Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011 — My self-imposed prohibition on buying more “stuff” on eBay was going well, but then … well, you can guess what happened.
Actually, my eBay’ing hasn’t been just about keys or ham gear; with my daughter leaving this week for college, I picked up a few things for her. And of course, I stumbled across a couple of things I couldn’t live without.
I have a soft spot in my heart (and my head, according to my wife) for anything Hallicrafters. And as you might expect, I found something Hallicrafters truly unique — a Hallicrafters speaker shown at right.
This speaker isn’t a typical shortwave/ham radio speaker; in fact, I’ve never seen one on eBay before. The seller hypothesized that perhaps it was used for a paging system. It has a heavy-duty 5-inch Jensen PM speaker. The metal cabinet has rubber feet as well as mounting holes to hang it up on a wall, and carries the trademark Hallicrafters “h” that was found on its speaker cabinets of the 1930s through the mid 1950s.
I really liked it because of its size — it isn’t has huge as the majority of Hallicrafters radio speakers of the same era. In my shack I don’t have room for speaker cabinets that are a foot square or larger. This speaker needs some paint, but I’ll take care of that. Wonder how my Yaesu FT-2000 will sound with it??
OTHER EBAY STUFF. I ran across an item a couple of weeks back that I wanted to buy, but others wanted it worse than I did — a “Universal Boat Anchor Power Supply.” This power supply was designed by a ham who enjoys boat anchor rigs, and he had found — as I have — that finding a suitable supply for boat anchor/homebrew/non-namebrand transmitters is nearly impossible. A very resourceful ham put together a supply using commonly available parts and has the schematic online.
One of the interesting things he did was find an alternative source for a power transformer. Transformers for power supplies have become increasingly expensive; even finding a used one can be fairly expensive on eBay. This ham (a guy who knows his electronics) used what is commonly referred to as a “control transformer” … it won’t provide enough power to give you full power on your Johnson Desktop kilowatt, but on most vintage transmitters in the 10-100 watt range, the supply is sufficient.
I have several transmitters for which this supply would be ideal; I have a “slat board” Novice transmitter here in the shack; I have a couple of transmitters of various namebrands that need power as well. I have not pursued some of the old mobile transmitters of the 50s and 60s simply because of the power supply issue — and this supply would be perfect for powering a Gonset transmitter. It will take a while to acquire the parts for the supply, but I’ve already acquired the transformer, rectifiers and have leads on most of the other parts. Finding a suitable cabinet will take a little time unless I homebrew one. One idea I had was to use an old Heathkit SP-600 speaker for a PS cabinet; Heathkit made good use of them! Condition is unimportant .. .maybe I can find one in rough shape, perhaps? I’m going to a big hamfest in Ohio next month, so I’ll have my list in hand.
FLOTSAM & JETSAM. I also recently picked up (yet another) Les Logan Speed-X 500 t-bar bug for a dirt-cheap price. The key is in excellent original condition and is complete in every way; the base needs refinishing. If I don’t wish to refinish the base, I have a couple of these bases available in near mint condition that I could use. I have two of these Les Logan bugs on my operating table as it is, along with a late-model Vibroplex Original. I enjoy the Les Logan bugs, but I find that I miss the finger knob when I move from a Vibroplex to the Speed-X (the Speed-X keys are double paddle and have no knob). The Speed-X bugs generally will operate a slower speeds than most Vibroplex bugs.
EBAY MUSINGS. There has been a very real glut of Vibroplex and other brand bugs for sale on eBay in the last couple of months. I have seen several first-year-of-production Vibroplex keys listed — more than I think I’ve seen in the last 5 years. It really is a buyers market; if you watch the auctions closely, you can walk away with a classic Vibroplex key for $40-60. I saw a 1940s Lightning Bug — with Vibroplex carrying case — sell for $41 recently — quite a steal considering the carrying case can bring that much alone.
As with anything, the prices depend on demand, and with numerous keys available, sellers have their pick. There are sellers liquidating estates and key collections, and while they aren’t listing them all in one fell swoop, the fact that so many keys are available has an impact on prices. NOT that I’m complaining — I picked up that Speed-X for next to nothing, and I also recently snagged a NorCal QRP club K8FF iambic key — the predecessor of the Vibroplex Code Warrior Jr. The kit key doesn’t come around much, and once its initial run was done, Vibroplex snapped up the rights to the key. More later on that one.
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