Veering OT Re: [Premium-Rx] The price of our Premier receivers

Sun Jun 22 20:18:13 EDT 2008

As a young teenager, I lived in England from 1954-1957 when those AR88's, 
Hro's and others were still being used. My father was a teletype and crypto 
tech stationed at South Ruislip A.F.B. I used to go with him on weekends to 
Bletchley Park, Chicksands and Menwith Hill. The Hammarlund SP-600 were in 
large numbers also in racks lining the walls. I used to marvel at the young 
airmen talking, smoking cigarettes, and drinking coffee and all the while 
typing the coded messages. Even in the winter months those rooms were 
usually warm.

I have divested myself of most of the Boat Anchor variey of receivers except 
for a highly modified John R. Leary SP-600.

I would suspect what Michael said to be true in some respects and and John 
makes many valid points also. I suspect that it all depends on ones desires 
and whether or not nostalgia is setting in. I am in my mid 60's and have 
used most of the good ones and some I'd rather forget over the years. But, 
all in all it has been a helluva ride and experience.

Les Locklear
Gulfport, Ms.
DX'ing Since '57
http://www.hammarlund.info/

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Green" <greenjr at btinternet.com>
To: "Premium-Rx" <premium-rx at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 6:52 PM
Subject: Veering OT Re: [Premium-Rx] The price of our Premier receivers

>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael O'Beirne" <michaelob666 at ntlworld.com>
>
>>
>> Will the price of our prized radios go up or down?  Tough one - it all
>> depends on the maker, the condition, the rarity, the availability of 
>> spare
>> parts and the general economic situation.  One has also to view this 
>> issue
>> from a user or a collector's perspective.  There is no doubt that in a 
>> few
>> years (arguably already) the electrical performance of our "big boys'
> toys"
>> will be overtaken by amateur products - vide the Elecraft K3 - but I
>> personally much prefer a lumpy 19 inch box that cost a fortune to build.
>>
> !
>> 73s
>> Michael
>> G8MOB
>>
>
> Just to add one other factor to Michael's interesting list of factors 
> likely
> to determine the future price of Premium Receivers - demand.  Or to be 
> more
> exact, the number of collectors / users likely to be interested in these
> radios in the future, thereby creating the demand.
>
> <Historical ramble on>
>
> Certainly in the UK, the average age of the typical Premium Receiver
> collector must be into the 50s.  I fit that profile and most of the other 
> UK
> contributers to the list that I know fit it as well  (you know who you are
> :-)  ) .  In fact I'd say that the average age of attendees at the radio
> rallys in the UK must be at least in the 40s.  I haven't been to Dayton 
> for
> a few years but from what I remember the situation in the US looked to be
> similar.
>
> I first got interested in radio at an impressionable age at school  in the
> 1960s when there were shops around selling WW2-surplus radios like the RCA
> AR88D and lots of others.  Some of the radios Michael mentioned like the
> Racal RA17 etc used to appear in adverts in magazines like Wireless World 
> or
> in black and white pictures of places like the radio astronomy labs at
> Jodrell Bank.    The concept of actually owning one, given that they cost
> the equivalent of something like the average yearly wage at the time, 
> seemed
> like an impossible dream.  Even more exotic were pictures of NASA 
> facilities
> gearing up for Apollo - racks and racks of really neat looking stuff!
>
> The point I'm trying to make is that I think an interest in radio
> communications in general and in Premium receivers in particular is to a
> large extent a product of growing up in a particular era when these things
> were, firstly, associated with 'exciting' events like the space race and 
> the
> cold war and, secondly, were effectively unobtainable.  Now that we've all
> grown older and to some extent richer we can fill our house with the stuff
> that's out there - all the stuff in those black and white pictures and 
> what
> came after it.
>
> <Historical ramble off>
>
> This is a roundabout way of saying I'm just not sure that the interest in
> the Premium receivers we collect, discuss, tinker with and generally dream
> about is going to transfer in any significant way to another generation. 
> If
> that really is the case, prices are going to go down.
>
> Getting slightly more on-topic, I'd echo Michael's point about the
> performance of modern equipment that we wouldn't really regard as a 
> premium
> receiver.  The neatest single unit I own is the RFSpace SDR-14.  The
> spectrum display from this tiny box blows the socks off what comes out of
> most premium receivers.  OK, I know the performance of the SDR-14 as a
> receiver in terms of all the parameters that get discussed on the list may
> not be outstanding but looking at the spectrum display is fun!  There is a
> vast amount of strange stuff on HF that is just a beep or a tone if you
> stumble across it on a conventional receiver but it shows up as a chirp or 
> a
> sweeper or a hopper on the SDR-14 waterfall.
>
> Sure the SDR-14 box doesn't look nearly as cool as a rack full of Racals 
> or
> WJs or whatever but I suspect the next generation, to the extent that they
> are interested at all, will go for the SDRs in tiny boxes not the 19" rack
> stuff.
>
>
> Regards
>
> John Green
>
>
>
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