Shortwave Radios Confiscated

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Tom WA3KLR:
I didn't know about the registration of the amateur transmitters until this past year or so when I saw one of the certicates with a home-brew transmitter on ebay.  I never heard or saw one before, but that doesn't mean it can't be so.  

Below is the photo from that ebay ad.  I asked my father about the registration (he's 87 now) and about a month later he was able to dig out and show me his copies of the certificates of registration for his 2 homebrew transmitters.  He got his license just a few months before Pearl Harbor.

As far as the radio shops disabling shortwave on radios coming in for repair - I never heard of this until a few years ago, and from a ham that I have known all my life.  I think he is 88.  He is from the Norristown area just northwest of Philadelphia.

Perhaps there was another rule or perhaps the one you quoted got twisted by word of mouth.  If you owned a shop at the time what would you do?  Nothing, or question each cutomer as to their background or just disable SW?  Then if they call back and complain that the set does work on BC now, but the SW band doesn't, tell them that's the law now?  Who knows.  

Since we never heard of these things, especially sooner after the war, I presume it must not have been a big deal at the time.  Just interesting trivia now.

Tom WA3KLR:
If you look at the fine print near the top of the FCC form, it says, "by FCC Order No. 101, June 19, 1942.  So this is 6 months after December 7.  I guess it took quite a while for other priorities to settle and some paranoia to build.

Could you imagine having the Internet disabled for a few days?

k4kyv:
Quote from: Tom WA3KLR on April 24, 2007, 10:05:31 PM

If you look at the fine print near the top of the FCC form, it says, "by FCC Order No. 101, June 19, 1942.  So this is 6 months after December 7.  I guess it took quite a while for other priorities to settle and some paranoia to build.

I'm sure many of the owners of those transmitters were dodging bullets in Europe and in the Pacific by then.  The radio transmitter back home was the least of their concerns.

The complete list of emergency wartime orders is published in the 1943 ARRL Radio Amateurs Handbook.  I'll look and see what it says there.

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