Transmitter to a Good Home!

[ashart]

     They say one should always have a bucket list and coming up on 80, I’m no exception.  I’ll soon be an octogenarian and I won’t remember how to spell it!  Prominent on my list is finding a long-term home for my nearly-70-year-old wireless sending apparatus.  It’s the home-brew rig described on www.w8vr.org .

     I’d like to eventually donate it to an established Canadian or American radio museum that (a) is interested in this rig, (b) attracts a reasonable number of annual visitors, (c) is financially stable enough to be around for the foreseeable future, (d) will continuously display the rig, operating or not, but crediting its build to my SK OM, VE1MZ, and (e) will arrange for its transportation.

     If you are associated with such a museum, or know of one, please let me know.  The rig is well documented, operable and maintainable by anybody with good old-time radio skills, and would come with lots of spares.

     Contact me via al@w8vr.org  or via ash@attorneyhart.com.

Tnx.

al hart
W8VR es VE1VI

[AJ1G]

Al -  what a beautiful (and well documented on your web site) restoration!  There are  several folks involved with radio and electronics museums on these forums.  I personally would love to see this rig donated to the New England Wireless and Steam Museum in East Greenwich, RI.  It would look great in their vintage ham station set up on the first floor of the original Massie Wireless System Point Judith, RI spark station PJ building at the museum.   

[John K5PRO]

Another worthwhile museum for your collection is the Spark Museum of Electrical Invention (formerly American Museum of Radio and Electricity) in Bellingham, WA. They have a fantastic collection of radio and electrical equipment going way back. I have spend hours there enjoying the exhibits and tubes.
John Jenkins is the CEO and founder:
johnj@sparkmuseum.org

[AJ1G]

New England Wireless and Steam Museum Web Site:

http://www.newsm.org/

[W3RSW]

A not so subliminal connection, "Wireless and Steam Museum."   I hate to say it but a lot of gear we or our fathers used to use daily is slipping into what recent trending groupies see as Steam Punk.

Long a sci-Fi alternate world, it's almost hit the mainstream.  Groups and clans meet just like Trekkies, wear the garb, exchange cobbled up art including hats with 6L6's on them...you name it.

A world of boilers, steam engines and locomotives. Metallic and armored clothing, factories full of belt driven danger.  ....and coming to a clan meet near you, black crinkle rack panels.  Wait until they discover those and 833's if they haven't already.

I think the AWA having just completed a very nice museum and annex in upstate New York might also enjoy your finely restored transmitter.  www.antiquewireless.org
They will probably even operate it, perhaps in special events as they have the Millen memorial station W2AN.  

[W3RSW]

Meant to add: rigs the AWA routinely operates along with the Millen transmitter (National Radio Co., 1936, very buzzardly by Millen when he was W1HRX)

Collins KWS 1a transmitter w/ 75A4 rcvr..
Replica of 1921 transatlantic 1BCG transmitter (Feb 1922 QST)
1932 phone: 47 xtal, 46 driver, 210 final - pr. 46's class B mod.
1929 TNT using Ux 210 w/ SW 3 rcvr.
Etc.

Interestingly, the hand drawn cartoon on the left side of a W2AN AWA QSL card I received in '94 from Bruce Kelly, W2ICE (sk) and Bob Raide W2ZM shows a crazy ham operating a pulley belt driven bunch of gear, including a rotating squirrel cage with squirrel, insulators on chairs, and tons of Bakelite panels with large knobs, some probably steam or water driven by source outside the shack.

"What comes around goes around."  Amazing.  Perhaps Al, your transmitter belongs in a steam museum after all. If only it will be operated as well.

The right side of the card shows a pix of Bruce and Bob operating the Millen station - Pretty detailed.  The Millen station is first described in the Dec. 1936 QST.  It was given to AWA in '85 and restored in '94 by '2ZM.

I suspect yours will be so documented and operated if donated to the AWA or similar org.

