Does this make any sense - is it just me?

[WBear2GCR]

Some years back I finally found a T-368.
Twice I have listed it here for sale.
Not very many inquiries. A few.


It's kinda hard to explain this.
The T-368 is still here.
I kinda want to keep the beast, it's part of my ham radio dreams...
Part of me wants to keep it at all costs.
Part of me says that it makes no sense to keep it, there is not enough time to do it up right, and no place to put it. Get rid of it.
It's like a 700lb puppy that follows you home. Not terribly practical. But nice.
Conflicted, eh?

Should I sell it, I don't want to repeat my experience with the two BC-610s that I acquired
after many years of search, and a lot of effort to transport. I ended up selling them *cheap*, then they became lost in the ether, and as far as I can tell *not on the air*. Not sure why, but somehow it seems to matter to me if a relatively rare rig like these is never actually used to transmit, regardless of if it gets restored or not.

Otoh, over the years I've bought and sold a fair number of radios. Those don't/didn't make me feel like the two BC-610s (that I never had on the air btw) and this T-368. I know my R-388 is one of those radios that I would only sell if I needed the cash to eat and everything else was gone already. I've had a TS-440 for maybe 20 years. Other than some mods that I'd have to do again, I'd sell it and get another cleaner one, or maybe another newer rig to take its place. No special feelings for that one. Why not? No idea.

Does this make any sense to anybody but me?

               _-_-bear

[Opcom]

It makes sense but I don't know  if my reasons are like yours.

On several occasions I've sold "big radio" type things for much less than the cost or the worth or just on the decision to be rid of them.

I sometimes regret the lack of expense-recovery, but only for a short time because it is a hobby not a business and because someone got a good deal. I don't care what the buyer did with it, if they sold it for profit, used it, just looked at it, or later cussed me for it. If I want to make sure it gets a good home and avoid "transmitter killers", I price it high. otherwise it goes cheap so someone can part it if necessary.

Sometimes I buy something because I always wanted one or because I like the engineering or what the set represents/where it was used, but I don't fix all of those. Sometimes I put them in racks and arrange the racks and gear to look cool. Like an erector set for adults. I keep most of my radio sets because I like their history/pedigree or their technical designs.

I do not consider it important to be on the air with a given set. Instead, just fixing it up, measuring the specs, etc. suffices and I take that activity as the full enjoyment of it. There are exceptions that drive me to be more active on the air, like the Tucker transmitter, which is destined for airtime if I ever finish its refurbishment.

To explain, your T-368 might be, to you yourself, like the URT-12 Coast Guard transmitter or the three 618S-1 aircraft HF sets are to me.
Each of these things, in my case, is what I consider to be nice to look at, and each one is either is rare or has interesting engineering. None are especially efficient/convenient concerning weight/size -vs- performance/power.

For a few years I had three AN/GRC-106's. When I built new shelves in the back of the work shop, I measured and provided for spaces just for those sets and their power supplies. Who needs three 240 LB/400W HF sets with blowers that sound like a vacuum cleaner in a tornado? They sure did look cool side by side though!

Am I right to guess that you might be keeping it to look at or because you like the design?

If so, then keep it. If you are out of space then camoflage it as furniture and put it along the wall in the living room and place a TV set on it. Or something.

If you are ambivalent about being rid of it, then you probably do not want to really get rid of it. Either keep it or offer it only at a high-ish price reducing the chance of sale and ensuring a good home if sold.

All this could be totally wrong but that is the sense it makes to me.

 PJ

[KC4VWU]

Yeah, what Patrick said!

Just keep in mind, Bear, you just don't roll up on a T-368 every day. Any of the mil surplus tx's for that matter. That's why I have 3 ART-13's, not that I'm wanting to hog them or corner the market, but I think they're an engineering masterpiece... even to this day. They make me happy just being here, even though they take up a little space.
 
Others may think you're stalling on the refurb, I think you're like me.. savoring the moment. Remember the old saying, "The chase is better than the catch" ?

Keep it.

---Phil
 

[Bill, KD0HG]

My question is, why isn't that T3 on the air? At least once or twice a year? Or ever?
It's not quite like collecting sea shells, or is it?

Bill

[W4EWH]

When I was Fourteen, I wanted to buy a 1965 Ford Mustang, which I thought was the best car ever built. Of course, a plumber's son living in backwoods New Hampshire couldn't afford a 1965 Mustang, couldn't drive one (legally), and couldn't figure a way to get from condition "B" to condition "A".

