K4KYV video on You Tube

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

The recording for Deliverance was made in 1972. Flatt and Scruggs had stopped playing together in about 1969. Flatt formed a group called Nashville Grass and Scruggs played with his sons in a group called The Earl Scruggs Revue.

The Beverly Hillbillies recording(s) would have been in the early 60's.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Excellent postings, Steve! Good read.

BTW, John Hartford is one of my favorite banjo players using the Hammer-On plucking style. Passed away in the early 80s right after recording for O Brother, Where Art Thou. If you've never seen it, it 's a terrific Cohen Bros. movie. Go rent it.

If I ever had a serious hankering to learn another musical instrument, it would be 5 string banjo, vibes or pedal steel..

[W1UJR]

I hope I can make some more trips to big strappers in the northeast and document them.
If I could, the next video would be with Ashtabula Bill. His station ( and he himself) needs to be recorded.

You know Derb, I had the very same thought myself when I heard him on the other day.
He was sounding very weak compared to how I remembered him.
I had the same thought on my last QSO with Irb, for some reason that day I felt
it would be the last time I spoke with him and I'd better record it. It was, and I did.

If you can't make the trip, perhaps someone from out in Ohio could do the raw footage and send
off to you for processing/editing, but it should be done, soon.

-Bruce

[N3DRB The Derb]

I was delighted to see that Don seemed in as just as good shape now as he was when I visited in 1990. If anything he's got more hair! 

I wish I could go see Bill - but there is a video out there of him, I've seen it, but it's not very detailed but it does show his operating position with the BC 348 and the slicer. Sorta shows his transmitter too, but it's just not that kinda vid. I'd want to show lotsa detail of that rig, because it's been bad and nationwide for so long.

Glo is taking an entire month off in Sept... it's possible that we could make a trip up there.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Hartford was a cool cat. Played with Johnny Cash back in the day and also wrote "Gentle On My Mind", made popular by Glen Campbell. Quite good on the fiddle, guitar, mandolin too. Probably invented newgrass, at least according to Sam Bush.
 

Excellent postings, Steve! Good read.

BTW, John Hartford is one of my favorite banjo players using the Hammer-On plucking style. Passed away in the early 80s right after recording for O Brother, Where Art Thou. If you've never seen it, it 's a terrific Cohen Bros. movie. Go rent it.

If I ever had a serious hankering to learn another musical instrument, it would be 5 string banjo, vibes or pedal steel..

[WBear2GCR]

Derb-o!

Great video!

May I ask what you used to do the production??
First rate.

Next time, don't be camera shy! 

Makes me want to drive down and hang with Don!!

        _-_-bear



             _-_-bear

[N3DRB The Derb]

used iMovie HD '06 on a dual 1.8 G5 powermac I got in 2003.

[W3GMS]

Derb,
After talking to Don, K4KYV for many years going all the way back to his New England days, its great to see his Ham Shack.  Hopefully during one of our yearly visits to Tennessee, we will have the opportunity and stop by to see Don.  Martha's mother lives in Cookeville which is in center Tennessee and we get down their yearly.  That 1/4 wave vertical really creates the full effect for sure.  Now I know why Don boils in up here on 160 in the winter!
Joe, W3GMS     

[flintstone mop]

I was delighted to see that Don seemed in as just as good shape now as he was when I visited in 1990. If anything he's got more hair! 
 

Looks like Don has his Winter filter on. I guess we're going to get hit bad this Winter.
It's humbling to see a station where the op, obviously had some dineros at a particular time in life,  and put up a real antenna. Don's dipole puts my 70 foot VEE to shame.
Reaching for something 200 feet in the  air is just a dream.
I'll keep trying to schwang my munkey.

Phred

[W2DU]

To Bill, KD0HG: My eyes lit up when you mentioned 'pedal steel'. I'm not a guitarist, my main instrument is trumpet, but I'm also a bassist, stand-up style. So why did I salute when I saw pedal steel mentioned?

I don't know your age, Bill, so you may not have been around when Alvino Rey was active with his band and pedal steel. He developed the pedal steel and used it initially with the Horace Heidt band (also probably before your time) before he left to form his own band.

Alvino, also W6UK, had a Navy Service band duing WW2, of which I was privileged to be a part of the trumpet section. So the point is, I was able to hear a lot of pedal steel as performed by Al, truly an artist. I'm attaching a photo of Al's Navy band. In the trumpet section I'm the second from the left. At the right-hand side you'll see Al standing with his pedal steel. Standing behind Al, and on his right is Dick Showalter, accompanist and husband of then-popular vocalist Ella Mae Morse. In the second photo I'm performing on bass with the Deltonans (FL).


Walt

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Great shots Walt! Thanks for sharing.

[ka3zlr]

Heck yea the shots are Great Looking back is great, I also liked the idea about how half the group were Amateurs the more available hands to get a job done the better...

Back to the thread,.. all them pieces of iron look great sitting on all them shelves doing absolutely nothing but rusting to death....Ya outta help some brothers out with a cache like that...

