[Hallicrafters] SX-28 competitors in the 1940's

[edben]

Hello, Gary and the rest.  You're hearing from an "old" WWII Liberty Ship
Radio Operator.  Darned if I know the model number of the beautiful Scott
steel-cased entertainment radio which was always located in the chart roomof
our Liberty Ships, along with the Radio Direction Finder.  Is that, by any
chance, the "SLR" that you're referring to?  The Scott was the only
entertainment radio allowed on board ship during the war.  With three
short-wave bands and broadcast, variable selectivity, sound the equal of
anything you could find in those days, it was a beautiful radio.  Our
shipboard power, of course, was 110 volts D.C., so the radio incorporated a
"vibrator" power supply to convert the D.C. to AC.  Those vibrators were
notoriously short-lived -- and until the Radio Operator "caught on", no
"spare" was supplied.  This operator became a hero by cutting open these
"non-repairables", fixing them, and keeping the officers and crew in touch
with the outside world.

I'll never forget, just one day out of Archangel's port of Molotoffsk, and
heading north of the arctic circle just a couple weeks after V-E Day (That
was the day the war ended in Europe), when broadcast stations from our East
Coast were coming through like locals!  We listened to U.S. Standard
Broadcast all that day, with East Coast Stations coming in first.  An hour
or so later, it was the Midwest, Detroit, Chicago, even "The Homefolks
Station" from some small town in Illinois!.  These were followed by the
Rocky Mountain States an hour later, and finally the West Coast!  You can't
possibly imagine how this all sounded to us, so far away from home for so
long.

I've never heard other reports of this sort of long distance Broadcast
reception.  It was apparent that the signals were "funneled" along the
"twilight" line between night and day.  We were approaching 24 hours of
daylight, in effect 24 hours of twilight to early morning type daylight at
that time.  The US signals all originated in the US area of sunrise
"twilight".

I've dreamed about finding one of those old Entertainment Radios sometime,
at a price I could afford.  Unfortunately, by now they've got to be way
beyond my price range!  And, truth is, we've got so many interesting old
radios, from table models, to consoles, and up to my "joy", an SX-42, that
we'd be hard put to find room for one if we did stumble on it!

Yours is the first mention I've heard of what might possibly be one of those
receivers.

Oh yes, on one liberty ship we did have a Scott-built Short Wave
Communications Receiver in the Radio Room.  This was headphones only, was
far from high fidelity, but was otherwise an excellent receiver for the
maritime bands in the short-wave spectrum.  Our main console had only a long
wave receiver covering from ten kilocycles up to around 800 kilocycles in
the broadcast band.  Yes, we actually received communications on those low,
low frequencies.  U.S. Naval broadcasts carried almost around the world at
those low wave-lengths.

Thanks for the excuse to "spout off" a bit!

                            Ed Benjamin, "The old WWII Liberty Ship Radio
Operator"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Pewitt" <gpewitt at execpc.com>
To: "Barry Hauser" <barry_hauser at juno.com>; <gpewitt at execpc.com>
Cc: <tlogan7 at cox.net>; <hallicrafters at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 7:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Hallicrafters] SX-28 competitors in the 1940's


  I have 3 or 4 of the Scott SLR's and an RBO also made by Scott
> for the same use.
> Shortly after the war Scott was selling SLRM's to the public.  I've seen
> the ads. >


> >Gary Pewitt wrote :
>  >
>   I had also mentioned the E.H. Scotts, like the SLR and the RCH.
> >I'm not sure which of these may have been sold non-military as they were
> >designed for low radiation -- back through the antenna and otherwise.
> >Someone recently told me that conventional receivers could radiate their
> >local oscillator signals and probably mixer byproducts as far as 200
> >miles over the ocean.  Not too swell if you're trying to get your convoy
> >past the wolf packs.
> >