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Author Topic: Silent Carriers that Answer CQ  (Read 60722 times)
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k4kyv
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Don
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« Reply #100 on: August 05, 2010, 12:06:37 PM »

The down side is that as prices on the stuff tank, a lot of it will start going to the landfill again.

I think the golden age for purchasing this stuff was during the mid to late 80's. That was the era when old time hams who were active in the 20s-30s-40s were dropping like flies, but their old stuff was considered "junk" and didn't bring in much, if anything at estate sales.  Roger, N4IBF(SK), Mike NI4N (now W4AAE) and myself discovered several real treasure troves of pre-WW2 parts, books and equipment. Several of them were ours for the taking, in exchange for simply hauling them off. Others, we had to pay the estate for what we took home, but prices were usually very reasonable and often would be considered downright theft to-day. Loads of goodies showed up at hamfests like Dayton, although the golden age for hamfest purchases was a little earlier, in the 70s, when many of the OTs were still alive and able to haul their excessive inventory to flea markets, and the "vintage" craze hadn't caught on in mainstream amateur radio yet.

In about 1981-82 I picked up two working 75A-4s, one for $200 and another, with all 3 stock filters, for $100.  They needed some work, but I still have and use them.  Unfortunately, I suspect that for every one of those treasure troves we discovered, 100 others went to the dump.  By the time the antique/vintage craze caught on and went mainstream, it was too late; most of those OTs and their collections of stuff were long gone.  The resulting scarcity is largely what drove the prices on that kind of stuff sky high.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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« Reply #101 on: August 05, 2010, 12:30:12 PM »

The down side is that as prices on the stuff tank, a lot of it will start going to the landfill again.

I think the golden age for purchasing this stuff was during the mid to late 80's. That was the era when old time hams who were active in the 20s-30s-40s were dropping like flies, but their old stuff was considered "junk" and didn't bring in much, if anything at estate sales.   Loads of goodies showed up at hamfests like Dayton, although the golden age for hamfest purchases was a little earlier, in the 70s, when many of the OTs were still alive and able to haul their excessive inventory to flea markets, and the "vintage" craze hadn't caught on in mainstream amateur radio yet.

 By the time the antique/vintage craze caught on and went mainstream, it was too late; most of those OTs and their collections of stuff were long gone.  The resulting scarcity is largely what drove the prices on that kind of stuff sky high.

Some very insightful comments above, Don.

Yes, I agree that the timing of the  "Great OT Sell Off" and subsequent rise in prices due to scarcity had its effect. Good points.

T
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« Reply #102 on: August 05, 2010, 06:14:39 PM »

There are parallels in the vintage car hobby.

World War Two has traditionally been a generational divide, with pre-war and post-war collector audiences vastly different in character.  

Postwar cars have further sub-divided into those before the "muscle" car, and those that followed until anti-smog controls were imposed.

See if this 2005 posting to a car blog might easily apply to our stuff here.

Quote
In the 1970s and into the early 1980s the big news in classic cars were pre-war classics --Auburn, Packard, Duesenberg, Cord, Pierce Arrow, etc. etc. But the generation of folks who, in their youth, had admired that genre of car went into retirement--they could not or would not spend that kind of money anymore.  What happened? Those cars lost a great deal  of value on the market.  Most of those rides have since regained value, but in many cases they pale compared to muscle cars.  Again, that's because most of the folks who lusted after a V-16 Cadillac or a Darrin bodied Packard are dead.  As the baby boomers retire and find themselves with less and less discretionary income, the demand and price of muscle cars will adjust accordingly.  

Read more: http://forums.motortrend.com/70/48104/motor-trend-classic/do-you-think-the-collector-car-market-will-crash/index.html#ixzz0vlvZt4Mg




This old guy lives near West Friendship where I grew up.  He's still banging the tire irons, just turned 90 this Spring, and hopes to restore this 1908 beauty "some day."


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Todd, KA1KAQ
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« Reply #103 on: August 05, 2010, 08:42:08 PM »

It will eventually get to the point where Valiants and Rangers are selling for $50 each (or the equivalent inflation/deflation adjusted $50) like in the 70's - but still nobody wants them. It must go that way when we OT's die off, cuz who will be there to lug the stuff away? The supply will greatly outstrip the small demand.  Plus, when less AMers are on the air, the remaining ones will start to get bored and go away too. That's what happens to OB's when their friends all die off. They just stop coming around.

