[Hallicrafters] Why I'm a Hallicrafters Guy

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

My very first receiver (besides the old Philco floor radio) was the
S-40B. Got it in a deal with an old blind musician who wanted a guitar
and amp I had traded my drumset for. Had that receiver for years, even
though I picked up a National RAO-7 a year or so afterwards. When I
graduated high school, I took it off to school with me where one of my
professors helped me go through it by testing all of the tubes and
completely realigning it. After getting back home Ernie, the old
guitar player, wondered if I'd sell it back to him so I did, for $35.
Many years later I passed by his place where they were having a yard
sale. Ernie had passed away, and there in the sale stuff was the
S-40B. Bought it back for $40. You'd think I would've kept it for life
after all this, but I sold it at Hosstraders in Rochester, NH in the
mid 90s to lighten the load. Shame on me!

Gary, I remember the airplane noise too, but in the 70s the big noise
was 'the woodpecker', their OTH radar system firing through Finland
that would walk up and down the bands. It went away sometime in the
mid/late 80s, probably along with the Soviet Union. It was a MAJOR
annoyance to us, particularly if you were a JN struggling to get his
code speed up.

Wonder if anyone kept recordings of these things?

de Todd/'Boomer'  KA1KAQ

On 4/30/05, Gary Pewitt <n9zsv at cei.net> wrote:
> Dave, the airplane engine sound was Soviet jamming.  When I was attending
> electronics school at Keesler AFB in the early '60's the morse intercept
> operator trainees had to copy 25 wpm through that very noise and it was
> quite difficult.  They had a number of nervous breakdowns.
> 73  Gary  de N9ZSV