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Author Topic: What was your first shortwave radio?  (Read 480732 times)

N2CVE

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #75 on: March 09, 2012, 08:32:22 AM »

A brand new, out of the box Lafayette HA-350.

Jim
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KB7AIL

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #76 on: March 14, 2012, 04:39:25 AM »

Two at the same time:

Hallicrafters S-38C
Some sort of Japanese portable radio with AM-FM-SW.

The Hallicrafters was a gift from "Mr. Z" the neighborhood electronics whiz.  At the time (67-8), some of the new tunes were 'broken in' on AFRTS and VOA.  Great to hear the new songs first!

My listening taste was broken in when I was 7 years old.  I was quite sick and needed to be in bed all of the time.  My Dad brought the family 'big wood radio' into my bedroom and I was free to listen to it whenever.  So, I kind of slept in the day and listened to the radio at night.  I developed a love for MW DX that has lasted.  SWL has kind of slowed down and NA is becoming less and less a target for international broadcasters but the mystery of MW propagation is still there!
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WA7KPK

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #77 on: March 19, 2012, 01:50:31 PM »

A second-hand National NC-57 that I got for Christmas, 1965. The bandspread didn't work and there was an entire section of the dial (something like 28-54 MC) that as far as I can tell didn't do anything. I didn't care. I loved that radio. I used it as my primary receiver when I got my Novice license three years later and was still listening to it well into the 1980s.

I remember my sixth grade teacher letting me display a couple of the QSL cards I got during those first few months of shortwave listening on the bulletin board, including HCJB and Swiss Radio International.
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NK6Q

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #78 on: March 22, 2012, 07:34:08 AM »

My first "real" receiver was a National NC-183D.  What a beaut!!

Like a previous entrant, I also got mine from a TV/Radio Repair shop in NE New Jersey.  I was working for the owner part-time during the summer and the NC was just basking in the back of the shop window.

I sure can't remember what I paid for it and its matching speaker, but WHAT A RIG!! It worked perfectly.  I remember listening to Radio BBC, Radio Moscow, and Radio China.  It was a super Novice receiver; I couldn't have asked for better.

Sometimes I get the itch to try locating and buying one, but I think I'll just keep it in as a memory of a 15 year-old kid some 45 years ago.
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VE2ITZ

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #79 on: March 27, 2012, 07:03:56 PM »

Of what i recall, (Since i was only about 4 years old) It was a Nordmende Globetraveller. It wasnt really mine, but it was through this that I first got a taste to listen to all them weird whisles late at night laying besides my dad in his room. Wonderful memories!

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W8ADQ

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #80 on: April 18, 2012, 11:20:32 AM »

My first experience with shortwave was a Capehart five tube two band table radio.  No RF stage, just a 12BE6 trying its best not to load down the RF input tuned circuit.  It worked surprisingly well for as simple as it was.  I actually miss the thing.   :)

73
Jack KK4HZP
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N0MKC

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #81 on: April 19, 2012, 07:49:02 AM »

A Hallicrafters Sky Buddy - spent many hours with it & a pair of headphones...  Acquired it second-hand in 1966, lost it in '71 due to some rather regrettable circumstances (but that's another story), and have missed it ever since.
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N3HAM

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #82 on: April 19, 2012, 05:15:29 PM »

A KnightKit StarRoamer I built in '63. Had to work with Dad on the weekends in his electrical business to pay for it. He worked two jobs to keep us going. Loved the Old Man and the radio. He may be gone now God love him, but the radio is still here, and the Little Kid comes back every time I fire it up. I know somewhere he smiles too.    Jerry.
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KF6HCD

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #83 on: April 20, 2012, 05:25:47 PM »

In 1974, a cousin gifted me a Hallicrafters SX-62A. I was 11.

The tuning string was broken and shredded and wrapped around the tuning wheels. It took me a week of trial and error to replace it with some monofilament fishing line.

It was tough, but it was a great learning experience. The radio never failed me for 20 years. Then a roommate stole it and hit the road.
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WD4CHP

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #84 on: April 22, 2012, 03:52:34 PM »

My first SW receiver was one that my music teacher gave me. She wanted to use the cabnet to make a curio cabnet out it.

You know the kind. On/Off volumn, Tuning, band switch and another couple if you lost a knob.

I had a basement bedroom and used the window frame for an antenna.

Bare chassis and no ground. I was lucky.

My next one was a Knight kit ocean hopper.

I still have it but needs work.

I still have all the extra coils.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2012, 04:01:50 PM by WD4CHP »
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N8JAX

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #85 on: April 29, 2012, 07:08:51 AM »

My first SW radio was a Knightkit R100A which I built in 1966 when I was about 22. I used it quite a bit while studying for my novice exam. Basically, I lost interest in it it and got into (gasp) CB. I sold it to an Uncle of mine who at the time,  was also into 11 meters. He used it, I was told, to listen to amateur radio. Many years after he passed away, his widow called me and said the radio was just sitting around gathering dust. She gave it back to me and I cleaned it up a bit. Today, it sits in my present shack and I still use it to listen to world wide shortwave and ham operator's. It doesn't have the all the bell's and whistle's of today's rigs. But there is still something to be said about spinning a dial on a 3 gang variable tuner and bandspread dial, while the tubes glow and station's pop and crackle through the phones. This is why some of us still hold on to our boat anchor radio's because they represent older technology that still work in today's world.
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WA4JEA

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #86 on: April 29, 2012, 10:23:50 AM »

Realistic DX-150... and I still have one in the shack just for fun!

73,

James WA4JEA (was WD8PGP back in 1978 when I got the DX-150)

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W4HLN

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #87 on: May 01, 2012, 04:29:52 PM »

Montgomery Wards Airline Model 62-207 1935 original and still has the warranty and price tag hanging from the cord. My grandmother and Grandfather bought it new...Its still here and still works fine!

Not my radio but this is it...Mine is in much better shape!

http://antiqueradios.com/gallery/d/68331-2/La+France+Dial+new+knobs.jpg
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WX4O

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #88 on: May 02, 2012, 07:19:56 PM »

Mine was an unremembered brand of regen. radio. It actually worked pretty well. This was in... 1957?
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KD5KFL

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RE: What was your first shortwave radio?
« Reply #89 on: May 05, 2012, 09:43:21 AM »

Hudson Superheterodyne. Art Deco defined.
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