivers, complete, in the crate and probably brand new.  I recall seeing a complete RAS setup in a rack, at a hamfest about 1970 or 71, with a $50 price on it.  Passed it up, and kicked myself for years over it.  Saw what well may have been the very same RAS at another fest in 2006 for $200, and there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth because I knew my car wouldn't hold it.  However, 2 years later I did make a deal I couldn't refuse, when I was able to buy a complete RAS from an estate sale for a lot less money.  So, what goes around comes around, hmm.

Occasionally I still buy parts, tubes and sometimes books from Fair; but they are nowhere near what they used to be, darn it!

When I was first getting into radio back in junior high school, there was a surplus electronics store in the next town, 25 miles east.  It was a great place to buy parts, tubes, ARC-5 transmitters (he had a wall full of T-19s, $8 each, your choice), even "big rigs" like brand new TBWs (and he had the gas engine and motor generator supplies if you wanted them) and TBK/TBM etc which you needed a big truck to haul off; but he'd help load them.  (No, I never did....)  

During my high school years I often heard legendary tales of a "Goodie Pile" in Volens, VA but never made it there.  However, back in the very early 70s there was a scrap yard near Burlington, NC, run by a German guy who looked like he'd just shed his coal-scuttle helmet and Mauser K98.  He got in tons of stuff from Langley, Norfolk, Patuxent River, etc etc.  Had RBA-RBB-RBC and piles of URR-11/12/13 receivers from scrapped ships; literally stacks of TCS transmitters and receivers, LM freq meters and Navy AC supplies for them; ARR-41 receivers (I often wished I had sprung for one); Collins 618T series airborne radios; you name it.  Lots of test gear as well.  It was fantastic and the prices were by-the-pound, until some hams from a nearby club went over and shot their mouths off a little too loudly about what this stuff was and what it was truly worth.  The bargains disappeared overnight.  I wondered if Schultz ever sold anything else!

Such places do still exist (there is one near me, hmm) but 99% of what they have is commercial surplus with little directly-usable or convert-able gear.  And a lot of the components are electromagnetically soldered to boards which are then epoxied, making it difficult to impossible to recover much.

Sadly, about the closest we ever come to seeing anything like the Golden years is when an estate sale happens... and it's usually that of somebody we knew.  As one of my good friends and fellow CW operators says, "Father Time takes no prisoners."

73

Mike
WA4DLF