[ARC5] Hallicrafters S-38 is dangerous

[Nick England]

Hallicrafters was indeed acquired by Northrop. A buddy designed
countermeasures gear for them in the old Hallicrafters plant in Chicago.

Hammarlund didn't make any (much?) military gear except for the Super-Pro
series. They were eventually acquired by Electronic Assistance Corp (EAC)
who made R-390A receivers. The remains were sold to Cardwell Capacitor Corp.

National Radio made some leading-edge military gear (FRR-24, WRR-2, R-1230,
SRR-19, etc.) as well as the Atomichron, but that wasn't enough to keep
them going past the 1980's.

Technical Materiel Corp (TMC) only made a few items for ham use and was
primarily a military/government supplier. Their big fall-off occurred as
the Navy replaced TMC FRT-39,-40 high-powered transmitters with
RF/Continental FRT-84,-85,-86 units and TMC FRR-60 diversity receivers with
the R-1051 family. See www.tmchistory.org

As you say these companies just never managed to successfully make the
transition to solid-state synthesized gear. Happens all the time in high
tech.


Nick England K4NYW
www.navy-radio.com

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:11 AM, <mstangelo at comcast.net> wrote:

> Nick,
>
> Interesting story.
>
> The reason technology companies disappear is because their products are
> obsoleted by new technology and they did not adapt.
>
> In the 60's and 70's companies such as Halllicrafters, Hammarlund,
> National and Collins had two markets for HF radio.
>
> Their primary customer the military. Their secondary market was Amateur
> radio
>
> The primary market dried up as the military migrated to satellite. The
> introduction of Japanese Amateur radio equipment killed the secondary
> market for them.
>
> Collins was acquired by Rockwell. It would be interesting to find out the
> fates of the other companies.
>
> Mike N2MS
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Nick England <navy.radio at gmail.com>
> To: Mark K3MSB <mark.k3msb at gmail.com>
> Cc: ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 12:45:21 -0000 (UTC)
> Subject: Re: [ARC5] Hallicrafters S-38 is dangerous
>
> Hallicrafters was acquired by military contractor Northrop. As part of a
> little-known CIA operation, they then designed and built AC/DC
> powered countermeasures systems (AN/FLQ-17) whose plans were leaked to the
> Soviets. The Reds deployed copies and the resulting chaos and deaths in
> their missile control systems led directly to the fall of the USSR.
> Later, since Hallicrafters technology was no longer needed, the company was
> dissolved and the entire work force was sworn to secrecy and moved to a
> retirement village near Phoenix.
>
> True story. Well, some of it anyways.
>
> Cheers
> Nick
>
> On Tuesday, November 17, 2015, Mark K3MSB <mark.k3msb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >>No wonder they are not around anymore.
> >
> > Still waiting to see how this issue caused the demise of the
> Hallicrafters
> > company.
> >
>