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

On Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 08:09:39 PM PDT, Tim <timsamm@gmail.com> wrote:

FWIW, the Gibson Girls (presumably the CRT-3 morph) was aboard P-3 Orions in the mid 1970's with the parachute pack.  We had one aboard my ship (Minesweeper) in 1986....Routine PM was done on it while I was aboard but I don't know to what extent ....

Tim

N6CC

On Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 3:31 PM Hubert Miller <Kargo_cult@msn.com> wrote:

>Okay, I'll scan that page and send it to you.  I do not know when they were removed from use, but I recall when I was stationed at Tinker AFB in 1974-1978 that a surplus store near the base had some for sale in a large soft sided container that was probably at least 2.5 ft square and looked to be designed to float.  Tinker AFB would have been the logical place for such surplus equipment to be excessed, since it is the depot for B-52 and KC-135.
Wayne

Wayne, the manual page says this radio was strapped to the wall of the plane near an emergency exit. I kinda don't get that. I thought they were always
somehow packed with the liferaft. I am thinking if it was indeed strapped to the wall, that might make exiting in a hurry somewhat iffy. What think ?
-Hue
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