That, as they say, is life.

The world kept spinning, and I sooner or later got hold of a Volkswagen Beetle which I kept until I started taking rides on helicopters and carrying a model 1911 Colt .45 Automatic pistol and, finally, got to run a Navy MARS station in Danang. It had a Collins KWM-2A, with a PM-2 power supply and a 30L-1 amplifier, and a Millen transmatch, probably because Collins didn't make one, and it had a log-periodic up thirty feet on a dead man's pole that only I had the gumption to climb. I was the operator at a Navy MARS station, even though I was in the Army.

That, as they say, is life in a combat zone. I was there, and if you want perfection, they told me, join a monastery. I was the MP who had wandered in and told them that I could tune a 32S-3 blindfolded and could I please use the radio even though there wasn't an operator for it. I was it, from that moment, and if you want simple answers, they told me, go to church. I spent my days busting junkies and my nights helping other GI's and Swabbies talk to those they had left behind.

The car club has a rally on the first Tuesday of the month during the summer. They line up old vehicles beside their old owners, and sometimes there's a '65 Mustang there. I think to myself that I am a little bit older now, and I have a little jingle in my pocket now that the kid is out of the house and the mortgage is paid, and that I could afford that car or one a lot like it. When I think that, I also think that I don't know if I could get parts, and I don't know if I could get if fixed if there was an accident, and I don't know if I'd be able to find a proper garage for it or how to keep it from rusting out the way they do sometimes, and I remember that the girl I wanted to take for a ride in 1965 is a grandmother now.

Still, there are moments when I might write that check. Just once in a while, if the weather is perfect, and I'm not having too much trouble with my leg, and if someone at the rally had one they were willing to sell for less than a king's ransom.

I go to flea markets like Deerfield, and I see things that I wanted when I was fourteen: Drake TR-4's, and Hammarlund HQ-180A's, and Gonset Gooneyboxes and Johnson Rangers. Sometimes, I buy them.

I had a gig in Florida last year, and I thought at the time I'd be living there for a long while and that I would have to move out of my home, and I looked around my cellar at the rigs I had accumulated over the years, and I suddenly saw a lot of boatanchors on the shelves that I was never going to part with if I had the choice. I had to be on an airplane and so I sent my son and his girlfriend up to Deerfield with everything I had accumulated over the years, and a spreadsheet that told them what I needed to have, and I told them they could keep the rest.

I had some Hammarlund receivers and a Gonset SSB transmitter, and a couple of Johnson Rangers. I put them all on the truck and said goodbye.I also had a 75S-3B, a 32S-3, a 30L-1. They worked fine, but I hardly ever used them, and they went on the truck too.

I decided, you see, that I had become a museum curator instead of a ham operator. I didn't use the Collins gear much because I was afraid it would break, and I didn't want to have to fix it.

Still, there are moments, if the weather is just right, and if I'm not thinking about the price of 6146's, that I might buy myself a KWM-2. I might say "why not", and write that check, just because I want to remember what it was like to be young and invincible.

There's no moral to this story. This isn't that kind of tale. Ham radio is my hobby, and that is, by definition, something that I don't do logically or for sound financial reasons.

If I had used a T-368 in Vietnam, I might want to have one of those too. It's not supposed to make sense or be a good investment.

73,

Bill, W1AC

[ke7trp]

I sold my T368C this year.  It was a hard choice as I got the rig from my friends widow.  I ran the AM transmitter rally for 16 hours and three bands on it.  I also ran the Arizona centenial special event station with the T368 using Goldwaters Call sign. The old girl meant alot to me.   

However,  I think it was time to go. I decided to downsize my station in half. I had fixed and repaired everything on it. It was full of PCB oil caps and transformers and is great for a shop or garage.  Not but inside my house.

Mine went to a Military museum to be used and displayed for all to enjoy so that made me feel good about it.  They did not even haggle on the price. They just simply paid me what I was asking, Then purchased the tuner and spare parts as well.   

IF I had a shop outside or a garage area to move the rig, I would have done that and kept it. 
 

C

[WBear2GCR]

Well, why isn't it on the air?

That's the rub. It's like the sexy BC-610s. One of them was an early version with the extra meters and the chrome trim. Well within my abilities to restore fully right here with the exception of chrome plating. It's the time to do it. I'm max'd out. Sure a few minutes to shoot the breeze on the air, and to type here, but no time to do a full bore restoration. Worse still would be to have the parts of such a large project spread out taking up workspace. Stalling the project halfway through would be a debacle.

