Antonio Iovane wrote:

Thanks to all.
It would make no sense using them in a ham radio station these days.
They are heavy, space wasting, power consuming and noisy (they have a
fan and electro-mechanical channel selection) and do not offer any
advantage as compared to modern UHF stuff.

Wait, wait, stop here.

You've missed the whole point of ham radio. Ham radio is supposed to be
fun. It's an avocation.

If you want reliability and convenience, go out and buy an Icom. If
you want something fun, the R-278B is more likely to fill the bill.

Their destiny probably is dismantling, but so far I'm refrained from
doing this in front of such a sample of vintage radio and mechanical
technology. Mechanically they are pieces of art: all of the many
rotating mechanisms bear precision roller bearings (gears, shafts and
so). Indeed I dismantled completely a third one some 25 years ago, and
thas has been better than a workshop on mechanics and radio design. I
think I will save at last one as a future "historical" reference.

Again, if you put a downconverter in front, and an FM detector in back,
it could be useful for lots of things. You can modify a cable TV block
converter to do the job, or make your own with a nuvistor mixer and
a VHF oscillator. It's supposed to be fun.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."