HRO-60 "Still Life"

[w5hro]

Well, just unpacked the HRO-60 tonight and it's still alive. Took a while for the dial and meter lamps to light up and one dial lamp still wont light. Probably just needs a little wiggle to scrape thru the contact oxidation.

Going to plug-in the Select-O-Ject later tonight and see if it still works. I also have the xtal calibrator and the FM adaptor.

Anyone have any comments about this awesome receiver? Pic is below...

[af6im]

What a beauty!!!

I have one which has very decent cosmetics, but not quite as nice looking as yours. In search of coil C if you know of one for sale. I also envy and seek duplicates of your rare accessories (FM, xtal cal, etc).

73,
AF6IM

[KM1H]

With the NBFM adapter having no useful purpose and also being cheap even on Ebay, they make a good platform to strip and make a Pullen product detector. I havent made any other changes to my near mint HRO-60 or any to the 50....yet.

With many radios and only a few xtal calibrators I finally went with the standalone Heath versions and a short wire antenna at each bench, plenty of signal to do the job.

Carl
KM1H

[WQ9E]

HRO,

Definitely a nice looking radio!  Walther Ashe really advertised these a lot and I picked mine up in the late 90's from a ham in St. Louis who bought it from Ashe when they were new.  To me the SX-28 and the HRO-50/60 personify the vintage look.

My main radio room has a Hallicrafters HT-7 frequency standard connected to a short antenna which furnishes calibration for the receivers that don't have their own calibrators.  Before I got the Halli unit I used a Tektronix Type 180A Time Mark generator (intended for calibrating the time bases of scopes) as my general calibration unit.  It provides 50, 10, and 5 megahertz sine wave outputs and square waves (with plenty of harmonics) from 1 megahertz down into the sub kilohertz range.  I paid $5 for it at a hamfest to keep it from being stripped for its tubes and it has definitely earned its keep.

I have built a few homebrew plug-in calibrators using a bunch of vacuum sealed 100 Khz. crystals I bought from a Lithuanian seller on ebay a few years ago.  He had posted an auction for 10 for $10 but I missed it and emailed him to see if he had 10 more.  Due to a language issue I ended up with 20 crystals for my $10 and this is the only case on ebay where I paid the seller additional money after receiving the item; I didn't think it was fair that I would have gotten 10 of them basically free since the price was already very good for nice vacuum sealed Russian made crystals.

[K1ZJH]

[
There is 10 meter and 6 meter FM activity and its useful for that purpose. I actually used mine a bunch years ago on those two bands and it worked pretty well. I think the original idea behind the NBFM adaptors was they assumed FM would gain popularity and eventually become a normal operating mode on the HF bands, but of course it never did. Same thing when Hallicrafters designed the SX42, which also had FM.

I have both the 10 and 6 meter plug-in coils and that is where the adaptor is useful.

Small point, but the FM mode in the SX-42 was only available when
the 10.7 MHz IF was activated for reception on the 88-108 MHz
FM BCB...  There is no mode switch per se.

Pete

[K1ZJH]

the FM mode in the SX-42 was only available when the 10.7 MHz IF was activated for reception on the 88-108 MHz

The SX42 is also good for listening to your neighbors when they’re on their older FM cordless phones too The FM reception actually works down a lot further than 88Mc.

I sold mine to a guy in Connecticut back around 1995 or so, I just had way too much stuff and had to part with a few items. The SX42 has the best audio I think of any of the old vintage receivers ever made, but it’s a "Broad as a Barn" general coverage receiver. The HRO-60s have the same 6V6 push-pull outputs driving the speaker, but they are narrow and tight and are perfect for communications usage, especially on AM and even FM too.

I don’t think there are regulations against operating FM on the other HF bands, people just don’t do it.

I ended up with three  of the beasts over the past several years. Since I live in Connecticut, I may have ended up with yours   It was headed for the dumpster, no one would pay 40 bucks for it on a local swap net.  and I'm a sucker to save those old boatanchors! I'd rather own one of those National HRO-60s, though! One classy RX!

Pete

[WQ9E]

The SX42 is also good for listening to your neighbors when they’re on their older FM cordless phones too The FM reception actually works down a lot further than 88Mc.

Yes, the SX-42 (and the similar SX-62) will do FM on the two highest frequency ranges which cover from 27-108; there is a separate BFO coil for the 10.7 megahertz IF also if you want to try and copy VHF CW and Halli promoted the ability to tune 10 meters on both ranges so you could take advantage of the higher image rejection but lower selectivity of the 10.7 megahertz IF.  These series receivers can do a really good job on the FM broadcast band and they do have nice audio.  I have an SX-62A in my office at work and another one at home; my SX-42 is paired with the same era HT-19 CW/NBFM transmitter.  If NBFM stages a comeback the SX-42 could slope detect it on the lower bands.

If you have an SX-42 or SX-62 where the discriminator doesn't seem to align properly on FM you probably have one or more leaky mica caps in the discriminator can.  Every one of my FM capable Halli receivers (including the S-36A) have had this problem so it is something to check for when repairing these.  With the leaky capacitor it will still work somewhat but with much higher distortion than it should produce.  I just finished aligning a couple of 70's era Marantz FM tuners and measured them with my Tektronix audio distortion analyzer and when I get some free time I will see how the older Sx-42 compares to a bit more modern FM receiver.

Rodger WQ9E