[ARC5] [Milsurplus] RAX

[Hubert Miller]

I always really liked the looks of the RAX. It was kinda, love at frst sight. The BC-652 has rather similar style but of course is much more robust - and heavy ! (  my simple way for beginners to determine whether ground or air equipment: can you stand on it, with no harm done ? ( imagine doing this, rather than actually performing such test. )).  What really sunk the RAX hook for me was the article, " The Secret Weapon" by C. M. Stanbury in Radio-TV Experimenter magazine, which included a small low-res photo of its lovely blavk hulk. The idea was, you link RAX #1, the LF,  to your Halliscratcher etc. SWL grade receiver, as an outboard IF - audio. Dispensing with the rest of your SW rec. except for its front end. You could accomplish this easily by just wrapping a few turns around the rec. mixer tube out to the RAX antenna.
Some years after the article i actually wrote the author offering to buy the rec. but he replied he still loved it. His had a wooden carry handle added to the top. I wondered later if i would ever see this particular RAX show up on Ebay. When i had this author's qth i should actually have interviewed him about his career in DXing and his book. Then he was gone and now little remembered by other than a few fanatics like me.
BTW, if you like the looks of the RAX, BC-652 you will certainly appreciate the BC-652 prototype photo in that online early war directory of Signal Corps radios.
Also BTW, how does one type an opus like this on a phone ? You have to use a stylus. i have a Samsung Note phone, but with your regular phone one of those ballpoint pen / stylus-end thing lowers the error rate and makes the task do-able. You still wouldn't want to write your history book using the phone.
- Hue Miller



Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
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