[Hallicrafters] Meanwhile, back at the radio

[TC Dailey]

Okay... it's not a Hallicrafters, but in the early 50's, Faust Gonsett (yep, that's how HE spelled it) made some nifty HF, 2m, & 6m (and later on, FM) converters.  Up until the FCC said so (I think in '53), you could NOT run mobile HF under 28 mcs... so it being suddenly legal, and nobody having the money to buy a mobile receiver (and it was sorta' tough to install that S-22R under the dash), Faust produced these converters to fill the gap.  I've had about 5 of 'em (the Super 12 being the best), but I just resurrected a 75m ONLY version, which I'm sure was one of his first.  Using (2) 6AK6's, (1) 6C4, & an OB2, it's output to your "Plymouth powered IF strip" was between 1370 kc and 1390 kc - typically right in the middle at 1380.  I got this little beggar running again, and it provided splendid copy into an All-American Five on a couple of AM nets, and feeding it into a Rat Shack DX-440 (it's got a BFO), it produced very reasonable SSB to the point that I had to turn the RF gain down to almost nil.  The real marker for how old it is, was on the crimped steel band, around the output cable stub... it read G-O-N-S-E-T-T.  Faust later changed the name to GONSET, as he figured folks would remember it easier - we did.

Tom Dailey
WØEAJ