The T-368 needs some obvious work, and best case a strip and repaint (engraved panels make this an easier proposition). It's just not that fast of a project. But it ain't that much! The small size projects are already piled up like jets over Kennedy airport on a bad day!!

So, that's the conundrum. The desire(s) vs. realism.

In the words of Clint Eastwood "...man's gotta know his limitations..."

Admitting them and giving up dreams is part of this. Or not wanting to give up dreams...

Not to mention that cutting a check for a perfectly restored one simply wouldn't fill the bill for me. It would be like being defeated on some cosmic level.

The decision is to move on to some other victory and source of satisfaction, but with no regrets, or not.

                             _-_-bear

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

From someone who has collected this stuff for close to four decades and traveled around the country getting it, I can relate my somewhat experienced view: if you're not going to use it anytime soon and can replace it, sell it. Get it to someone who will, and use the money for something else or bank it. If you regret it or really wish you had it back, you can always buy another (I have a feeling they'll be more plentiful in the coming years).

Plenty of folks who visited my place up north thought I was nuts, no doubt. Living in a 19 room house with a 2 story carriage house meant I didn't need to focus on getting rid anything until I felt like it. But life takes over, things change, and suddenly you're in a place where you have too much stuff and not enough time to deal with it. That's why I put the 21E up for sale. It's a beautiful rig that sounds great on the air. But with the other projects and responsibilities I have, it would be years before it returned to the airwaves. Better to let someone else get it that will use it as intended. Just sorry it took me so long to figure that out.

Wanting vs needing, liking vs using, etc etc. I certainly don't in any way feel that someone is obligated to sell or 'share the wealth' of what they've worked for or collected over the years. If staring at it sitting unused in the corner of a dark room or garage blows your skirt up, more power to ya. It's still pretty much a free country, for the time being. In my case it was the epiphany a few years back that these toys or gems can become a stone around your neck. They can keep you from getting to the stuff you really want to or enjoying the gear you truly want to use. From my perspective, it's easier to cull the herd. Of course, moving it all 800+ miles in multiple trips was an opportunity to get re-acquainted and understand just how fond (or not) I was of some item. After parting with several receivers and other items that were dear to my heart for some reason or other, I've not missed any of them or regretted it. Or felt the need to replace them. My T-368 was a wedding gift from a good friend, and it's almost working right, so it's here for the duration.

That said, the TS-440 would've been the first thing out the door.

[Bill, KD0HG]

What Todd wrote makes perfect sense. Moving makes one sort out priorities.

When I moved here some 14 years ago, for a lot of things, I had to decide what to keep for the new ham shack and what not to.

I sold the S-Line and Johnson T'Bolt and used the proceeds for a new Yaesu FT-100D mobile rig, 100 watts, all mode DC to daylight. LOL, it's never been out of the pickup truck.

The only two AM transmitters in the shack are the ART-13 and the homebrew 304 KW rig. I don't need anything else. I wouldn't take a KW-1 if someone gave to it me for free. Seriously. The main HF receiver is the R-390A and I use the R-389 for listening to the broadcast band. Two transmitters, two receivers. All work fine, reliable, will last forever. I'm a busy guy and don't have the time and energy to take on any major work.

FWIW Bear, you don't need to do a full restoration and repaint on that T3, just fix the basics and put it on the air.

Bill

[Steve - K4HX]

"Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie."

[KB5MD]

It's all "stuff" and everyone needs "stuff".  Some of us just want more "stuff" than others.  It's not all necessary "stuff" but enjoyable "stuff" and that's why I have quite a lot of "stuff".  If I don't quit bringing home more "stuff", my wife may tell me to "stuff" it.

[W3RSW]

"Stuff" is now the new "malarkey.". I heard it on a national venue.

Yeah, it's funny how we love our radios and what we do with them.  I fixed up a little more the BC 348 Q than JN sold me, shined it up and presented it to a dear friend who was born in 1943, the year it was constructed, and who's father was a navigator in a B17 over Germany.

Told her that maybe it was on the plane he flew.  Very small chance, of course; most likely "his" was deep sixed or sold as surplus in England. Maybe even shot down after he left the theater - based at Pollbrook, UK.  The base has been plowed back into farmland for some years.

...but I wonder where and who all used that rig. Perhaps sold surplus as new here.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Admitting them and giving up dreams is part of this. Or not wanting to give up dreams...

