[Milsurplus] Silversides SS-236 Radio Room

[Hubert Miller]

I have not ever seen an RBS with non-engraved letter knobs. I have owned probably 6 of the receivers

of various kinds. I kept about 5 of the RBM - MF and I broke down and bought another HF one at the

last hamfest, that would be 2019. I really admire the construction, but the most usable one is actually

the MF one, as it has good frequency indication and good selectivity. The thing that really sold me on

this last RBM was the seller included his A++ construction HB speaker - power supply. I figured that alone

was worth the modest price.



I am thinking what you mean "freq window" must be the logging chart to the right side of the dial escucheon.

The left receiver looks like it has the "roll chart" of the early production. There was a knob on the side and the

"logging" chart is actually a continuous scroll of paper between two rollers. Well, that's one way to increase  data

capacity. The receiver on right has what looks to me like the standard logging chart, where it opens up and you can

add, move, or remove "pages", each a card about 2.5 inches square.



I do not have all the series manuals for the RBS, only a late one, so I can't say for certain there were RBS with non-

engraved knobs, but I "assumed" that was standard and I'll continue to believe so until I see differently. The

catalog page http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/ecat/cat-0956.htm shows RBS with "engraved letter" knobs and I am

thinking this catalog page lends credence to my statement.

The RBMs had both styles of logging chart, the roll chart or the cards, the RBS never had a roller chart as far as I

know. Around 1980 a friend and I harvested a bunch of both receivers from a firm at the east end of Lake Union,

Seattle, when that area was still a grungy oily industrial park. Now there's an attractive and popular park there,

"Gasworks Park", and some old chemical plant ironware and plumbing has been left as a kind of postindustrial

art. The firm converted some kind of WWII era Navy ships to seagoing fish processing plants for the Alaska business.

I recall there was at least one dark and mysterious ship parked there for years that didn't seem to be making any

progress. Oh yeah, now I recall, we went there after I heard a rumor that there were stacks of TCS there. Like one

of those "Spanish Gold" stories. I don't know if there were any TCS there at all, but there were stacks of RBS, RBM,

RAL and RAK and God knows what else. What kind of bugs me now is what the "what else" was, stuff we didn't take

because we had reached our load limit. Later my friend connected the RBS to the big power supply - amp and plugged

it in and it instantly played, and perfectly, despite being parked for so many  years.

-Hue Miller





>From: howard holden

Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2021 10:49 PM

To: Hubert Miller

Subject: RE: [Milsurplus] Silversides SS-236 Radio Room



Not all RBS are created equal. We had two aboard the Ling, both part of the original records, and neither had engraved knobs. Also look at the freq window on the one on the right. Compare with the RBM and RBS on Nick England's site. Different windows on the two. Maybe one was swapped out at some point.



Howie


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/milsurplus/attachments/20210218/95f0fb43/attachment.html>