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HAM
RADIO
What is it? Ham
Radio is just another name for amateur radio. Ham Radio had its
start from the very beginning of radio in the mid-teens of the
1900's. It was only natural that if you heard someone on radio
that you might want to try to talk with them. So the
"experimenter, curiosity and inquisitiveness" in people
started building transmitters to enable two-way communication between
people with distance between them. At first it was only meters,
then miles, then hundreds of miles, then thousands and after a couple of
decades it was around the world communication. One of the leaders
in design was Arthur Collins who founded Collins Radio. Collins
Radio is in most Ham Radio operators mind's, the pinnacle of
manufacturers, the best of the best.
This section of our web-site is dedicated to HAM RADIO
and since I am somewhat nuts about COLLINS RADIO equipment, it only
follows that I would post some pictures of some real beautiful Collins
station equipment. None of this is for sale as it doesn't belong
to me but feast your eyes upon these beauties ! So here goes our start on
a Ham Radio Virtual Museum. . . . .
From Top Left to Right - we'll
try to identify this wonderful equipment . . .
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312A-1 Speaker/Light |
Bird Wattmeter |
270G-1 Speaker |
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312B-1 Exciter |
75A-4 Receiver |
32V-3 Transmitter |
75A-1 Receiver |
75A-3 Receiver |
51J-4 Communications Receiver |
75A-4 Receiver |
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Astatic Mike |
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Astatic Mike |
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From top left on down (30S-1
linear on left) - we're guessing on some of this . . .
(Photo courtesy of W1GZS)
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302C-3 W/E SWR Meter |
312B-3 R/E Speaker |
399C-1 W/E Speaker/PTO for
KWM-2 |
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KWM-2A W/E Transceiver |
312B-5 W/E VFO/Control Console |
51S-1 R/E Communications
Receiver |
32S-3 W/E Transmitter |
| 30S-1 Linear Amplifier |
32S-3 R/E Transmitter |
312B-4 R/E Station Console |
75S-3B W/E Receiver |
30L-1 W/E Linear Amplifier |
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SM-3 Microphone |
Vibroplex Keyer |
SM-2 Microphone |
Now isn't that a bunch of
beautiful Collins Equipment?
(I wish I could say my ham
station looked like this . . . . perhaps in my dreams someday . . . .)
Below are some miscellaneous ham
items that we have acquired or that are unusual or older items
rarely seen these days . . . thought you might be interested in some of
these pictures.....
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This is one
of our restorations, a better than Mint Collins R390/URR - the grandaddy
of the series -
completely restored to better than new condition -
Sold 2005
All Mil-Spec - tube
shields throughout, everything clean as a pin, notice the heavy
duty modular construction of the R390/URR - bottom view
The back is
immaculate. You can see the highly polished slug-rack system
and note that there are two stainless-steel tube pullers which are
impossible to find intact on these old beauties . . . .
The above 3 pictures are for a late production run for the R390/URR
built by Motorola under Collins contract. This is the
grandaddy of the R390 series of radios having some 33 tubes
employed. This receiver has been completely rebuilt and is
currently in our museum. As of 2/05, it was sold for over $
3500. This receiver is so
pristine, you can almost perceive that it has "Art's" breath still
on it. If interested, we have more pictures that we can send
you. Until the time that someone wants it more than me, I'm
just going to enjoy it . . . . . . . .
Take a look at our R390 Museum and its Amelco R390A/URR communications
receiver. This receiver was restored by a meticulous
restorer and frankly it looks like a Swiss watch on the
inside. Even the gear assembly was cleaned and lubed in
such a way that it looks brand new. Even the tube shields
have been polished. It is spotless inside and outside and
is shown in its mint CY929/URR mil-spec case that was built for
the R390A/URR receivers by the U.S. Army. Note the rack
handles and shock mounts that came with the brand new mounting
cabinet. This is truly one heck of a receiver and we are
proud to be the owners of this classic radio. If you don't
know much about the R390A, take a look at our R390A museum
information on the web. We also have a CD-ROM publication
that has all of the technical bulletins from the Navy, Air Force
and Army on this fabulous receiver.
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A California Ham purchased Collins Radio Ham
Display Truck and now goes to Ham conventions to show it off |
This van was in Dallas for a Collins Radio get together several
years ago |
This is a very MINT Collins
R388/URR HF receiver came from a California ham that was given
it by his uncle who brought it back from the Korean War and never
unpacked it or used it. This is as Mint as they get!
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How about a beautiful Hallicrafters SX-100 from an
estate. This was one of the first SSB receivers made by
Hallicrafters in 1956. The SX-88 was the first
Hallicrafters to offer SSB reception. |
This is a restored S40A Hallicrafters receiver |
A very nice condition Collins Radio 32V-3
Transmitter w/Spare output tube and manual |
This is a mint Harris RF350K HF Transceiver
w/matching 500 Watt Linear, All Automatic
This is the Harris matching
automatic tuner for the above transceiver and amplifier |
This is the last of the National
Companies products. The R1490/GRR17 was a state of the art HF
receiver built under contract for the Coast Guard with built in
provisions for teletype drivers and all other modes of receiption |
This is the famous BC191 series of
transmitters used by the military in WWII |
This is the ART-13 autotune
transmitter by Collins Radio that replaced the BC191 series above in
the latter days of WWII and was used in the Korean war as well by
the military. These are very desirable transmitters that
produce about 250 watts output of AM or CW signals. |
This is the type TCS-5 Transmitter
WWII vintage by Collins Radio |
 
This is a prime mint condition
example of the National HRO-5TA-1 HF receiver with matching speaker
and set of plug in coils |
This is a Collins TCS-8 HF
receiver from WWII vintage, very nice condition w/mounting plate &
shocks |
This is a working Harris
1K/4K/10K Watt HF autotuned transmitter that came from the AT&T
Marine transmitter site in Florida. Man, what a beautiful
transmitter this is but it was so large that it would have had to be
dismantled to get it into our loading dock door, so we sold it to a
very deserving ham radio operator. There is a lot of history
about the AT&T sites which we will add when we have time.
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This is a mint National 1-10 from the very early days of National
Radio, now in a Texas private museum |
Likewise this is the famous National SW-3
(Mint) also in a Texas private museum |
R648/URR Collins Receiver, this
was an aircraft receiver that replaced the famous BC-348 series
receivers - this is the only one of these that we have ever seen and
it was a working receiver when we got it. |
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Thanks for visiting |
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This page is getting too large and I will probably
start breaking it down into categories for faster loading to get to the
pictures that you might enjoy . . . . . .
I will be adding more as time
permits - hope you enjoyed it so far . . . . man as I look at these
pictures, my mouth starts watering . . . . Collins
Radio? What is it about this stuff that starts the adrenaline to
start flowing?? I look at these radios and my palms get itchy and
sweaty and my hand starts jerking back towards my wallet . . .
wait a minute those clammy $1.00 bills in my wallet aren't even going to
buy a tube . . . wait here's my check book, who has some of this stuff
for sale? Surely there must be someone hoarding too much out there
that needs to get rid of some and gain some new space . . . if that
someone is you, contact me at "contact us" button on top of most web pages
or better still, just give me a call! Terry - W5OAS
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