It's a relief to see someone else say this, Tom. I've been warning folks for years that the 'investment' aspect of old radios was a bad route to go, and this is what was waiting around the corner. Many of the money-oriented types always referred to ebay as the market price vs. the high water mark which was always my contention. For several years now, prices have been sliding. The economy has some impact, but it's much more a case of as you say, folks getting their fill combined with zero demand following behind. PJP and I have had some lengthy discussions about this, how many hamfest seasons we have left (based on how many summers does the average person get to enjoy, and how many do you have left?). I think it started when someone gave him grief for daring to build an unbuilt Knight kit.

We're of the same mind: use it and enjoy it now. How many folks 40-50 years from now will even know what it is, much less care? If you bought your gear to use and enjoy, you'll never be disappointed. If you got it as a retirement account, you might want to look for a second job.

Unfortunately, I suspect that for every one of those treasure troves we discovered, 100 others went to the dump.  By the time the antique/vintage craze caught on and went mainstream, it was too late; most of those OTs and their collections of stuff were long gone.  The resulting scarcity is largely what drove the prices on that kind of stuff sky high.

That's probably more true for some of the less exciting/more common stuff, Don. But look at how many Heathkit rigs still survive, DX-100s, Apaches, and so on. And Hallicrafters S-38s are the cockroaches of the radio world - they're everywhere!  Grin

One thing I've noticed with the higher end gear is that much seems to survive in good or better condition. Folks who could afford Collins or Johnson or TMC gear tended to take good care of it. And fortunately, the gap between the original owners and new owners wasn't so long as to send it to the scrap heap, though surely some met this fate. Unfortunately this isn't so for much of the pre-war gear and parts. It exists, but in small numbers, especially in clean condition.

In three-plus decades, I've seen exactly one hacked up 75A-4, a 310 exciter painted blue, a 32V with its glass broken, and a few dinged up pieces of S-Line gear. Actually, I've seen and heard more horror stories of gear damaged in shipment than by former owners.

The only benefit aside from us being able to enjoy having our hands on such history now is that so many will survive at least a while longer, for anyone who comes along and actually wants one. Pickings should be pretty good.

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Ralph W3GL
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« Reply #104 on: August 05, 2010, 11:48:17 PM »



       I thought this  thread was about "Silent Carriers that Answer CQ"... What happened to the
                                                      SUBJECT?


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73,  Ralph  W3GL 

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« Reply #105 on: August 06, 2010, 02:17:27 AM »

Ah what the heck... we're in the QSO section so let the topic roam! 
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k4kyv
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Don
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« Reply #106 on: August 06, 2010, 02:48:08 AM »

Unfortunately, I suspect that for every one of those treasure troves we discovered, 100 others went to the dump.  By the time the antique/vintage craze caught on and went mainstream, it was too late; most of those OTs and their collections of stuff were long gone.  The resulting scarcity is largely what drove the prices on that kind of stuff sky high.

That's probably more true for some of the less exciting/more common stuff, Don. But look at how many Heathkit rigs still survive, DX-100s, Apaches, and so on. And Hallicrafters S-38s are the cockroaches of the radio world - they're everywhere!  Grin

One thing I've noticed with the higher end gear is that much seems to survive in good or better condition. Folks who could afford Collins or Johnson or TMC gear tended to take good care of it. And fortunately, the gap between the original owners and new owners wasn't so long as to send it to the scrap heap, though surely some met this fate. Unfortunately this isn't so for much of the pre-war gear and parts. It exists, but in small numbers, especially in clean condition.

I have little interest in stuff like Heathkit rigs and 50s-era Hallicrafters.  I was referring particularly to rare pre-WW2 gear and parts, and good quality post-war stuff too like, for example, the Collins 10B exciter. Most of the old parts and homebrew projects, unique items that are essentially unobtanium to-day, were thrown out by the tonne because to the unknowledgeable survivors of the SK hams it looked  like "junk". Those were the kinds of treasure troves I was referring to. I don't think we picked up a single working transmitter or receiver in all those loads, but my share of what we hauled back helped me to accumulate enough "junk" in my own collection that I can now build practically anything I want with parts on hand.

