Mike Grimes showed us an unusual, commercial-looking DARB tube-battery set. It has no tuning knob or dial and has only 3 pre-sets that can be tuned with a screwdriver through access holes. This "Holiday Radio" could have been a beach rental radio? (Jim Sargent has a red colored version of it). Mike talked about the 1951 law that created the CONELRAD alert system that put the two marks at 640 and 1240 on AM radio dials from '57 through '63. Hams were required to monitor for alerts, and special receivers were made that either made a loud buzz or operated a relay for activating an alarm - whenever the AVC voltage went away. Mike showed a Morrow 3-tube CM-3 radio made for the purpose.

Richard Klarr showed a Philco 53-707 clock radio that appears to be ready for a lamp on top - there is a hole in its top. (Cliff Huff said that he has one with the lamp.) It is a two-band radio with a "special services" 1700 to 3400 Kc as well as the standard broadcast band. The clock is plugged into the radio chassis. Rich also showed a G.E. portable that uses a 2.2 volt wet cell battery driving a synchronous vibrator. The chassis is an aluminum die-cast design, making the radio very rugged. These radios will not run without a battery installed, but they can be converted. (Our late club member Max Evans used a small, modern 2 volt gel cell).

Mike McCarty showed his wife Mary's MARCO brand "Champ" wooden radio. (Randy James thought it might be Canadian.) The radio has many very unusual features, such as being a 6-tube battery set with a 3-gang tuning condenser, double-tuned RF stage, push-pull output, superheterodyne that works from either 6 or 2 volts. It has a high impedance speaker with a steel wire driving the apex of the cone and a center-tapped coil for the push-pull drive. There are no values identified on the capacitors. The tube lineup is 3 no. 30's, a 1B5, a 1A6 and a no. 34.

*We were shown an Arvin radio having very stylish arrow-shaped knobs.

Cleo Cherryholmes told us about the first radio parts store founded by Hugo Gernsbach in 1900. Many years later, Radio-TV News published an article about the first radio sold to the public. It was advertised in Scientific American for January 1906 as a "wireless telegraph system". Cleo's replica of that radio system was on display. (He said that one of the originals is in the Henry Ford Museum.) Since there were no radio stations at that early time, the system included both the transmitter and the receiver. The transmitter is a simple spark-gap type dipole (reminds one of Heinrich Hertz's setup). The receiver is a similar arrangement with a "coherer" type detector. The detector was the biggest challenge for Cleo - getting the right material for his self-made detector to work properly. With luck, this setup works across the room. (Mike Grimes said that a spark igniter such as found in barbeque and cigarette lighters has been made to serve as the source of high voltage for a simple spark transmitter.)

George Potter displayed and discussed a number of pieces of very early de Forest wireless apparatus. He said that de Forest bought most of his parts from the Electro-importing Company, including rheostats and other parts. George has two spherical Audions with the original brass tags. De Forest made a number of "Radio-junior" sets. The RJ-9 was an open-back L-shaped affair. The RJ-6, 7 and 9 were tuners. George said "there are a lot of replica parts out there". He also showed 3 makes of tubular "audiotrons". He lamented the fact that de Forest and Marconi wasted so much time in litigation over patent rights that radio technology was held back for a time. If the two had gotten together, de Forest's vacuum tube detectors would have greatly improved the performance of Marconi's products.

Jim Sargent showed us a rare example of a Crosley SIX (spelled out) versus the Roman numeral designation VI. Otherwise the two radios are very nearly identical.

Pat Jankowiak showed a collection of tubes of widely varying application. A prized item is his very early, very large (about 5 inches diameter) photocell tube for a flying-spot scanner. He showed a Transmit/Receive radar switch for 8 to 9 GHz, a larger 3 GHz device, an RCA 196D voltage regulator tube that is adjustable via a diaphragm, a 1 GHz planar diode, an early digital readout display tube and a 30 second time delay relay. Also shown were two mercury vapor rectifiers, an 875A and a graphite anode no. 673 rated at 15Kv and 1.75 amps (that's over 26 kilowatts!). Pat has a bulk quantity of Western Electric 717A tubes, a UHF pentode ca. 1945. A scientific specialty item is his hollow-cathode tube used to produce light for spectrometer calibration. His 150 Kv, 50 ma X-ray-machine rectifier tube is impressive.

Ed Janssen showed two appliance timers - a Philco-brand clock timer and a pneumatically controlled one in the form of an owl.

*One member displayed his home-brew ham transmitter, based on a type 801 tube in a Hartley oscillator configuration. It is complete with 160, 80 and 40 meter coils and uses an adjustable link for tuning. It is good for 20 watts - 40 watts at 600 volts.