[Hallicrafters] BFO's... other ways to get there

[TC Dailey]

On older AM/SW radios, I sometimes like to stick 'em on a known frequency,
just to listen to them... i.e. hearing HCJB Quito, Ecuador on a 1948 Philco
"Fiver", like I had when I was REALLY little... you know the IF is 455 kc
up, so I tune the IC-706 MKII/G or Kenwood TS-430S to what I know will be
the LO freq... zero it in, and joila'... there's the chirping bird on that
big round dial.  I've done the opposite like you guys, as well.

For an old receiver (such as the S-38B,C,D,E, etc...), where you can't get
the IF feedback (gimmick) "bfo" to work - TenTec kits offers a neat little
solid-state BFO kit for $9.95 (runs on 9vdc), that's rock stable.  NOTE - on
the front chassis of most of the S-38's, there's an extra hole, anyway....
left over from the original S-38 which had a tunable BFO.  Wish I'dve had
one on my S-38D, way back when.

My Heathkit AR-3 had a hole on the top, with a knob on top of a piece of
copper tubing pushed onto the BFO slug screw - Shazam!  a "rooftop"
adjustable BFO.

A little-known story from the daze of the 1965 Los Angleles riots - LAPD
found mimeographed copies of a sheet, showing how turn the L-O screw on the
back of those little variable-caps in transistor radios - the purpose?  LAPD
back then, still transmitted on 1.78 mHz (or thereabouts) for primary
dispatch, and the "bad guys" were listening to EVERYTHING that was going
out - that's when they moved to VHF and up.  I was a USN Radioman in San
Diego - and we listened to the whole thing for days, on an RBB receiver.

Tom - WAØEAJ