[Milsurplus] Milsurplus Digest, Vol 80, Issue 9

[Hue Miller]

> 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.

It probably worked in the short run but I wonder if rust would set in, 
inside the radio, with deleterious results before long.

>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.

Don't believe the scuttlebut. Germany copied the HRO  before US-Germany 
hostilities without capturing it, except to maybe capture
an example or two, for cash, from a NYC radio seller. Fritz Trenkle's book 
be my witness, German replicated them while buying the
National dial mechanism via a neutral country, Portugal.
( BTW, one of the German HRO's, the Koerting "KST" has 3 coils with 
different bandspread ranges, and the manual states that it
was intended for teleprinter use for the Propaganda ministry.... ) So I can 
imagine for example, the local offices of some German
occupation newspaper in an Eastern Europe city had couple of these connected 
to Hellschreiber teleprinters, busily cranking
out the official devious twist on reality, for their local printing....
It's interesting the number of HRO "copies" or "inspired by's".  2 German 
versions, 2 Japanese versions, Canada, UK, Australia,
New Zealand ( I think?? ), and the postwar DDR Germany one also. Oh yes, and 
a "Northern Radio S-20" labeled HRO Jr. I have,
that came from the Alaska fishing industry.

> 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

I wager no one will bid on it. The shipping price is more than people would 
hazard on it locally. I suspect the inside needs a bit of attention, too,
not just bead blasting. Actually, when I first saw the photo, I was 
thinking, "Now here's a photo from National Geographic", must be from the
same National Geo article "From Davy Jone's Locker" that I saw the photo of 
the sunken ship's loop antenna with multicolored fish swimming
thru it. ( The photocopy I took to Hawaii, thinking to commission an artist 
there whom I had met, to paint a version of the photo....)
I think the RAS was the first, maybe, "war surplus" radio I ever saw. A high 
school friend had the same complete setup in his garage...I think he
said his father had gotten it from MARS (USN program). It didn't work, or he 
didn't know how to work it, but it positively impressed me....
large and pre-historic looking and very, very authentic.  I wonder what ever 
happened to that radio....I hope it survived, truly.

BTW, Mike M.: don't talk about the ideal 1937 aircraft setup, please, this 
kind of talk will only make it harder for me to dispose of those
particular items.  ( BTW, have you ever seen the connector on the front of 
the BC-310? It's insane! I'm sure no examples exist on the
planet! Large, and very unusual pattern of pins, and a great number of 
hem.  -Hue