73
Jack.

[W3SLK]

Pretty dapper looking in those Cracker Jacks swabbie 

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Yep, cool shots, Walt. Big Band music is some of my favorite and I was fortunate to see a few of the greats before they left us. It's also been a great comfort over the years in helping to pass the time of winter: an old radio crackling away with Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Louie Prima and the rest.

Derb - GREAT video! TNX to Don too for sharing the experience with you and with us. I had wondered if most anything I'd ever possibly need for parts or such existed in the garages of W3JN, WA2PJP, K4OZY and a few others. Now I know that Don has the rest. What a stash of goodies, and so well organized! The video really brings out the size and quality of the build in the HF-300 rig, too.

[K5UJ]

Looks like Don has his Winter filter on. I guess we're going to get hit bad this Winter.
It's humbling to see a station where the op, obviously had some dineros at a particular time in life,  and put up a real antenna. Don's dipole puts my 70 foot VEE to shame.
Reaching for something 200 feet in the  air is just a dream.
I'll keep trying to schwang my munkey.

Phred

Hey at least ya got 70 feet; I'm struggling to get 50.  If you don't have trees, height costs begin to take off above 50 feet.

Rob K5UJ

[The Slab Bacon]

Don looks good with that chin spinach, I guess he'll have to change his avatar picture now that the word is out

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I thought the same thing, Slab! There's a shot of him in the video looking at the camera with that same sheepish grin the Ashtabula Bill has in the famous shot of him in his basement. And Don even has the layers of gear in the background to support the 'Who Cares? Ain't a Slopbucket..' premise. 

[AF9J]

Good stuff guys!  I espcially got a kick out of that last homebrew transmitter with the black crackle finish!  Pair it with an old Comet Pro or Super Pro receiver, and you're good to go!  Thanks for sharing the video.   

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[k4kyv]

...I espcially got a kick out of that last homebrew transmitter with the black crackle finish!  Pair it with an old Comet Pro or Super Pro receiver, and you're good to go!

Nah, not one of those.  It used to be paired with a mid-30's black crackle finished National HRO, complete with 2.5 volt tubes and german silver dial.  I still have that receiver, but haven't used it as the main station receiver for many years, since I acquired the 75A-4 in the early 80's.  But up to that time, it was the most superb receiver I had ever used, at least on 160-20m; only the A-4 has been able to beat it in terms of mechanical and thermal stability, dial resettability, frequency calibration and sensitivity.  The audio on either receiver was never anything to write home about, so I used the same outboard audio amplifier with both.  The selectivity curve on the HRO was about the same as that of any other HRO up through the '60, usable enough but nothing spectacular.

[AF9J]

Yeah, that's a good point Don.  I wasn't sure if I should mention or a National, or a Hammarlund, since both (along with the Skyrider series Hallicrafters, and the RMEs) are considered THE receivers of the 30s.  A National HRO does it for me.

[k4kyv]

Hammarlund Super Pros have always had a tendency to drift due to inherent weakness in the design of the variable condenser assembly.  This includes the SP-600.

Hallicrafters were made mostly from off-the-shelf broadcast receiver parts.

National (and later Millen) custom made most of their own components and were much more solidly built.  An SX-28 is flimsy compared to an HRO.

I think RME's were about on par with Hallicrafters.

From what I have seen, National receivers were the top of the line of pre-WW2 receivers, much as Collins receivers were after the War.

[N3DRB The Derb]

the battle was in different design philosophies. Most manufacturers believed they could make a good product buying from suppliers - and many of them did. The SX 28 i a good radio. I've had 3 of them over the years but only one HRO. it was a HRO-M.

National was completely vertical - they not only made the radios, but they made the parts for their own products they made. The only things National did not make themselves for their receivers were things like speakers, transformers, chokes, stuff they had to have but had no in house experience or ability to make.

Millen also did this when he left National to start his own company. I'm fuzzy on the reason why he took off - used to know but dont remember now, but I'd bet increased outsourcing by National was partly to blame.

later models by National like the NC 300 looked much more like off the shelf radios, because they were. Pictured below, Mr. Hallicrafters his-self meets with his marketing manager.

[k4kyv]

I recall Millen left and started his own company when he had some differences with the people at National.  I suspect it had something to do with the quality of the product.

I recall a description of a prototype Millen receiver, that would  have had the original National quality, but it never went into production.  I believe it had the sliding coil catacomb assembly, like the NC-240D.  Probably too much competition from cheaper postwar products built with off-the-shelf components.

I once owned an SX-28A.  It was more like a superbly built 1938 broadcast radio with shortwave bands, plus the bandspread feature.  It was a great receiver but nowhere near the quality of the HRO, although its audio section was head and shoulders above that of the HRO or anything Collins ever made.  As I recall you could lift it a couple of inches off the table and let it drop, and it would jump frequency from the mechanical shock, even in AM mode.  I could do the same test with the HRO, with BFO on, and the beat note would not change.