Not to mention that cutting a check for a perfectly restored one simply wouldn't fill the bill for me. It would be like being defeated on some cosmic level.

The decision is to move on to some other victory and source of satisfaction, but with no regrets, or not.                         

You're setting up false limitations unless your assumption is that it has to be all or nothing. As Bill says, you don't need to have a transmitter completely restored cosmetically or anything else to put it on the air and use it. It needs to work electrically, the rest can be a work in progress. Same with replacing it at a later date should you decide to sell it, you aren't required to pay top dollar or buy a pristine unit needing nothing unless you put that limitation on yourself.

The only two AM transmitters in the shack are the ART-13 and the homebrew 304 KW rig. I don't need anything else. I wouldn't take a KW-1 if someone gave to it me for free. Seriously. The main HF receiver is the R-390A and I use the R-389 for listening to the broadcast band. Two transmitters, two receivers. All work fine, reliable, will last forever. I'm a busy guy and don't have the time and energy to take on any major work.

I bet it feels good too, Bill. Best part is, should you get a hankerin' to build or restore something else, nothing is standing in your way. That's the place I wanna be at. It'll be a couple more transmitters, but far less of everything than I have now.

"Stuff" is great until you or someone on your behalf has to deal with it all. It's the difference between an estate that takes a week or to for the family to liquidate or one that takes a week or two for the salable radio gear and a month or two of clearing out boxes and piles of "stuff", much of which is likely to hit the dumpster if sharp eyed radio friends aren't helping out. And even they get sick of it after a while and start pitching.

At Shelby this year I took a big step: I went from a former dumpster diver to someone throwing away "stuff". I donated an Altec audio amp and a few other bits to the Club table. Brought home only half a dozen unsold items. It felt good. Of course, now that I've made the leap, deciding to sell stuff isn't the problem. Finding someone who wants it is. With the prices T-368s in fair-to-average shape are bringing these days, you'd probably be better off keeping it if you aren't pressed for money.

I've found in my situation that even thinking about selling something says it needs to go. If you truly want something, the thought doesn't cross your mind.

[K6JEK]

When I was Fourteen, I wanted to buy a 1965 Ford Mustang, which I thought was the best car ever built. Of course, a plumber's son living in backwoods New Hampshire couldn't afford a 1965 Mustang, couldn't drive one (legally), and couldn't figure a way to get from condition "B" to condition "A".

...
The car club has a rally on the first Tuesday of the month during the summer. They line up old vehicles beside their old owners, and sometimes there's a '65 Mustang there. I think to myself that I am a little bit older now, and I have a little jingle in my pocket now that the kid is out of the house and the mortgage is paid, and that I could afford that car or one a lot like it. When I think that, I also think that I don't know if I could get parts, and I don't know if I could get if fixed if there was an accident, and I don't know if I'd be able to find a proper garage for it or how to keep it from rusting out the way they do sometimes, and I remember that the girl I wanted to take for a ride in 1965 is a grandmother now.
...

What you need is a brother-in-law who has one. That's what I have. The only problem is the Mustang he bought and restored when they were out of fashion is now worth a whole lot of money so I have to be careful with it which is difficult because it is such a kick in the pants to drive -- 66 Hertz Shelby GT 350H.  Piece of cake to get parts for the Mustang.

[WBear2GCR]

Admitting them and giving up dreams is part of this. Or not wanting to give up dreams...

Not to mention that cutting a check for a perfectly restored one simply wouldn't fill the bill for me. It would be like being defeated on some cosmic level.

The decision is to move on to some other victory and source of satisfaction, but with no regrets, or not.                         

You're setting up false limitations unless your assumption is that it has to be all or nothing. As Bill says, you don't need to have a transmitter completely restored cosmetically or anything else to put it on the air and use it. It needs to work electrically, the rest can be a work in progress. Same with replacing it at a later date should you decide to sell it, you aren't required to pay top dollar or buy a pristine unit needing nothing unless you put that limitation on yourself.

Quite true what you say.
But that's not "it".
The way it works around here is that there is exactly one pass at getting something done. Very rarely is there time or energy to go back and refine or re-do.
So, it's one shot.

This one happens to need a replacement ANT LOAD vacuum variable, which will require some fabrication of the mount adapter and the shaft coupler, the mods to the tank circuit, and the like... It's not going to be a one day repair. (well maybe if everything falls exactly into place, but when the heck has that ever happened for me??) So, I don't have a full day to spend on anything! Not right now. That means it gets spread out over time, maybe months... ok, that's not good.

