SX-28 History

[Opcom]

This seems to be as good a place as any to share a postcard from Hallicrafters. Found it in a drawer at my parents' house.

I was 13 and found an SX-28 at a garage sale. I talked to my dad, he was a bit put off by the $50 they wanted, but once he saw it, decided to let me have an extremely large advance on my allowance and extra chores to earn the money. I will always be grateful for that. I was in love with that radio set's coolness, but it had problems. My dad and I  put newspaper down and put it on the kitchen table to work on, but we were not able to repair it without the manual.

The image is the inquiry card sent to us by Hallicrafters confirming that the manual was available for $5. This post card was to be sent back in an envelope with the funds, but my dad possibly misplaced it because he called them 'long distance' and placed the order by phone then sent an air mail letter with the payment and order # inside. So this little card is probably unusual to find, today.

[KA3EKH]

Think it’s a receiver that you loved or hated, not much middle ground. Myself never warmed to any of the receivers with a band spread and always preferred direct reading receivers. About the time you were falling in love with the huge Art Deco SX-28 with its hundred knobs and tubes I was falling for the clean minimalist design of the BC-348, so what if it covered the entire 80 meter and 40 meter Novice sub band in half a turn of the tuning knob it still was cool.
Back in the seventies a bunch of us kids got our licenses thru the local Ham club and a friend of mine had a SX-28 he bought at a Ham fest and I had the BC-348Q, from what I recall It took two of us to move the SX around. Imagine back then we were scrawny teenagers and now our excuse for needing two people to move a radio is that we are too old.
Did a quick WiKi look and it says around thirty thousand SX-28 were produced and also shows a picture of one installed in the oval office for Harry Truman. Don’t imagine any military radios like the BC-348 ever got that far so that’s one for the big Hallicrafters.

[Jim/WA2MER]

I love/hate my SX-28. I love its looks, and the audio fidelity and power are second to none in my book. I hate bandspread operation in general, but the good outweighs the bad for me and the SX-28 is my main station receiver for AM QSOs. If it only had the dial accuracy of my 75A-4 I'd be in heaven. I completely rebuilt and aligned it, including disassembly of the RF box to access all of the components therein. I'm glad I did it, but I'd never do another one!

[Opcom]

On mine there's one screen grid bypass cap I can't get to.. and a resistor that must be opening and closing periodically because it jumps back and forth in frequency a few KHz. This is in addition to a slow drifting around.

I have wondered for a long time if the 'drifty' RF portions could be helped by regulating the line voltage, trying some caps with compensating properties, or even the infusion of transistors... or if it will always be a matter of drift with temperature as well as for no apparent reason.

I cannot hate it. It is one of the most beautiful sets there is, and I have the huge bass-reflex speaker cabinet for it as well. It's always been a wish to have that combo on one side of a comfy chair and a lamp table with some good books on the other.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I love my SX-28A. Of all the receivers I have, it's one of my favorites overall. Not for being the best performer or the best at anything really, but doing a lot of things really well for a late 30's design. And I can't think of a better looking receiver. Art Deco influences mixed with excellent symmetry.... wonderful soundstage and excellent tessa...ooops!

We're fortunate today to be able to enjoy so many fine receivers that were unreachable for most back in the day. The 75A-4 certainly runs circles around the SX-28 and any other receiver of that era and it should, being nearly 2 decades newer in design. But its audio ain't nothin' to write home about. Why would it be? It was designed as a communications receiver. The SX-28 was as much entertainment receiver as anything.

I cannot hate it. It is one of the most beautiful sets there is, and I have the huge bass-reflex speaker cabinet for it as well. It's always been a wish to have that combo on one side of a comfy chair and a lamp table with some good books on the other.

You'll love it in that service - if you can find anything worth listening to. Mine sat on a marble shelf over a large EV speaker for years in the VT house. There was a station out of western NY that played Big Band classics and swing music before being taken over and turned into a Disney station. The SX-28A would shake the windows. But it needs a good going through, so it was replaced with it's younger cousin, the SX-62B in much the same configuration you mention, Pat. In this case, it sat atop a large Collins lobby speaker until Christmas 2018 when the audio transformer and whatever else went up in smoke. Probably bad caps in the receiver, though I'm not sure the Jensen JHP-15 speaker was the correct impedance for it. Sure sounded great playing the old Christmas tunes, though!

Good luck with yours. It's worth the effort to chase down those few gremlins and get it squared away. So long as you don't expect it to perform like a Yaecomwood sand state rig, you'll never be disappointed. A reasonable warm up period and decent line regulation will go a long way to taking care of drift once you replace any faulty parts.

Would love to find the big R-12 floor speaker for my -28. It will get rebuilt someday, hopefully sooner than later.

[Opcom]

I'd like it for an in-home entertainment receiver, but the house is very noisy with burglar alarm,computers, CCTV... I had some good success with one of those 'pro-1B' loops but that is installed in the shack now.