[Boatanchors] Central Electronics 100V ?

Jim DiMauro jfd at warwick.net
Fri Jul 16 23:26:55 EDT 2004


Eugene:

I've had my 100V for about a year and a half.  It's a wonderful radio.  It's
built like a tank and gives you the best of both worlds: it glows in the
dark like classic boatanchor, but you don't have to tune it.  I use it
weekly for nets on SSB.

Good: broadband design, quality construction and materials, easy to operate,
all mode, variable output power, excellent tx audio, very stable VFO
(subjective assessment of stability, by ear on SSB; I don't have the
stability spex handy, so I don't know how it would do on RTTY), very pretty,
and if it matters to you, you'll probably be the first on your block to have
one.

Bad: this is a very complicated radio that's not very "service friendly"
IMO.  Unless you have lots of time, patience and service experience, I'd
advise you to get one that's been restored or that's otherwise in proper
working order.  There aren't many of these around, and there's not a lot of
service information out there.  Unlike Drake, Collins and other makes, there
isn't an abundance of service mentors, and there are no technical nets and
the like to get you through the tough problems.  You can get some good
information from Nick Tusa's website:
http://www.tusaconsulting.com/ce.htm#info.

Indifferent: it's bigger and heavier than you'd expect for a radio of it's
vintage, but that's one of the tradeoffs of building a broadband transmitter
in the 1950s.  Also, nothing transceives with it, so it's not very
convenient to use if you're going to answer a CQ.  The spotting function for
SSB is very clever, so it can make the process a bit easier.

A good one can be expensive, but definitely a keeper.  If you're looking for
a unique, historically significant radio that you can also make good use of,
then the 100V could be a good choice.  If you just want a boatanchor for
RTTY and the rest of the stuff isn't important to you, then you could
probably do better elsewhere, at least with regard to price and ease of
acquisition and service.

BTW, there's a Central Electronics e-mail reflector at qth.net:
http://mailman.qth.net/.  You might poke around there for more information.

Jim
WA2MER

-----Original Message-----
From: boatanchors-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:boatanchors-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Eugene Hertz
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 9:38 PMt
To: boatanchors at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Boatanchors] Central Electronics 100V ?


any one have experience with this transmitter, good, bad or indifferent?
My interest is in rtty primarily...is this stable enough after a warm up?

Anyone use this as their regular boatanchor Tx? Thoughts? Memories?
Eugene


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