[Hammarlund] Bias supply zorching the audio driver transformer

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 2:55 PM, Kenneth G. Gordon <kgordon2006 at frontier.com
> wrote:

>
> The entire audio section was hacked out, leaving a 1/4" lip around the
> space
> on which a piece of aluminum was placed and on which was then mounted
> an internal power supply and a really wimpy single-6AQ5 audio stage.
>
> There were other, much more "destructive" mods included in that article,
> along with one possibly valuable or useful one.
>
> I cannot understand the thinking in that article.
>

By today's standards, it certainly makes no sense, Ken. It took me a while
to figure out a sensible explanation beyond the simple 'It's mine, I can do
what I want with it' issue which is fine. My epiphany came about after
reading endless rants about military surplus gear being hacked up by a
'bunch of nitwit ham hackers' or such.

Today we're a bit spoiled, for lack of a better description, by the
availability of old radio gear. As well, disposable income levels are much
higher than decades ago, even in the current political mess. Not so in the
50s-60s when much of this old gear wasn't state-of-the-art, but still
fairly current and in wide use. Buying a Super Pro back in the day, even
surplus, had to cost a whole lot more than today, comparatively-speaking.
For a new Novice or General upgrade with maybe a paper route, lawn mowing
jobs or similar, or a father with a family to feed, it took a while to save
up the needed funds. Rather than cheap examples by the dozen laying around
multiple hamfests, you had to seek them out through magazine ads, other
amateurs in your area, surplus stores, whatever worked.

Once you got a nice rig, you kept it for a while. This no doubt meant
'updating' to improve performance: adding product detectors, better/quieter
tubes, all of what we see in modified examples. You didn't just go snap up
a newer radio for a few bucks.

Though I wasn't around in the 50s, I'd guess the attraction of making a
big, kludgey receiver with a separate supply into something using new
miniature tubes that allowed mounting a power supply on the chassis, and
changing the P-P audio to a single-ended 6AQ5 (who cared about fidelity on
the ham bands?) was attractive to many hams. Sort of like making your old,
obsolete set into a newer, sportier model.

Some are still in that mindset, wanting to make any change they can to
'improve' the radio into something it was never designed to be. More power
to 'em, so long as it's something you enjoy and don't feel obligated to do.
My approach is just to enjoy the technology as intended. If it lacks some
feature or noise figure or whatever else that I deem important for my
needs, I'll go find something else that provides it. We have that luxury
with cheap tube gear readily available. From all I've seen and read, that
wasn't the case back in the day. Even "cheap surplus" isn't as cheap as it
seems when adjusted for inflation.

Of course, folks like you and Carl got to see this all first hand, Ken. It
must've been something to behold!

~ Todd/KAQ