National HRO 5TA1 Receiver

A classic receiver, first built in the early 1930's, the HRO was much favored by the military community for its high sensitivity and high selectivity - the dial giving an effective scale length of 12 feet. It quickly became a wartime standard and many found their way into private hands as post-war surplus.

The National HRO series of receivers are like no other, at least in appearance! Their distinguishing feature is the use of a removable coil pack for band switching and a large, heavily weighted tuning drive wheel above that gives 10 full turns of indexing. There is no frequency readout although the front of each coil pack gives a dial/frequency graph for that particular band.

The HRO, as designed by James Millen, first appeared around 1935 and production ended in 1946. The price of $300 made it a luxury item until its adoption for extensive wartime use.

This unit, serial L 90, has been wonderfully restored by Ray Bintliff W1RY and is now owned by W1UJR.
Click on the icon to check out my own recent HRO restoration .