Batboard

So what do you guys think is the neatest, most unique, most unusual /\/\ rig out there?

For me, its my Motorola R-390A. Granted, they didn't design it and many companies built em, but the fact that its /\/\ and the best HF reciver ever made makes it neat.


Yeah, they are old with the newest ones being about 40 years old... but look at this quote by WA4HHG:
"Its very difficult to describe what is argueably the finest AM/CW receiver available to the hobbiest today. I have restored hundreds of these fine machines. Known for their outstanding sensitivity, the "champ" is currently a 1967 build EAC belonging to a chap in NW Virginia. Its sensitivity measured on calibrated HP 8640B signal generator was 0.05uv for 10db S/N + N on AM using the 4kc filter, modulated 30% per the factory manual on nearly every band. The runner up belongs to a friend in the San Diego area who turned in 0.06's. Noise floors run the ganut from -147 to -129 db again, using the 4 kc filter. Better results can be obtained with the remaining 3 narrower filters."

85 pounds, 27 tubes, a big dial, and it glows when you turn it on. Gotta love it. For many years the details of this radio were classified. The only civilian sales were done by EAC in 1968, when a factory new set brought $1,700.00..... whats that in todays $$$?

I actually have 2 Motorolas and a 67 EAC, I think when I dig the spare /\/\ out its gonna get sold to fund other projects.

Looks like an old Collins unit!

Frank

Designed by Collins and built by several military contractors. Mine is a Motorola serial number 2035 order number 363-PH-54 made in 1954.
A very awesome piece of electro-mechanical hardware costing the government around $25,000 cold war dollars each. Sorry not for sale

Chris N9LLO

Worked on a number of these over the years. Used them for RTTY at a number of millitary locations way back when.

Broke down and almost cryed back in 1970 when they destroyed several truck loads of them at Ft. Devens. Saw the trucks at the land fill just dump out a whole load of them still in the shipping boxes. The dozer operator was told to spread them out in a single layer and just run back and forth over the boxes until they were flat.

Not knowing what all the fuss was about or why all the MP troops were around the pile, I waited untill they all left. Went over and looked inside a box or two. Sat down and dried off my face. There must have been over a 100 boxes that contained new R-390 receivers.

Jim

Tax Dollars at work!!

Most unique or rare would have to go to the ht100
basically an ht200 in a half size case and 100 mw or so output in 450 band only. Have had a working pair in my hands once and sure would like to find another somewhere. Phrawg

I would have to say one of the multi-colored MT500's that show up on ebay occassionally..

Red Front Cover, Silver Frame, Yellow Spacer, and Grey back plate and battery cover. Comes complete with 8 Channels too!

Now that's unique!

Jake

the factory CLEAR XTS 3000 spotted at dayton in 1996.... along with the factory PINK LEXAN 800 Visar.... same show...

those two take the cake...

along with the jurassic park "tx light always on" Sabers....





doug

A special version of the HT-220, 100mw, built for the U.S. Secret Service, only seen them in VHF 160 band,repaired many of them. Wish I keept a few when they got rid of them, a strange rarity. Also even more rare was a HT-220 with Digital Voice Encryption, only seen 4 or 5 of them.

would be a 99ch lowband Maxtrac currently on 6M (plus a few cordless phone channels). Picked it up as surplus for $20.

How about anything that /\/\ built for the CHP back in the sixties and seventies, some of that stuff is unique.

litsnsirn wrote:How about anything that /\/\ built for the CHP back in the sixties and seventies, some of that stuff is unique.

Sure, like the PTT button on the Micor mic that also worked as a channel selector. Now THAT is neat.

I have two candidates that I remember from when I first started: 1969.

1) Tube/vibrator in a T41G-style case - VHF transmitte, Low band RX. Those in the know at the time suspected FBI or Secret Service.

2) VHF T-41G that had a transistor power supply for RX; when keyed, a vibrtator kicked in for the extra power for TX.

I would have to say the Motorola Envoy impresses me the most (the PDA, not the pager). Consider this, it's 1995, the internet is taking off, major corporations are looking to keep their sales associates and CEOs in touch via email around the clock and everywhere they go (major cities).

-The Motorola Envoy. A large PDA with a touch screen capable of keeping track of your contacts, appointments, 2-way IR data transfer, 800 Mhz wireless email and messaging services (including AOL), and daily news buletings. Talk about a feature loaded PDA, aside from the Apple Newton (1993/4 wireless fax capabilities), it was a major groundbreaking device. Unfortunately the glory days lasted about 2 years before AT&T and many of the other hardware/software backers pulled the plugs on their respective services. It was a good 5 years ahead of it's time and if re-released today it would probably fit right in (after upgrading the older processor and 1 or 2 megs of RAM). I think it's early demise was caused by AT&T dropping the personal-link services for the Envoy. It probably would have had a lot longer life if Coke-a-Cola had signed on and equipped all their delivery personel with Envoys (but they had too many broken touch screens during the product testing phase).



They can be found from time to time on eBay and there's sort of a following, kind of like the MT500 but not quite as many users.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... gory=27970

A few models were produced with the Envoy 150 being the most desirable. Check out the FAQ at:
http://www.claerbout.org/~josh/magiccap/faq/index.html