Shattering Boatanchor Myths- Hallicrafters And Other Vintage Receivers

Using The 1946 Hallicrafters Lineup To Disprove Radio Urban Legends. Use What You Have!

[@stevenrose7264]

nice

[@jeromeGrzelak]

In the 60s you can hear a vw bug 50 miles away the limiter/blanker helps kg6mn

[@rciancia]

Good to see you using this radio. I restored one of these as well if you recall. Not sure if you opened it up but it has a HOT CHASSIS... so be careful. They have the knobs completely isolated from the chassis.. Its a great radio. - Thanks Ron

[@ArthurJS123]

Ron C This has isolation transformer, fuse, new grommets, and a polarized plug. Not to mention, all new caps, resistors, and tubes. Maybe as safe as it will ever be. Hope you also saw my S40 and SX42 in the video, too!

[@rohnkd4hct260]

love those old radios

[@ArthurJS123]

Rohn Daughtry These all belonged to my father- they are my babies!

[@seemeknowme]

Beautiful SX-42! I've always been fond of their timeless design! Yours is one of the best cosmetic restorations I've seen I think! And she sounds great too!

[@ArthurJS123]

Eric Tesarski Thank you- I tell the story of this family heirloom in an earlier video. She deserved the full treatment.

[@seemeknowme]

Yup, I watched that one too! Keep it up!

[@ArthurJS123]

Eric Tesarski Thank you- just discovered that I’m a distant relative of Lee DeForest- literally, radio is in my blood!

[@seemeknowme]

That's interesting. I'm sure he would agree that real radios glow in the dark!

[@ArthurJS123]

Eric Tesarski He was a terrible businessman, and lucky inventor. If you ever get a chance, try to watch Ken Burns’ Empire Of The Air. It’s here on KZbin, and much watch for anyone into radios.

[@vtradio]

I like your video of these three radios. I actually have all three here is the shack. I don't get to listen to them much though, as I am usually on the air myself

[@danvanlandingham3854]

I have the entire S 38 series in my collection.I wish I still had my SX 42 I bought for $40 back in 1980.You may have to replace more than one tube socket on your set.Every set I've seen restored,the owner replaced all of them as well as the caps and,if needed,the wiring.The wiring on my SX 42 was cracked and I had to reroute the wiring.The ones I have now have cloth covered wiring and its frayed.

[@ArthurJS123]

Dan VanLandingham It has since settled down, after I reseated the tube in the socket. If it continues, I’ll go to Plan B. I actually think the S38 outperforms the S40 in many ways. But it does have very nice quality sound.

[@danvanlandingham3854]

I liked mine.I've also got several "follow up" sets to the S 38:the S 120,S 125,S 200 Legionnaire and the WR 500.

[@ArthurJS123]

In reseating the 6SA7 tube, I actually had success in pulling the tube up from the socket, not by pushing it down into it. Go figure.

[@danvanlandingham3854]

@@ArthurJS123 I have to replace two sockets on my 5R10 as a couple of the tabs snapped.That happened to me on a couple of other sets:an S 200 "Legionnaire" and one of my S 120s.The sockets I bought are porcelain sockets that are new old stock.I'd like to know how I can improve the performance of those S 120s as they weren't cosidered to be good performers from what I've read.I couldn't afford one growing up:I grew up listening to shortwave on 1930s sets I got for the taking.$40 was alot of money when I was a kid.

[@danvanlandingham3854]

@@ArthurJS123 I've also upgraded the speakers in some of mine with higher quality speakers from ebay for around $5.00.

[@Etherionix]

People have equipment so old that it is out of has bad caps, some bad resistors, a weak tube or two and in need of calibration. When properly reworked they can equal today's equipment in many areas. The engineers of yesterday were NOT ignorant fools, their equipment worked very well indeed.

[@ArthurJS123]

Spot on, my friend. Thanks for the great perspective! Arthur

[@Mikexception]

I back that too. As proof I was hoping to have very good SW receiver and my first thought was about Grundig Satellit Because I was impressed once by it's performance in reception with own telescopic antenna comparable to long antenna of pro installation and pro receiver. I got at least such one - it was working perfect but was noisy and not comfortable to manipulate. I wasn't happy to hear constant noise and need to constant switch bands. After I puchased more promising Philips dated 1985 and was glad with reception but again - small sub bands force all time switching and long tunninig. My old 1939 tube home radio received the same with less noise. I said how come? It has only two tubes in HF/IF reception, while modern ones need 50 transistors? Looked for SW tube and found Kenwood Trio - like clone of Hellicrafter It has 4 HF/IF tubes (a lot 😀) Is much less noisy and more than other sensitive while works in full SW band and is nice to manipulate In it is experience and premeditation to make things realy usefull.

[@15743_Hertz]

Well yeah, the Noise Limiter in the S-38 works by taking the volume at a certain level, inverting it and feeding it back into the Product Detector via the BFO tube. Since the noise usually blanks out the received signal, what you have left is the audio that was at a lower level than the cutoff. It's a neat bit of tech for the day and in order to make the S-38A/B/C/D/E sets cheaper, they removed the BFO tube from the circuit and consequently the Noise Limiter.

[@ArthurJS123]

15743 Hertz Forgive me here, but I highly doubt the somewhat primitive circuitry of the S-38 incorporates a product detector. I don’t think single side band even existed in ‘46.

[@15743_Hertz]

@@ArthurJS123 Perhaps my terminology is a bit faulty. There is a circuit in the S-38 series called a "Detector/AVC". In order to create a beat-frequency, the S-38 uses an additional 12SQ7 tube to inject a beat-frequency into the 12SG7 IF Amp. This beat-frequency allows the reception of SSB and CW. SSB was utilized experimentally by the military and Radio Amateurs after WWII with full adoption during the '50s. My Elmer (teacher of all things Radio Amateur), was active during the '50s and commented that when it first came onto the scene, everyone sounded like Donald Duck. As to SSB, it existed as far back as 1915. The telephone company used it in the '30s to transmit voice over long distance cables. 73