One accumulation, which required two trips from here to Indiana to haul back, was given to us by the wife of the ham who, while not SK, was in a nursing home with a severe case of dementia.  She told us that she had managed to sell the "good" stuff, including his 75A-4 and some kind of slopbucket transceiver, with the help of some of the  local radio club yokels.  But she said they told her, regarding to the parts and homebrew items (that required a large closed U-haul trailer to transport), "nobody is interested in that kind of old stuff any more.  The best thing to do with it is to find someone with a truck to haul it all to the dump for you." Fortunately, she found us before she found someone local with the truck.  But no doubt in hundreds of other cases like that, the wife did find someone with a truck. This was the place where I literally mined over two dozen brand new VT4C/211s out of the ground where the floor had collapsed and the boards, along with the tube boxes, had  rotted and turned to soil.  All but one or two of the tubes worked like new. The items we brought back included everything from bread slicers and plate transformers to antique meters, NIB plug-in coils and triode transmitting tubes.

This is what I was lamenting. The radio equivalent to the old guy's automotive accumulation in the photos Paul posted above. I couldn't care much less about the DX-100's, Valiants and Hallicrafters SX-99s.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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Steve - WB3HUZ
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« Reply #107 on: August 06, 2010, 09:20:19 AM »

How long can we talk about carriers that we can't even hear?



       I thought this  thread was about "Silent Carriers that Answer CQ"... What happened to the
                                                      SUBJECT?



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W2ZE
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« Reply #108 on: August 06, 2010, 09:41:11 AM »

Quote
How long can we talk about carriers that we can't even hear?

(In a whispering voice)....STRAP.......
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Todd, KA1KAQ
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« Reply #109 on: August 06, 2010, 12:03:02 PM »

(STRAP)  Grin

Okay Ralph, you busted us. At some point the thread drifted, though it doesn't appear to be a true hi-jack. The carriers are still here, you just can't hear them.

I was referring particularly to rare pre-WW2 gear and parts, and good quality post-war stuff too like, for example, the Collins 10B exciter. Most of the old parts and homebrew projects, unique items that are essentially unobtanium to-day, were thrown out by the tonne because to the unknowledgeable survivors of the SK hams it looked  like "junk".

You must mean the 310B exciter. The A was built for the original 30K transmitters, the B was actually a QRP transmitter with a 2E26 IIRC. There were a couple different versions of the B, one with tuning network built in and the other with a removable plate that let you roll your own. The C is basically a VFO that plugs into a crystal socket. These boxes were never made in high numbers to start with. I recall when the Collins Collecting fad really took off in the late 80s-90s, many of the high rollers were looking for these units to "complete their collection". I suspect most are still sitting on shelves somewhere.

Yes, a lot of the unobtanium pieces - the pre-war as well as WWII stuff - got dumped when ops went SK 4-5 decades ago. More hit the skids in the 60s-70s when the masses migrated to riceboxes and SSB, too. Nobody wanted 'boat anchors' then and you were looked at strangely if you wanted anything like that. I talked to a number of OTs who joked about how much stuff they could've loaded me up with if I'd only been 10-20 years earlier.
Quote
One accumulation, which required two trips from here to Indiana to haul back, was given to us by the wife of the ham who, while not SK, was in a nursing home with a severe case of dementia. 

The first bunch I cleaned out in the early 80s was a similar case: the OT apparently put the cat in the fridge and was watering his plants with milk, so they moved him to 'more secure' housing. He lived in a big old Victorian, was a broadcast engineer, ham, and had also worked for Evans Radio as a sales rep for many years. He kept EVERYTHING including old literature. The auctioneer the family had hired told them that two wooden radios (RCA tombstone and AK console) were worth auctioning, the rest was junk. I ended up with a AK Radiodyne, Aeriola Sr, Hallicrafters SR-150, S-27 and loads of tubes, parts, and paper. QSTs back into the 20s, amateur sales brochures, and broadcast literature galore. Big phasing switches for broadcast aerials, a box of RCA 74B ribbon mics - all headed for the dump. Stuff wasn't 'valuable' then, but I still think I got it cheap and the son (also a BC engineer) thought I was nuts to want any of it. Ended up trading the SR-150 for my 30K-5 a couple years later ("who would want THAT behemoth?"). The literature ended up being a treasure trove of old product flyers, catalogs, and other documentation. I remember one of the guys from the local club who helped me load it continually saying "you don't want to take that stuff". Fortunately the only things he managed to talk me out of taking were some old rotating mercury rocker switches used as flashers on tower beacons. Sure wish I'd grabbed at least one.

