The AM Forum

6 months and I cannot find a TBX-8. Any ideas?

You posted a Want request here for a TBX-8 six days ago:
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=48941.0

Wow! it has some red knobs. That should up its value  :D

You haven't had much luck with previous boat anchor purchases.
You think you might have success with something that might be 60 to 70 years old.

Boat anchor equipment/vintage equipment generally requires periodic maintenance; you up for that?

Wow man, you slammed the door on him! Have seen TBX set available on the Bay several times, just got to keep looking. The TBX-8 was the last of the series and not my favorite being it was way different from the early TBX-4 and 6 that I like. The 8 used more modern tubes, had PTT and worked with a regular microphone (T-17) and think the eight had AVC for the receiver that’s an improvement over the early sets. I have had both fours and sixes and think there may be one around here somewhere but not big on the idea of selling it at this time. The old version of the receiver uses a flock of 34 two volt tubes and requires two volts at around three hundred mills and ninety volts for the B+ and only draws ten mills when receiving, how anything can run on so little power! The transmitter has just one 837 tube that suppressor modulated and required a high output carbon microphone that was unique to that set.
My days of running a TBX back at Dayton were years ago way before You Tube and that radio is long gone, Have another  six from an estate and if I can get thru some of the other thousand projects around here may pull that and build a power supply, get it working and do a video of that.

Real life radio/amateur radio isn't all roses!

As Dirty Harry once said, "A man's got to know his limitations"   ;D

I owned three TBX-8 throughout the years. All worked well. It is built to much higher standards vs Ham Radio equipment.

Found this guy lurking under my HRO, the red knobs are for receive function and the black for the transmitter. This one is a five and has the huge advantage of not being radioactive, Running a old school TBX is the bomb, no AVC on the receiver, rheostat control for the filaments, Push pins for the headphones and spark plug cables for the antenna post. Its just my opinion but have to say if your going to go with a Tarawa Beach X radio with the WW2 thing in mind a per-eight is the only way to go! Lot speculation out there in the military radio community that the eight appeared too late on the seen for use in WW2, lots of four, five and six sets but the eight only appears to be used by the Marines during the Korean War. Leave it to the Marines, they love humping huge heavy stuff around. In Vietnam they used those huge heavy PRC-47 transceivers and have been told as late as the first Gulf War they still had PRC-77 sets in use!
I have a flock of GRC-9 radios in the shop right now and think that would be a better vintage radio for AM or CW today then a TBX-8 and still give you the experience of  a wide IF, broad tuning and a hand crank generator, but that’s just me.

TBX-8 added AGC.

Haven't I seen WW2 photos of the Navajo Code Talkers using the TBX radios?

73DG

FWIW Dept.
GE
NOs-65704 16 Mar 1939 (TBX, TBX-1)
NOs-71808 15 Feb 1940 (TBX, TBX-1)
NOs-81118 22 Jan 1942 (TBX-2)
NXsr-35352 30 Jul 1943 (TBX-6, TBX-7)
Hazeltine
NXss-18179 19 Nov 1942 (TBX-4, TBX-4a)
Garod
NXss-31870 28 Jun 1943 (TBX-5)
NXsr-38500 22 Apr 1944 (TBX-8)
NXsr-69224 02 Mar 1945 (TBX-8)
NXsr-71254 28 Jul 1944 (TBX-8)