[NJARC] Weird homebrew from tonight's NJARC auction

[john ruccolo]

Hi Folks,

I test fired that weird homebrew receiver that I got
at the auction tonight. Actually, it's a pretty basic
5-tube AA -- well, mostly AA -- 12BE6/BA6/AV6 plus
12A6 output and 5Y3 rectifer. It is exceptionally well
made, however. 

Here's where it gets really interesting -- at the
other end of the chassis is another miniature tube --
a 2D21 thyratron (kinda like a tube SCR). I thought
"hmmmm...." With that BIG red light and a threshold
control that fires the 2D21 (and the light) I can only
think of one thing: CONELRAD. 

For those of you who don't know, CONELRAD stands for
CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation, a Cold-War era
US Govt. thing. Those Civil Defense marks at 640 and
1240 on so many 1950's and early 60's radios were for
CONELRAD. The idea was that if the Russians decided to
drop some H-bombs on us, people would tune to one of
those two frequncies for news and information, and
maybe the latest Elvis record. Seriously, the idea was
that other stations would go off the air, so the
Russians couldn't use broadcast stations for homing in
on targets.

I don't remember the details, but I believe it was a
requirement during some part of the 1950's for Ham
radio operators to have a CONELRAD alarm. Basically, a
receiver that was tuned to 640 or 1240, and lit up a
warning light to alert the ham operator that something
was happening. In fact, Heathkit sold a CONELRAD alarm
kit (which is *very* rare today). I think this
receiver was built for that purpose.

It also has a signal tracer function. The guy got a
little carried away -- he's got two headphone jacks
wired in parallel (so more than one person could
listen in?), and he's got both 1/4-inch and RCA jacks
in parallel for audio input for the tracer. I think
one or the other would have sufficed. ;-)

Still, a very well-made and unusual homebrew.

Regards,

JR




       
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