[AJ1G]

A not so subliminal connection, "Wireless and Steam Museum."   I hate to say it but a lot of gear we or our fathers used to use daily is slipping into what recent trending groupies see as Steam Punk.

The New England Wireless and Steam Museum in anything but Steampunk!  It is a museum that was founded by Bob Merriam, who ran a marine electronics business that served the Point Judith, RI commercial fishing fleet.   He built it  around his two passions - steam engines and radio.  The NEWSM has a fantastic collection of working steam engines and other steam engineering items, as well as  an extensive collection of early wireless and radio equipment,  a lot of it still in working condition.  The centerpiece of the radio side of things is the original 1907 Wireless Station PJ of Point Judith, RI including the building it was located in, which  was moved over 20 miles from Point Judith to East Greenwich in the late 1970s.   A fascinating place.  They are open on appointment for tours by school and other groups, and to the public on many weekends.  Their big annual event, Yankee Steam Up, usually occurs in late September, where they fire up (with coal of course) their boiler and run the engines. There is always a lot of radio  side activity that weekend as well. The museum is supported by a large group of volunteers, most of whom work professionally in mechanical  and electrical engineering and share Bob's passion for documenting engineering history. Check out their website...http://newsm.org/

[W3RSW]

Very nice organization and facilities with a lot of commitment, organization and activities.

Sure brought back memories of my early career too.  Appreciated the link.

Hope Natural Gas Co. A subsidiary of Standard Oil, thence Consolidated Natural Gas and now Dominion Resources had 20 National Transit 2000 hp. Steam engines /natural gas compressors (on common bed linked with traveling cross heads and with 13 ft. Flywheels ) very similar to those now installed at the New England museum.

The majority of the Hope Engines were located at Hastings, WVa. in two pump houses.  Babcox and Wilcox boilers fed with coal pulverizing ball mills were on site with hopper car unloading sidings.  All were deactivated in the mid 1960's to early 70's and replaced with Cooper low speed natural gas two cycle recips.

It was quite a complex, complete with water treatment plants, field shops, company town, stores, hotel, fire station and school. The mill and workshop had what we called the "battleship" lathe, 30" headstock and many feet of travel.

These type of horizontal steam engines required a lot of TLC labor. Classifications were oilers, compressor station operators, start, mid and Sr., loaders, machinists of grade, repairmen of grade even leather workers who originally made harnesses, machine belts and strapping and by the 60's made cases for gauges, etc.

There was a lot of brass in those old plants, the neatest of which was in the flying ball regulators and of course brass and copper lines to and from McCord lubricators in later days as they replaced the oil pots. I'll bet some of your exhibitors and care takers used to operate and repair some steam engines in their early careers too.

[VE3AJM]

Hi Al

I suppose that the closest radio museum to your location geographically would be the Hammond Museum of RADIO in Guelph Ontario. I do see quite a bit of Hammond iron in that beautiful HB transmitter that you constructed.

Do you ever get that transmitter on 80m? A bunch of us VE3s get on 3725kc every morning around 8:30am. Maybe we'll hear you sometime.

Al VE3AJM

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I agree with 'AJM - seems like much of the transmitter's history is based north of the border and would be well-served there. Not sure the status of the Hammond museum lately, a few years back word was everything was in storage but in the last year or so I'd heard that it has been re-organized or such. Might all be a bunch of BS, maybe Al can shed some light.

Choose wisely, as once you sign it over to them you lose all control. Some museums will accept donations they have no intention of showing, simply to trade or sell to raise funds. I think it was the late 90s that Leo Meyerson asked for donations to his collection for a display at the Western Heritage Museum in Omaha. Of course he got a lot of good donations and some very rare items. 200+ radios back to 1906, thousands of tubes and so on. A few years later people started seeing their equipment on ebay. The museum got a new director and his view didn't include those dumb old toaster ovens. Some folks blamed Leo, but it was out of his control. He acted in good faith building the collection and tried to find a new home for it when the new director made his intentions clear. The name of the museum was even changed.

