On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:19:17 -0400, Dave wrote:

Rick wrote:
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:52:49 -0800, John Smith I wrote:


Check ebay, maybe the old coot went ahead and put 'er up 'fer bid! :-$


I'll be darned! He really did put it up on ebay, item number
150103567136, with a starting bid of $475 (no bids yet) and a "Buy It Now"
price of $750.

The guy at the hamfest said he was from Ashburnham, MA, so I'm certain
that's the one I saw at the hamfest.

This is going to be interesting. :-)


I saw that on eBay. I was going to post the reference for you.

Nice to know it is 'TESTED' though.

BTW: I've been watching for a Johnson Ranger. One is listed with a buy it now
price of [are you ready?] $1000.00 !!! for a 30 watt AM radio!!!


Wait till he tries to find a replacement for the temperature
compensating capacitor in the Ranger VFO. It was the failure of that
part and my inability to find a replacement for it 35 years ago that
caused me to sell my Ranger. The Ranger was a nice rig, but $1000?

Of course the Ranger was advertised as a 75 watt radio, but virtually
every transmitter was rated by input back then (plate voltage times
plate current, key down.) Slightly under 50% efficiency was pretty
good. I think my first transmitter, a Heath AT-1, rated at 30 watts
(or was it 25) only put out about 7 watts. We didn't even have a QRP
hobby then. I guess I was ahead of my time in 1956 as a 13 year old
Novice. Its amazing what I actually worked with that rig...and a
Hallifcrafters S-38D for a receiver. I think the bandwidth on that
was the entire Novice Band. No wonder I had very good pitch
discrimination to sort out CW signals. I couldn't do that today.
Mercifully, I got a better receiver the next Christmas...a Hammarlund
HQ-100 (The HQ 180 was a couple year away, and I couldn't afford one
as a teen anyway.)

I think I got $50 or $75 for the Ranger when I sold it back then. The
person who bought it, a lady EE, said she could fix it and when she
couldn't, wanted me to take it back. Sheeesh. If I could have stored
it for 35 years, I probably should have at those prices. I didn't.

Jon, W3JT



YIPES!!