In the middle 50s when I was in the 6th grade I bought a Gibson Girl at a local rag merchant surplus store in Eureka California for 5 dollars. No knowing it's exact purpose I and some of my fellow urchins
strapped it down to an old work bench in the garage, cranked the rascal and played with the knob and damned if the little lamp behind a plastic lens didn't start to blink. We were able to
receive the unit's transmission on the bottom of the BC band on a little AC/DC table radio and boy that was quite a surprize. we did open up the unit and in doing so we damaged a coil in the
unit but it did not stop it from transmitting. A local Flying A service station near the house played music all day and night on outside speakers and when we added a long wire antenna that ran
the length of our alley we were able to hear the thing on that station's speakers. Drove the owner, E.P. Ray, nuts.
While we never knew we were causing problems for the Coast Guard, the Skipper of the Youkona (spelling) did mention it to member's of my dad's carpenter's Union meeting and that the
clandestine SOS messages were driving them crazy. That we were always moving our little yellow toy around the neighborhood and even took it to school (Lincoln Grammar School) and found
out that you could burn your finger on the little pig tail wire inside the circular antenna storage compartment. We eventually grew tired of the thing and it was replaced by a Bud Phono Oscillator
which was a real hoot as what would be classified today as a Pirate AM station. It's amazing how far that little rascal with it's 117L7/M7 tube could transmit with a long wire the length of our alley.
Fortunately, Ham radio finally got our attention(s) and the CRT3 and the Bud Phono Oscillator ended up somewhere at the Lolita Dump.
Bob, KE6F