[Hallicrafters] sx-28 price

[Roy Morgan]

At 02:38 PM 1/31/2006, you wrote:
>This is an interesting thread, and I wonder why the SX-28 is so attractive
>to people. Is it a good radio?

Julian,

Not especially by more recent standards. It was designed in the late 30's 
or very early 40's (I assume, without having any real facts) and used the 
"technology" of the time.  One "improvement" I've heard of is to substitute 
a better mixer tube for the original one to get it to run better on the 
higher frequencies.

BUT:

>...Perhaps it is the classic look that attracts?

Absolutely. There are very, very few other radios that have that classic 
look (and weight!). By comparison, the R-390's are boring, the EK-07 is 
strange looking, the 51S-1 is simplistic, the 51J's and the 75A-4 are 
business like, and almost all the more recent Hammarlunds and Hallicrafters 
radios are.... well, .. just plain GRAY.

Here is the reason I changed from not really being interested in the SX-28 
to wanting one for sure:

One day I bought a QST for the month I was born: October '44. There was an 
article about the FCC radio communication and direction finding stations 
around the US and another article about military stations in the arctic 
regions used to guide our airplanes to and from Europe and over to the Far 
East during the war.  The first one showed the Adcock arrays for DF and the 
operating stations with a number of SX-28's in use.  That did it.. I got 
the need to have one.. Soo, eventually I found two of them, one an A, and 
one the earlier version.

The two related articles of interest in the October 1944 issue of QST are:

"Hams in the RID
The FCC's Radio Intelligence Division in Action"
by Oliver Reaad, W9ETI
QST, October 1944, Pages 18-23

This story is about the Great Lakes Monitoring Station near Allegan 
Michigan. It shows Adcock antennas for direction finding, monitoring 
stations, and a number of SX-28's in use.

and:

"Hams In Combat
The Great Spiderweb"
by PVT H. D. Colson and S/SGT Robert C. Fleischman, W8TOZ
QST, October, 1944, Pages 44-46, 90 and 92

This story is about the AACS, Army Airways communications Service. It does 
not mention the SX-28 by name but it's reasonable to assume that the AACS 
stations used lots of them.  It tells a story about one of the stations in 
the Arctic hearing an SOS from a downed flight of four B-17's which outran 
a pack of enemy fighters but had to ditch on the ice pack north of the 
North Atlantic.  A dog team rescue mission was launched and rescued all the 
personnel, but the B-17's are still up there in the ice.

My guess is that both Boeing and Hallicrafters were running three shifts a 
day to make the needed equipment.


I find the rear cover ad by RCA interesting.  It announces "3 New RCA 
Miniatures" with summary information and prices:

6AQ5    $1.50
6AL5        .75
6J4         8.35

What made the 6J4 so expensive, I can only guess.

Roy


- Roy Morgan, K1LKY since 1959 - Keep 'em Glowing!
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