I'm also very easily distracted, which probably explains why I have such a backlog of unfinished projects. I'll be working on a project, and then one day something on the back shelf will catch my eye: an old rig, a partially finished project from last year, or maybe an old piece of test equipment that quit working a while back, and the next thing you know both my legs are sticking out of another rabbit hole.

It's coming! (now you know...)

0000Z Saturday February 7 - 0700Z Monday February 9

( 7:00pm EST Friday February 6 - 2:00am EST Monday February 9 )
( 4:00pm PST Friday February 6 - 11:00pm PST Sunday February 8 )

Details at www.AMRally.com

The purpose of this annual event is to encourage the use of Amplitude Modulation on the 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10 , and 6 meter Amateur Radio Bands, and to highlight various types of AM equipment in use today. This event is open to any and all radio amateurs who are running full carrier amplitude modulation (standard AM), using any type of radio equipment. Modern, Vintage, Tube, Transistor, Software Defined, Military, Boat Anchor, Broadcast, Home Brew or Commercially available radio are all welcomed to join in on the AM fun.

KD1SH said:Gawd! I do that all the time and never seem to learn my lesson!
Ugh!

I now know where the green-flanged 'tray' around here some time ago came from! I hope you can get it running.

It worked for me fine yesterday.

Still in progress. As of this afternoon, most of the wiring has been traced out and identified with wire markers, and I've made up a chart showing all the switching actions that need to be accomplished. Some terminal strips and such needed to be relocated to make room for the relay board, and while I was in there I noted some work done by previous owners that I want to tidy up a bit, as well. And so it goes.

I've known of the GF transmitter/RU series of early 1930's radio gear for Navy aircraft for many decades, had no interest, but when I found out recently that the receiver had amplified AGC, I was interested, so I acquired a RU-18 receiver off of eBay recently; the last model. This is not my forefront project by any means right now.

It is 6 tubes, designed in 1932 by ARC Corporation. Tuned r.f. design TRF (not superhet) with plug-in coil tray. Used for DF and comm. There are single-band coil trays and dual band trays with a switch, 17 coil tray models in all, covering 200 kc to 13,900 kc. Most coils cover a 1.5:1 frequency range. The earliest also went to the Army. That early version is 4 tubes in the TRF section, a detector tube and an audio output tube. The later version I have, was revised by Western Electric, put in higher gain tubes so the TRF section is 3 tubes, detector tube, AGC amplifier tube and a dual-triode for audio output and a BFO; carried through the end of WWII. The interesting thing here is that the AGC apparently functions with the BFO on!

I only want to get it going to measure sensitivity, bandwidth, and audio output level versus r.f. signal levels and see the AGC operation with the BFO on.

Two photos attached. The coil tray photo shows the dual-band tray I have with a low-frequency band coil section exposed. The shortwave band coil is in the larger can.

We have membership from all over the world, so there are places were members are up and around 

Monies:   You have to pay a yearly fee to keep your URL active and see-able in the Internet. You have to pay yearly hosting fees on a server and depends on how much space you need. You generally have to pay a webmaster for your local URL updates, fixes, etc. Maintenance and service support from the hosting company also requires yearly payment.

Owning and running a web site can run into the hundreds of dollars per year.

A few days ago, I picked up this 3CX3000 for $45. It needs rebuilt. Another one found last year is in the same condition.

Econoco and Kennetron rebuild them, $800-900 which i presume is the price with core.
Rebuilds with no core outright seem to be closer to the $1300 pricing.
I saw an Eimac for $2200 and would expect it to be new with a good warranty for that money.
Others for $1300 new are Greenstone brand with a 1 year warranty, which I suspect is Chinese but don't know.
Some warranties are '1 year', others are pro-rated based on hours.

I don't need a new or rebuilt tube now, just interested in where people are getting them and what the warranties and costs are. It's a big expense.

"parts collecting, general hoarding, basket weaving, rock polishing, or string management" Well... DIYAudio does have a topic of "what did we buy today?" that seems popular.

I have done lots of parts collecting, general hoarding, and the like but have also put a halt to those activities after three estates filled up the work shop. Only now have I been able to sell off some of it. 5 racks worth of transmitters to be exact, and there are still boxes and boxes.

I have no knowledge of basket weaving or rock polishing though I have a good sized tumber.

For hobby reasons I only use AM, but I'm off the air due to downed antenna dipole, but hope to have that rectified fairly soon. I can testify AM is strong in Texas.

I'm willing to donate, and even pay something if the site could be expanded a bit. How, I couldn't say at this point. I like to build things with tubes but that's the exception these days.

I don't have the skill to set up or manage a site like this.