[Hallicrafters] History

[Troglodite at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/20/2006 8:10:04 AM Central Standard Time,  
jbrannig at optonline.net writes:


> Barry was a ham and quite a character.  Barry's was a busy place,  the 
> showroom was small and at the top of a l o n g flight of  stairs.  The best 
> time to visit Barry's was off hours.  If  you called Barry and made 
> arraignments you could visit at almost any  time.  We would go at night and 
> after you told Barry what you  needed he would say "follow me, and lets see 
> if we can find it", then  you would enter "ham heaven", the warehouse with 
> rows and rows of  parts, tubes, radios, test equipment....if it was not 
there 
> it did not  exist.
 
All this discussion has me remembering similar experiences in the Los  
Angeles area. Perhaps the most vivid would be the visits to "Surplus Sam's" in  
downtown LA. My first visit was right after I had passed the tests for the  Novice 
and Technician license, but not yet received either license in the mail.  I 
was 14 years old. I went down to Sam's in search of an ARC-5 receiver -  
7-9MHz. I was there early, having taken the bus, and nearly ran into Sam the Man  
himself. He wasn't tall, but was BIG, and always had a smelly stogie  glued to 
his lip. Timidly I asked, "Do you have any 40 meter ARC-5's?" He  gave me a 
stare somewhere between sympathy and tolerance, flicked some ashes on  my shoe 
and said, "Follow me sonny." I followed him down a dark corridor, unsure  of 
what my ultimate fate might be. He pointed to an upper shelf and said, "Those  
are brand new, in sealed boxes. They are $10.00 each." Pointing a little lower  
he said, "These were removed from service, have all the parts, but are  
untested. Your choice for $5.00 each." Then he beconed for me to follow him  again, 
and took me outside, where there were piles of surplus electronics  exposed to 
the weather. He pointed, "Those are just as you see them, your choice  for 
$2.00." Then he added, "If you are going to rummage through the pile, all I  ask 
is that you don't scatter radios all over the yard. When you leave it should  
look like it does now."
 
I felt in my pocket for the $10 I had stashed there. I did some quick  
figuring. I was going to need four bits to get back home on the bus, so that  left 
out the new, in the box radio. I was going to have to buy parts for a power  
supply, so I might be too close even with the $5 radio. So, I started rummaging  
through the "pile" trying to find a 7-9MHZ radio that had all it's parts and  
hadn't been rained on too much. I finally made my choice, straightened things 
 out, paid my money and went home with my prize. Sam even gave me a tuning 
knob  as a prize, "for being neat."
 
Using that radio, a homebrew power supply which ran it and a single 6V6  
transmitter, I worked 27 states on 40m CW before getting my General.
 
Thanks for reminding me what fun it was in those days.
 
Doug Moore KB9TMY (Formerly K6HWY)