The next round is soon to begin, if it hasn't already. Many of us will be future contributors unless we've made other plans before we truly become.....Silent Carriers......
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k4kyv
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« Reply #110 on: August 06, 2010, 12:48:26 PM »

I had already developed a keen interest it that kind of stuff in the early 60s shortly after I became licensed, but that was just before the "sideband for the masses" era, and a lot of the OTs who were still alive still attached some value to it. I was a practically-penniless student back then, and had to pass up a lot of goodies because they were out of my price range even when they sold for pennies on the dollar. Later on, when the same items that I had to pass up were being hauled to the dump, I was out of the country for the better part of a decade and missed out on a lot of it. However, the early 80's was probably even a better time for the stuff like Todd mentioned, because that's when the pre-WW2 ham generation was dropping like flies, kind of like the WW2 vets 5-10 years ago and Korean War vets to-day, and survivors were cleaning out cellars, lofts and storage sheds that hadn't been touched for decades. I'm sure a lot of nice stuff went to the dump simply because it was covered with dust, mouse and rat turds, dead critters and spider webs, making it look like rubbish to the unknowledgeable.

The obstacle that kept me from accumulating even more in the mid 80's was the fact that so much of it was too far away to drive and even if I could have located it, it would have been too expensive to ship, plus I was working full time and my time was limited, as was (is) storage space. Of course, the greatest obstacle to acquiring "stuff" is finding out about it before it is trashed. I couldn't count the number of times someone has told me they would have been glad to give me something but they didn't think anyone would want it and they had taken it to the dump two weeks earlier.

If I had been independently wealthy, I would have built or purchased a large warehouse and a suitable vehicle, and scoured the entire N American continent.  I probably could have become a serious competitor for Fair Radio but kept the cream of the goodies for myself.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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« Reply #111 on: August 06, 2010, 07:43:03 PM »

This is all somewhat depressing.  I certainly hope everyone on this website makes arrangements so their stuff does not go to the dump.   I don't have a lot compared to a lot of you guys but I have been blessed with a few good parts and pieces of gear falling into my lap.  I didn't really seek any of the stuff out, it all came down to knowing people and being in the right place at the right time.  And going to a few hamfests.  Re the pre WW2 gear, I sort of draw the quality line at 1952.  There were some good rigs after '52 but you have to be more careful (some of this is based on personal irrational opinion however).
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« Reply #112 on: August 06, 2010, 08:38:08 PM »

Just put updated price tags/values on all your gear......

Rest assured, non of it will go in the trash!

Sure, some greedy relative, that doesn't give a hoot about radio or the "nostalgia" will just turn it over for a quick buck... but at least it won't rot in  a landfill!

 Grin
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« Reply #113 on: August 06, 2010, 10:12:44 PM »

It's worth a try Bruce, but when the stuff doesn't sell for that price (or any price), they might be tempted to sell it for scrap. Who knows what scrap metal prices will be in 20-40 years? Maybe recycled iron and steel will be at a premium. We've already seen some foolish antics over high copper prices in recent years.

Rob - it's only depressing if you let it stop you from enjoying your gear now. I lost nearly a dozen years from being inactive, relegated to SWL duty while life took me elsewhere. Now THAT is depressing, I can never get tha time back. But I sure can make better use of whatever radio time I get from here on out.

Don, I was in the same mode as you, actually interested in the old radio gear a good 6-8 years before getting licenses. That's where my deep love of AM broadcast, early broadcast and pre-war gear comes from. When so much of the 50s-60s stuff became available in the 80s for virtually nothing, I got distracted by the ease of acquiring and operating it. As things thin out here and my time is better managed, it feels good to get back in touch with the early stuff. Like an old friend who's been around for years but just hasn't spent much time with you.

In the end, the essential truth is that this gear is really only important to us. WE are the ones who place value in it, be it monetary, historic, or nostalgic. Aside from storing it all away in some time capsule warehouse where it gets found by curious folks well into the future, it will pretty much live and die with us and those who went before us.

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