I don't even think the ARRL has their history section anymore, a lot of it went out the door in past years.

[VE3AJM]

A group of us VE3 AMers visited the museum in 2008 which is at the new present day location on Southgate Rd. in Guelph Ontario.

The large vintage Collins transmitters such as the 2 KW-1s, KWS1 and the 30K etc. were out on display. They weren't ready on go on the air at that time, and there was no operating position there for those transmitters.
They did have a room with multiple operating positions for some of the Collins S line gear and modern equipment along with a bunch of Hammond HL-2000 linear amps in consoles.

According to one of the curators, some of the big AM txs needed a little work to be done on them to get them operational. But they were having trouble finding local volunteers to get these rigs back on the air, as there weren't many hams in the Guelph area who had a good knowledge of tube type transmitters. This wasn't a problem when Fred Hammond was alive as he would have all those rigs going. I had heard rumours about the Collins Collectors Association folks making a visit(s) to refurbish some of the rigs. I don't think that ever came to pass.

One would have to contact them and find out what their policies are about the equipment that they have or new arrivals. I know that it is an accredited museum.

I wish I lived closer to the location. It would be fun to work on a KW-1 or 30K transmitter.

Al VE3AJM

[w1vtp]

A group of us VE3 AMers visited the museum in 2008 which is at the new present day location on Southgate Rd. in Guelph Ontario.

The large vintage Collins transmitters such as the 2 KW-1s, KWS1 and the 30K etc. were out on display. They weren't ready on go on the air at that time, and there was no operating position there for those transmitters.

<snip>

According to one of the curators, some of the big AM txs needed a little work to be done on them to get them operational. But they were having trouble finding local volunteers to get these rigs back on the air, as there weren't many hams in the Guelph area who had a good knowledge of tube type transmitters. This wasn't a problem when Fred Hammond was alive as he would have all those rigs going. I had heard rumours about the Collins Collectors Association folks making a visit(s) to refurbish some of the rigs. I don't think that ever came to pass.

<snip>

I wish I lived closer to the location. It would be fun to work on a KW-1 or 30K transmitter.

Al VE3AJM

Al AJM

I'd be cautious where your wonderfully restored transmitter goes.  The museum  mentioned earlier on this thread had a LOT of wonderful looking old gear just stored in rooms.  Setting up the more recent gear might be fine for some of the younger hams but to get the real old gear up and running might be a problem for them (or maybe too boring).  I'd be afraid your transmitter might end up shoved against a wall for display purposes in that museum of a wonderful example of a bygone era.

Hope I don't get ostracized for this comment but it just seemed that a lot of the real old gear just gets put up as a display

Al

[VE3AJM]

Hi Al VTP,

I know where you're coming from, and as mentioned, I would look closely into any museum arrangement before donating anything to them. I'm sure Al W8VR will look into that and see which one fits his criteria. Is their vintage gear being used as actively as possible, rather than just being used as a display piece. And then as Todd wrote about Leo Meyersons place, what are the real guarantees that can be given and carried through on for the long term. Important questions for sure.

A prime example of vintage and military gear simply put out on as a static display is the Canadian Military Communications Museum in Kingston Ontario. Beautiful gear there of all kinds, many pieces donated by very well meaning hams, right from the very beginning of radio in the military here, but not a SINGLE working/operating vintage transmitter/receiver to be operated at their ham station at the museum. I thought that was very strange.

The ham station there is a Kenwood of some sort with a Heath linear. And there is serious talk there about gutting all the old equipment of the noxious environmentally toxic oil filled capacitors...if you can believe that....nuts.. And 90% of the gear they have is never seen, as its stored in the back rooms.

