[MRCA] Fw: Dayton 2012 51mc FM Cold War & 3885mc AM Old Military Radio Nets.

[Dennis]

On 5/22/2012 5:01 PM, Dennis wrote:
>> Again this year it looks like Bob W9RAN should get the prize for most oddball radio. This year he had a Sonar marine portable/emergency transceiver dating from the 50's. It looked & worked great.
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>Thanks Dennis for the nice comments.   You're right, I do enjoy the opportunity to actually use one of the low-power AM radios and it's always fun to try to get something going in time for the Dayton 3885 Net.      The model M4W Sonarfone was sold for commercial service but I thought it would be cool to bring, as it's portable and AM and hey, the bag is green at least!
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>I've put some pics and a few comments up for those who'd care to take a look:  http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v652/ranickel/Sonarfone/
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>Probably the most unique feature of the Sonarfone is that it operates from a single 2 volt lead-acid cell.   The 2 volt vibrator took right off and makes about 150 volts B+.  I had to scramble a bit after discovering the new Willard cell a ham buddy sent me worked great but was too tall to fit inside the enclosure.   So I'm using a Hawker-Gates SLA which is rated at 8AH, or about 1/3 what the Willard cell would have produced, but went with  two cells, so I'd have a back-up.    Since it has a 455 kc IF, a crystal I purchased for another boat radio worked in the receiver, as it did in the Spilsbury.
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>Sonar also made a model M35W which looked identical but ran 35 watts and used a 6 volt battery and vibrator.  I've never seen either one before I found this one.
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>My only problem was that Joe's command set was so loud I had to play manual AVC controller in order to hear the weaker portables!    I'd sure be interested in hearing from anyone who has one, or any kind of docs or schematic (yeah, I'm a dreamer!)
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>73, Bob W9RAN
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