General Dynamics R-1051B HF Receiver

Demonstration of R-1051B Receiever

[@terrygains8327]

Thanks. Noticed the footy was from today's game. Radios like this were the only way to hear live Aussie sports from here in NZ before the internet came along. Nice to know broadcasts are still going out.

[@gilbercycosta]

A beautiful Radio. Recently I also got an R1051B-URR. that was stopped for several years and after an arduous battle I brought it to Luiz and it's working well.

[@dougshaw4604]

ET3 81-85 assigned to the Lady Lex after schooling this was my equipment. This was also the training equipment in A school. Thanks for the vid some great memories

[@haramanggapuja]

Ah, the memories! We had a whole space full of ‘em on the now-gone-to-scrap USS Saratoga 50 years ago. One of the most beautiful & useful receivers of that time. Often wish I had one just to sit there & remind me of what it was like to be able to copy CW at 20 wpm. ;-) 73 de W8IJN

[@TerryMcKean]

Nice RX :) I was in the submarine service years ago (USS Wahoo SS-565) and that receiver was part of my radio setup on my boat, also had the T-827 exciter and 1KW RF amp in the URT-23 TX to go along with it for a 1 KW RX/TX system , and a smaller rig the WRC-1, a 100 watt RX/TX system too. I forgot the designators for the 100 watt and 1 kilowatt RF amps.. I gotta refresh my memory..I have it all in my brain somewhere..I was trained to repair that equipment while I was in sub school in Groton CT back around 1976 or so....I always dreamed about getting that gear on the surplus market and make a nice ham station :)

[@TerryMcKean]

Here's a nice stroll down memory lane ;) www.navy-radio.com/xmtr-xcvr-ship.htm

[@KG84C]

Terry, I gather that you would have been a gun at tuning the AN/URT-24 transmitter component of the AN/WRC-1. I was an Electronic Technician - Communications back in in the day in Australian Navy (1985-1997). The radio operators generally disliked using them because of the manual tuning, the 23 being able to auto tune, though I could tune the 23 manually just to demonstrate a human can still do it. The 24's interconnect box had settings for antenna length - 15, 25 or 35 ft length antenna. They were retired from Aust navy around 1990 for the locally made solid state AWA "CRH-11" receiver, which could never match the 1051's sensitivity, or whirring sounds.

[@cbeagle]

Picked one of these up, many thanks for the review. :)

[@KG84C]

Would love to get hold of one of these, still have some of HMAS Moresby's Model 28 teletype gear when we went semi solid state back in 1990. Most I worked on were D's and upward. Combine it to Transmitter AN/URT-24 (Not AN/URT-23, but T-827 exciter and AM-3007 100W amp) and you have Transceiver AN/WRC-1, use with CU-937 coupler.

[@TheRudydog1]

For military use dialing in known frequencies was probably a pretty good idea but for general shortwave listening or Ham Radio operation the receiver would be somewhat unpleasant to use. Turning clicking knobs to blindly find stations isn't for me. The R-390/R-390A receivers were not that difficult to use and as they were tuned the signals were automatically peaked with gear-ganged movable coil assemblies. They were immune to EMS and very reliable as well. The R-1051B served its purpose but I will not be adding one to my radio collection. Great video none the less Peter. 73

[@vk4gxc]

Hi Rudydog, thanks for the comment, completely agree its not an easy set for tuning around. I do like the boat anchor build standard however. Its one solid radio and I have generally just sat it on known AM shortwave radio station's and SSB aeronautical frequencies. Really like the r-390 series myself and for my sins just bought another one ! you know you just cant enough of these sets. All the best, Pete

[@klingonbaronessprincesskar5519]

Awesome radio I got the full units the transmitter and shock mounts looks brand new yet I need cables

[@rick601a]

Can this radio be modified to tune the AM broadcast band?

[@gilbercycosta]

Yes, it is possible. I built one for mine. I used a 20Mhz oscillator (that's what I had), an SBL-1 as a mixer associated with a bandpass filter for medium waves. for a tune in 600 Khz the radio must be in 20600 to tune in 1290, the radio must be in 21290. It works very well.