Al VE3AJM

[W3RSW]

According to "Dear Abby," a gift once given belongs to the recipient to do with whatever.
This is always her answer after long, wailing and teeth gnashing inquiries are written.
Engagement rings seem to be the most popular gift.  Hard to get much more emotional than that.  Sentiment and etiquette dictate one answer, but common law always trumps that.

I'd seriously consider donating or selling to an individual, an aficianado who your fairly certain will cherish and operate it.  That will get it through another decade or two.  As others have mentioned, people make up the organizations.  People change and I guarentee you, the organizations change too.  The miasma of ignorance creep will gradually fog the best of intentions.

Even if to an individual, if donated take the write off through your estate lawyer mentioned and hope for the best.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Oh no.....it's become.....the AL thread!!! I was afraid this would happen one day! 

If Hammond is back up and running, I'd certainly go for them. At the very least, a place focused on radio/electronics history. Any other museum, and it just becomes another artifact of everyday life that might see daylight for a specific display at some point, then be gone. We always need to keep in mind what a tiny sliver we (the radio nuts of the world) really are. And an even smaller sliver who like the old technology. Regular museums need to display items that attract the general public, or the other 99.999999% of the world. That's what keeps the doors open. So a 'radio' based museum would be a must.

This wasn't a problem when Fred Hammond was alive as he would have all those rigs going. I had heard rumours about the Collins Collectors Association folks making a visit(s) to refurbish some of the rigs. I don't think that ever came to pass.

Never did. It was supposed to be part of a trip there to operate the station for a special event, maybe the HMR or some other event highlighting AM or old transmitters. Floyd Soo contacted me via email about meeting them there to work on the KW-1 (I was still living in VT then). At some point he stopped responding as I think the whole trip idea fell apart.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit if there was nothing wrong with those transmitters beyond operator error. As you say Al(#2), Fred kept those things in top fighting form when he was around. Hard to believe they'd deteriorate just sitting inside. Might be a tube or fuse blown, or maybe the MV rectifiers need to be swapped out for Xenon. Unless somebody roached a transformer while operating.

[W4RFM]

As another old timer who loves to build gear, all  can say is WOW! What a great restoration, I salute you Al.
I do a lot of broadcast gear restorations, and I know how much care and pain your have "spent" on this.
Bob W4RFM

[W7TFO]

I'm with the crowd saying gift it to another amateur, you will have a much better chance for a good home.  And no, I'm not asking, enough here right now.

Museums always make me sad, cause nothing is for sale and lots of what I see would be happier with electrons coursing thru the wires again, and that just doesn't happen.

Plan for a small trust to ensure funding for a archive of just how to keep it running and hopefully beat the 'I don't know how to make it work' syndrome.  That is what kills more vintage gear than not.

73DG

[kb3ouk]

I'm with the crowd saying gift it to another amateur, you will have a much better chance for a good home.  And no, I'm not asking, enough here right now.

Museums always make me sad, cause nothing is for sale and lots of what I see would be happier with electrons coursing thru the wires again, and that just doesn't happen.

Plan for a small trust to ensure funding for a archive of just how to keep it running and hopefully beat the 'I don't know how to make it work' syndrome.  That is what kills more vintage gear than not.

73DG

I also agree with passing it on to another amateur, that way you can be sure that it will get used and appreicated by them and everyone who hears/works it on the air, and not just shoved in some corner in some museum where it may never get used again. Being very young compared to most on here (I'm only 20) I have a really good appreciation for what it takes to keep these old rigs running, since it's not that different than what I do with our antique tractor collection, and old radios are much in the same way as old tractors, there's seeing them, and then there's seeing them operating. Seeing (or even just hearing over the air) something like that in operation is just fascinating and something that you don't get to experience that often anymore.

[N1BCG]

What eventually happened to this transmitter?

Clark

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

From the first post in the thread:

Contact me via al@w8vr.org  or via ash@attorneyhart.com.

That'd be a good place to start, I betcha. 

Hope it finds or has found a good home.