This is the nature of the situation at the moment, and the crux of the issue. If I had free sailing, or if and when the demands on my time let off then this changes.

In other words there's no easy way to get this or a slew of other really great projects done... maybe if I had several thousand sq ft of lab space with benches to match (and I didn't fill them with carp) yeah, I could work it piecemeal.

I know, what I need is an ok fine business lab assistant!
The pay sucks, but think of the fame, and glory!!

                        _-_-bear

[Bill, KD0HG]

OK, what sort of vacuum DO YOU NEED?

Ask here or on Ebay on the "Wanted" section, or I or someone else might have your need.

Don't know who originally said it, but, "Run What You Brung".
Hang a bread slicer variable in there for now.

C'mon, you can fix it, others have had worse challenges!

Light that sucker up, I don't care if it's butt-ugly.
No one else does.
It sounds all the same.
Paint it next summer.

Catch you on 75. Get your arse in gear. You got maybe 4 months of good DX ahead.

Bill

[KK4YY]

Oh, but there is an easy way...

If your willing to use the rig on one band, just experimentally select a few fixed value caps (a series/parallel kludge of 1.6KV disc ceramics maybe) to get it to load up in the AM window.  No mechanical mods... won't take long to do. In the future, when you find an exact replacement vacuum cap, just unsolder the "patch", pop it in, and the radio will be returned to it's original grace and glory... with no evidence of drilling or blasting!

Many a radio has been built with fixed ant loading. I have a Heath HW-12 that works jusht fine like that over the 200 Khz bandwidth that it was designed for (the old, old 75 meter phone band).

This is about the most regret free approach I can imagine. The only regret you're left with now is that you probably could have already made this mod in the time you've taken to read this entire thread (assuming your soldering iron was already warmed up).

Unregretfully,
Don

P.S. Just how bad does the Lab Assistant pay suck? I live only 45 minutes away.

[WBear2GCR]

Well you see, I *have* a replacement vacuum variable.
It's a ceramic in a smaller form factor package.
different shafting.

It's an interesting idea to put a fixed cap in there.
Also an interesting idea to put a bread slicer in there, perhaps with the DC removed from the tank it would hold up and not arc over. But it would take as much to put in the bread slicer as it would the new vacuum variable.

Yeah, we could skip the paint for now (maybe forever) in favor of running it.

I appreciate the encouragement!

KK4YY I have pm'd you...

                _-_-bear

PS. I am on the air, have  been for years on 75m AM with my modified Val-I-Ain't II.

[K6IC]

And,  if the output network is just a Pi,  seems to me that the Loading cap could be placed outside the T-3 ... NO internal mods needed.

I do not have the schematic of a T-3 at the fingertips,  here.

Ger'er on the air.  73  GL,  Vic

[WBear2GCR]

Hey!

Talk about "thinking outside the box"!

That's an idea...

A bit tricky since there is this internal vacuum ant changeover relay... but possible.

However I think, iirc, may be wrong, it's a Pi-L... maybe not.

                 _-_-bear

[K6IC]

Yea,  thought that it might be Pi-L,  at least for lower freqs,  perhaps.

Anyway,  hope you do keep it and get it up and running.  Good Luck,   Vic

[W2VW]

Maybe some out there in radio land has the exact vacuum variable.

There are a lot of T368 pieces and parts floating around.

Perhaps a trade or some other low cost option could be used to save fabrication time.

[K6IC]

Agree with VW David,

Have seen a lot of T-3 parts around,  and think that a number of them were parted out,  perhaps due to aggressive "De-Commissioning"  causing them to be unuseable in their entirety (?).

IIRC,  the loading cap was around 2300 pF,  which is an attractive value for low band amps,  so any parted out caps  may be in use,  and not exactly available.

GL,  Vic

[WBear2GCR]

Yeah, I have yet to come across one... and if they come up, usually they are fetching top dollar. The one I have is pretty easy to adapt, front screw mounting, tapped threads around the circumference of the face.

It took me years before I stumbled across this T-368. Never even laid eyes upon one before that!

Saw them in the Fair Radio Catalog, but that halftone doesn't do them justice!

Ran across the exciter/vfo unit an number of times.

     _-_-bear

[WBear2GCR]

Speaking of decommissioning, someone told me that many many years back now, they were stacked up, I think at the Rome NY airbase, many high and many wide and long...