[Boatanchors] Converting Real Boatanchor Radios i.e. old marine band am rigs

[Drew P.]

Jay Coward wrote:

"Has anyone done this: convert a marine band radio to 80 m AM use? Seems simple as many of these tuned 2-5 mHz. Change crystals and tweak a few trimmer caps and retune the plate tank. Many of these have DC/DC power supplies built in so run off +12V power. Maybe add a key jack and a simple bfo? They generally use 12DK6 sweep tubes for output and the higher power ones just parallel more tubes and use dynamotor supplies.
Ideas welcome."

It has been done.  I used to hear W1UAX on 3885 running a "Sonar" marine radio, loud audio.  The whine of the radio's DC-DC converter was acoustically coupled into the audio via the microphone and could be heard with something of an echo from the room in which the radio was operated. This gave his signal some character.

Drew