Batboard

The resurrected thread about new stuff made me think, how much old, bulletproof Motorola stuff is out there and still working?

My Low band Motrac is still working. Just use it on 6m FM. Vibrasender and vibrasponder reeds still work for PL. Hot receiver with 0.08 uv SINAD. Passive front end gives great IM rejection. Paid $20 at auction in 1980 for it, and replaced the PNP germanium first LO and first mixer with silicon devices. The two pairs of crystals from LNX cost $20. It came out of a transit bus. Had to clean the cigarette butts out of the heat sink. Re-tubes the exciter, and voilà!

Got newer stuff, but got to love the older radios. They have their own charm, no software hassles, and they even have that charming smell when the tubes heat up. That's when we made radios in the good old USA that were made to last!

New is good, but old can be impressive in it's own right too! Got any other antique Motorola stuff out there still heating up the ether?

-PL

I have a low band twin-V (t41ggv) still hooked up on my bench and a realistic TRC-X23 (courier 23) CB that I bought new in 1967 I fire up once a week. Love tubes. Don

Ah yes the realistic TRC-X23 (courier 23) CB, fine tube radio. That was the rig that I was using as an exciter when the FCC made a visit to my home back in the early '70's and "informed" me that I was operating on an illegal frequency (22A) that blank spot on the dial between ch. 22 and 23. Of course I had other tube devices running (amp) that they were more interested in.

Among the Motracs, Motrans, etc... I also had a UHF T41GGV fully duplexed which was thing of beauty on the repeater.

well i have 2 sp50 in uhf. and 2 in vhf. and a ge mpa uhf

My favorite crystal radio is my GE PE low band handheld on 6 meters with the PSLM, Priority Search Lock Monitor, GE's version of priority scan.

I still use it to work DX on 52.525 and some of the California, AZ and oregon/wash repeaters every E season.

Also a pair of MT500's on 10 and 6 FM.

A pair of MT1000's on 6 meters and 10 meters.

And of course my hamflashed GE MPA's on 2meter, 220MHz, 440 and 900 MHz.

I have but didn't install this go around in my new Charger a VHF Motran SP for FDNY monitoring (installed it attached to a NYPD SP Micor control head). I still also have a dual front end version for monitoring both input and output of the repeaters (or mixer off as it was called )

I have a customer still using Mostars for dispatching their tow trucks.

As a conversation piece, I'll carry my H33FFN3170E (VHF HT220 PL 4-freq Omni) to "do-nets" once in awhile.
It brings back a lot of memories to most of us QCWA folks as does my collection of RPT Magazine and the
Spectronics catalogs.

have an old mitrek oin 52.525 in the barn i may put it up as a remote base

the old trusty mt-1000

Use a Micor daily at work. . . . 330W on 33.70 MHz. . . . There is no band like low band & You have to be heard before you can establish communications!

talviar wrote:Use a Micor daily at work. . . . 330W on 33.70 MHz. . . . There is no band like low band & You have to be heard before you can establish communications!

Roger that.
Back in the day when most of the State of Nebraska was on low band, we used to say
"One-hundred watts at one-hundred feet equals one-hundred miles."

Of course my 330W is a base at the tower site vs on belt or in trunk. . . .
Sitting at 200' on the tower on top of the mountain here in Western PA. . . .
KGF301 Fayette County Fire Control. . . . .
Can definately tell when low band picks up . . . . First sign is the distant station in Upper New York state that we get at about 200+ miles away. . . .