Just thought I'd mention a project that I'm a part of. Here, at the
college where I teach, we've purchased several old Hallicrafter S-38s
off of eBay for our beginning Electronic Engineering students to get
some hands-on experience with communication electronics. The
instructor in Engineering is a Tech class amateur operator and has
formed a little radio club. Despite the fact that most of these
students had never even heard of shortwave before starting their
studies here, they've done an excellent job of re-conditioning and re-
calibrating these old tube radios. This quarter we had them buy the
TenTec regenerative receiver kits, so they could compare the tube
radios to some simple solid state designs. A couple days ago, for
their final project, they took the receivers outside and hooked them
up to antenna and ground system we had assembled. It was a real
delight to see the excitement some of these kids expressed as they
heard signals from the other side of the world that weren't bouncing
off of satellites. A couple of them want to start amateur study groups
to help work towards their licenses. Our goal for the Spring is to rig
a permanent antenna on the top of our classroom building.

I've already donated several radios to the club (including 10 and 2
meter transceivers), but if anyone out there is aware of anyone who
might be willing to make a tax-deductible donation of any equipment to
a group of eager students, please let me know. I'll have them contact
you directly to work out the specifics.

Mike Bryant
General Education Dep't Chair