BOAT RADIO

[KL7OF]

I have acquired this interesting 60's vintage fishing boat radio from the dark back storage at the old Peter Pan cannery here in Naknek.  They are doing some cleaning up around there and the parts man knows I like old radios and he found this one and gave it to me.  The TX has a 12BE6 (Sweep tube?) in the output with a 6C4 driving it...The RX has 4ea 12BA6 types...It looks like this has 5 selectable freqs between 1 and 8 meg.  Pretty typical as all the cannery boats were on HF up until the mid 70's. I believe The output is a carrier and one sideband. Is that called AMI?..I haven't had time to fool with it yet but If I get it going I will report.  I probably will send it down to Tum Tum and work on it this winter....It is unusual enough that I thought the group would like to see it. It also has a Deck Hailer......"Attention on deck,  The floggings will continue until morale improves!"

[The Slab Bacon]

Steve,
         that is an old 120m marine radio. Those frequencies are no longer used for line of sight marine service. I believe they may have even outlawed them for "marine" use. But they can easily be converted to low powered 75/80m or 160m fone rigs.

Clip some off of the coils for 80m use or add some padder capacitance for 160.

                                                The Slab Bacon

[KB1IAW]

That's a really interesting radio, Steve. My boat was built in the mid-60's. The original standing rigging was still on the boat when I acquired it. The backstay had telephone pole style ceramic insulators top and bottom as if it was set up for a marine SSB. I have seen the same thing on sailboats of the same vintage from other builders. I wonder if the factory was making provisions for one of those radios? 

[Mike/W8BAC]

My first 160 rig was an Apelco marine radio. It was a 4 channel, all tube, plate modulated AM rig. After changing a few caps and adding some feedback I received great audio reports. It had a switching supply that would groan on transmit but it was very dependable. It was the most uninteresting radio I ever owned. It lived under the bed for late night contacts.

Mike

[WA3VJB]

I might have one of the plugs to match your 12VDC inpoot there Steve, if you need.

Yeah, I picked up a Pearce-Simpson Islander 90 when the HF marine band migrated to VHF about 30 years ago.

Retuned it to 75m with crystal control, used it mobile with a base loaded 6M whip.

[kf6pqt]

I've been lookin for a boat radio to convert, if anyone's got one the don't want, lemme know!

-Jason kf6pqt

[k4kyv]

I have one for a "one of these days" project.  Mine is a separate receiver and transmitter mounted in a two panel 19" rack.  I think it was a "base" unit since it is designed to run on 110 volts a.c. The receiver is a conventional 455 kc/s single-conversion superhet with tuned r.f. preamp, and the transmitter has a par of 807's in parallel in the final, modulated by another pair.

The TX is xtal controlled, with a bandswitch that selects the crystal and the tx tuning settings  for each.  The rx is two-band, one band the AM broadcast band with coverage up above 2 mhz, and the other from the top of the AM band up to somewhere around 5 mhz.  Looks like late 30's to post WW2 40's technology.

I plan to get it on the air someday, although it has been gathering dust in my shack for over 10 years now.  It would make a nice 160/75m rig, with pre-set channels on popular AM frequencies.

[w3jn]

A 12BE6 is a pentagrid converter.  Bet that final is a 12DQ5 or 12AV5.

That xmitter is plate mudulated; the mudulators are transistors.  Not AME (AM equivalent).   You can usually sub a variable cap in parallel with a coil in place of the xtal to make a VFO in these rigs.

[Mike/W8BAC]

Judging by the Dymo label on the front it will stretch from close to 1MHz through 5.5MHz or so. The optimist in me says it just might tune up on 160 and 80 without modifying anything. Maybe a tap or two might need to be moved but that's it.

If the crystals oscillate on the fundamental all the better. If not you have the channel output frequencies on the front panel (Dymo Label) and you can figure out the divide by.

Looks like a quick and dirty conversion to me and it looks to be in very nice condition. Go for it Steve. Nice score.

Mike

[KL7OF]

The final tube in this rig is a 12GE5...I put my glasses on and looked again.  The xtals are all fundamental freq in the 2000kc range .

[kf6pqt]

Isn't that the 12v version of the PA tube in the heath HW-16?

[Carl WA1KPD]

A 12BE6 is a pentagrid converter.  Bet that final is a 12DQ5 or 12AV5.

That xmitter is plate mudulated; the mudulators are transistors.  Not AME (AM equivalent).   You can usually sub a variable cap in parallel with a coil in place of the xtal to make a VFO in these rigs.

JN,
Excellent idea.  When I read it I had one of those Homer Simpson "DUH" moments.
I have an old RCA I have been fooling with and hated to drill an xtal hole in the front. You just solved it. Thanks!

On another issue did you ever get that cool  Meissner from Hosstraders working? That was a great radio

[AF9J]

Isn't that the 12v version of the PA tube in the heath HW-16?

Nope Jason, 

I had a HW-16 as a Novice, and it used a 6146. The 12V equivalent of a 6146 is a 6883.

Ellen - AF9J

[w3jn]

The crappiest slopbucket radios ever made - the Heathkit monobanders HW-12,22, 32 use a pair of 6GE5s in the final.

[AF9J]

Oooh!  Those were nasty!  When I was in college, I chatted to an OT (well, sort of an OT, he was about 15 years older than me), who had built an HW-12 as a teenager.  It earned him an FCC pink slip, when he used it.

Ellen - AF9J

[kf6pqt]

Aw, I got ripped off, my HW16 Doesn't have a 6146, no fair!

[Carl WA1KPD]

My first mobile experience was an HW-32 in my Dads 65 Falcon




It had a Hustler antenna with the old  bM1bumper mount


I was so excited one time when I made a contact that I promptly headed down a one way street in the small town I lived in. I almost hit the father of a fellow ham and class mate head on.

[Carl WA1KPD]

My first mobile experience was an HW-32 in my Dads 65 Falcon




It had a Hustler antenna with the old  bM1bumper mount


I was so excited one time when I made a contact that I promptly headed down a one way street in the small town I lived in. I almost hit the father of a fellow ham and class mate head on.

[AF9J]

Aw, I got ripped off, my HW16 Doesn't have a 6146, no fair!

Jason,

I stand corrected.  I did a Google search, and you're right.  The HW-16 uses a 6GE5 sweep tube for the final. My mistake.  Sorry about that.  I last owned that radio back in 1986.  Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing a top clip/lead for the cathode, like a 6146 has.  Sorry about that.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[Pete, WA2CWA]

When in doubt as to what finals were in what rig, you can check here:
http://www.muchstuff.com/xmttube2.htm

[AF9J]

Yup, that's where I got it from Pete.  I did a Google search after I began to wonder if what I said was true.  It's been so long since I had my HW-16 (I sold it in 1986, at the same hamfest I passed my General at [I took a bath on it; I sold it at the table the Univ. of WI ham club had set up for selling stuff on, and the table attendant accepted $50 for both the HW-16, and the HG-10B VFO, while I was taking the test!]).

73,
Ellen - AF9J