[Hallicrafters] Devoted to Restoring or OP Only- Who's Right?

[WA1KBQ at aol.com]

Being devoted to OP only is great but is is the  only way to enjoy the old 
radio hobby? No offense intended toward those who take  a dim view toward 
the restorers among us but as an OP only why not just get a  modern solid 
state rig (a good one) and get rid of all the nuisance antiques? It  will work 
far better than anything you currently use and you won't have to be  fixing 
BA's all the time or looking all over for parts. Many "restorers" pursue  
restoration for the thrill of the chase after deciding to try to find something 
 fairly rare and then for the sense of accomplishment in applying their 
talents  and craftsmanship to see if they can be successful in making something 
nice out  of it. If it does move to a shelf eventually it may be after the 
"restorer" has  finished tinkering with it and enjoyed using it on the air 
for a sufficient  amount of time and is ready to move on to something else. 
Additionally many  "restorers" are also interested in the history of the 
company that made the item  so usually data is collected on the piece as well, 
(books, manuals and  advertising) and the total experience results in 
experience and historical  knowledge gained and practical skills honed. The sense 
of personal  accomplishment will be something folks who have never been 
through it to stay  with a job to successful completion could ever possibly 
understand. A problem in  the old radio hobby is there is no governing body to 
oversee and apply  guidelines to restoration and give it a description so 
consequently all work is  left up to the opinion of the individual of what that 
is. Maybe one standard  could be when an item is examined by an experienced 
trained outside observer he  has to ask if the item is original or has it 
been restored, the answer not being  readily apparent upon his inspection. 

I have a Hallicrafters S-2 here,  one of only two known to exist. It's an 
inexpensive bandswitched TRF but it was  Hallicrafters first communications 
receiver. It's completely original in every  way and not in bad shape. All 
the components have original manufacturer names  and date codes so it's an 
accurate historical record of Bill Halligan's first  receiver. I measured power 
supply components to determine if safe for power then  slowly applied power 
to see what we had. It exhibited a loud hum indicating it  would be an easy 
restoration but what would be lost historically if I did that  just so I 
could hear it work? You would know by looking at the schematic it  wouldn't be 
much, possibly an Ocean Hopper would outperform it. The receiver is  
waiting until I decide how to proceed with it.


I usually work on a  group of four projects at any given time in order to 
stay busy and productive.  They all start and stop and it seems you are 
always temporarily held up on one  of them for something, parts, re-plating, 
outside refinishing or whatever so you  have to bounce around a lot among them. 
One of the current jobs is a complete  1932 National AGS-X airport ground 
station. I had a screw company remake the  black #8 Type "B" sheetmetal screws 
and the black #10-32 slotted truss head rack  mounting screws and I have a 
wire company reproducing the original brown cloth  covered rubber insulated 
power supply cables. Other projects going on now  include the Hallicrafters 
HT-9 mentioned earlier and a National NC-400 I  recently picked up in South 
Bend Indiana. Also am getting ready to start on  another SX-88 project. I 
will probably focus on restoring right now while I am  still able enough to do 
it and perhaps turn into more of a user after I retire  when maybe all the 
work will have been done and all that is left is to just  relax and enjoy. 
That's the plan anyway, we'll see if it actually works out that  way I guess.

73, Greg