[Milsurplus] RAS Set-Up Drowned

[Ray Fantini]

I had a RAS for several years now and when I bought it the radio only had the plates on the coils. By spending lots of money and wasting lots of time on EBay I now have all the plates except for the rack and that big plate that's on the front of the coil box. I would pay $100 for that radio just to get the complete set of matching plates but with the $96 for shipping and radio being $50 and have the feeling it will sell for more just don't need the complete set of plates that bad. The RAS is a terrible radio, almost impossible to determine what frequency you're on, with the low IF frequency of 175 kHz images of strong signals are common and unless you have the noise limiter kit your ears will bleed from static crashes. It's a difficult radio to use and is still my favorite WW2 receiver. I once saw a complete matching set of plates for a RAS sell on EBay that were mounted on a wooden plaque and were supposed to be removed from CV-5 Yorktown that sold for around $400  Have to wonder about the legitimacy of the plates being that CV-5 was sunk at the battle of Midway in 1942 although there is a display case of items that were removed from CV-5 at Patriots Point in CV-10, there was an attempt to salvage the Yorktown but a Japanese I boat put an end to that. The other items of RAS or HRO lore that I find interesting is that in almost every issue of QST during the war years they had a add for National radio on the last page and the tag line in that add was "three out of every four navy ships use  a National radio".  In a 42 or 43 issue of QST There was a National Add referring to a liberty ship that ran aground on the great barrier reef and the HRO onboard had been repeatedly exposed to salt water and diesel fuel before being salvaged and the only damage was loss of paint on the front panel but other than that after being flushed with clean water the receiver worked. Also recall something about the HRO series receiver being captured by Germany and the Nazis being so impressed they produced their own copies, the pictures I saw of it looked more like the HRO/MX then a RAS.  Maybe that's the reason I always wanted a HRO/RAS, that along with back in the late seventies at the old Gaithersburg hamfest I thought about buying a RAS that was almost complete for $100 or so but thought what would I do with a old pile of junk like that, so like most of us twenty and thirty years later decided I had to have one and spent way more money and lots of time getting that receiver.
Ray Fantini KA3EKH



-----Original Message-----
From: milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Bruce Gentry
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 7:57 AM
To: Milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] RAS Set-Up Drowned

Bruce Gentry wrote:
> David Stinson wrote:
>> What a shame.  Looks like it sat in water up to the coil rack
>> in someone's wet basement.
>>
>> http://cgi.ebay.com/160515793866
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>>   
> Mine looks just about as bad, but not from water damage. I need all 
> the builder's plates for it, if anyone has them. It seems that so many 
> post-war buyers wanted to conceal the military heritage of  equipment, 
> and one of the first steps was to remove all the builder's plates and 
> paint it the weirdest colors.  Bruce Gentry KA2IVY
>

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