My first real "communications" receiver was a National NC-173, design circa 1947.  When I picked up my 1935 HRO in the early 70's, it was so much better than the '173 that I gave the latter away to a friend and said good riddance.

The only exception was 10 and 15m.  The original HRO was designed before the advent of the 15m band, so it had no 15m bandspread.  Its performance was anaemic at best on 10m.  Low sensitivity, image problems, hum in the oscillator, and poor stability.  I suspect it was simply designed and built before 30 mHz receiver technology had been perfected, since other HRO's of the same era have the same problem.  The 173 was much better on 10, but when I started using the HRO the sunspot cycle was nearing a minimum, so I didn't miss the 10m performance.  The HRO was almost as good as the 75A-4 on 160 thru 20.  Once warmed up, it would stay zero beat with a 20m slopbucket QSO for an hour or more, much longer than I usually ever listened to SSB.

[k4kyv]

My Kenwood R-1000  has no front end selectivity other than broad one-octave bandpass filters.  At the lowest frequency range, the nominal bandpass is 200 kHz to 1 hHz.  It actually works down to 150 kHz, with some reduction in sensitivity.  Last winter when I tried to tune in European long wave broadcast stations on 150-200 kHz, the signals were covered up with buzzies and images.  I threw together a tuned circuit between the antenna (beverage) and the receiver, and Bingo! the signals came right up out of the noise, with entertainment quality reception at times.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Hammarlund Super Pros have always had a tendency to drift due to inherent weakness in the design of the variable condenser assembly.  This includes the SP-600.

Actually Don, they had the absolute best variable capacitors of the day, bar none. They used the best available materials and best practices, with a 'cost is no issue' approach. They were the industry leader in high quality, stand-alone air variable sales for decades before EFJ came along.

The problems with drift (and they did exist) came more from long warm up times for stabilization. For the Super Pros, there was a lot of steel in there to heat up for thermal stability and that took time. But this was true of any receiver of the day, just moreso for big boxes like the SPs. Since they tended to be left on 24/7 in commercial installations, thermal expansion coefficients weren't an issue.

Still more of the bad rap came from war-weary, ham-hacked examples used decades after they were the state-of-the-art receiver of choice.

SP-600 is a totally different beast, and the issues of drift with that receiver are almost always related to the tap selected on the bottom of the power transformer. Sometime back in the 90s when I was about ready to throw my first SP-600 out the window, I was advised by Les Locklear to check this and move it up to 120/125v (can't remember exactly) if it was on a lower tap. Sure enough, mine was set on something like 110 or 115 and every little line fluctuation sent the thing on an excursion up or down the band. Changed the tap, and voila - rock stable. After 15 minutes it's settled down for the most part. After 30-45 minutes, it doesn't move.

National (and later Millen) custom made most of their own components and were much more solidly built.  An SX-28 is flimsy compared to an HRO.

I know the early HROs used custom components, but that only lasted a brief period of time in the bigger picture. IIRC, Hammarlund did this too with the early Comet Pros. But as far as the SX-28 being 'flimsy' compared to the HRO, I'd wonder if someone stuck an S-40B in your SX-28 cabinet. I have both here, an HRO-5 and SX-28A. Aside from the HRO having a painted chassis, I can't tell much difference in construction beyond the HRO-5 having fewer parts. That's not to say the SX-28A is a 'better' receiver, but the one I have is anything but flimsy. From the solid, thick steel chassis to the thick front panel, heavy iron, and thick bakelite bezels - it's all there. Beyond tube sockets, terminals strips and control pots, I doubt much of it was constructed from 'off the shelf' parts, though this was indeed true of their lower level sets.

From what I have seen, National receivers were the top of the line of pre-WW2 receivers, much as Collins receivers were after the War.

They were probably the quietest thanks to the plug in coils and external power supply, but had plenty of drawbacks from a sales/use/popularity standpoint including those two items along with the micrometer dial. You had to buy extra coils for the BC band, change screws in the coil drawers for bandspread vs general coverage, and store the unused coils somewhere. And they lacked the nice p-p audio section of the early Super Pros and SX-28. But they were indeed quiet and sensitive, which explains why the Brits grabbed up every one they could find for WWII listening posts. The early Super Pros offered similar performance with built-in band switching, variable IF bandwidth, direct read-out dial, and push-pull audio output.

Here's an excellent site for this old gear, including the above-mentioned receivers:

http://www.radioblvd.com/

And specific to the pre-war Pros:

http://www.radioblvd.com/hammarlund_super_pro.htm

Henry does a very thorough job in documenting the history, including comparisons between these three contenders. In particular, he has info on and a link to the inland maritime installation at WMI in Lorain, OH, as well as construction details, materials used, and so on. There are also sections for the SX-28 and HRO.

Using any of them on today's amateur bands under noisy conditions tends to be annoying, and really makes one appreciate the passband tuning and switchable mechanical filters in the 75A-4. But on those quiet nights that permit wide reception, the push-pull audio output rigs sure do sing.