[ARC5] Oscillator Stability and Old-Time gear. (Was OT: Hally Instability)

[Robert Nickels]

On 11/16/2015 10:01 AM, arc5 at ix.netcom.com wrote:
>   I made hundreds of Contacts and had a ball with it
My  first real receiver was a Hallicrafters SX-110 and all I knew is 
that it was vastly better than the Span Master that I'd started out with 
and figured it had to be pretty good because it was featured in the 
radio section of the Monkey Wards catalog (along with the S-120!).

After discovering how to tune in the Nebraska Storm Net in  SSB mode 
using the BFO, my mom and dad even found it interesting to listen as 
various stations checked in often with weather reports and such. Because 
the net always coincided with suppertime I was even allowed to install 
an extension speaker in the kitchen, but the SX-110 drifted as it warmed 
up producing the kind of high or low-pitched audio only a budding ham 
could find not to be totally annoying. Thus to promote domestic 
tranquility I developed a pretty good sense for the drift rate based on 
how long the receiver had been on, and knew about how much to "lead it" 
by starting out with the tuning a bit on one side knowing the meal would 
pretty much be over by the time it had drifted into unintelligibly.   If 
I misjudged it, a quick mid-meal correction run to the basement shack 
was allowed.

73, Bob W9RAN