wrote:
wrote:


. . . five dollar 12V ARC-5 Jeep radios . . . or were they 6V?

I've seen 12 volt ARC-5s (special units from a collection) and it was
no hard task to convert them for six volts. Easy compared to
homebrewing.

. . mmmm . . maybe mine was a 24V unit . . heh . . The only mods I
made to my 80M version to change it from a military version to a
Novice ham version were (1) rewired the filaments (2) yanked the the
tubes in the calibration circuit and circular filed 'em (3)
disconnected the roller inductor loading coil from the PA tank circuit
(4) fired it up and used a flourescent lamp tube taped to the antenna
wire to find the "hot spot" along tank coil and soldered the end of the
wire to that spot on the coil and took it to the airwaves.

Founders exits aside it was the "adjusting to the new
market realities"
which knocked out the U.S. radio builders. GM is
still trying to catch
up with Honda. Darwin prevails.

Darwin got some help in those areas, though. Detroit spent the '50s and
'60s building big cars and was completely surprised by the oil
embargoes. American electronics manufacturers, run
by "PROFESSIONALS IN RADIO", didn't know how

I can see him now, sternly lecturing Art Collins about how to design a
ham rig . . .

to compete with
Japanese products. The rest is history.

.. . . Darwin treated those of us out here in the trenches well . . he
did not treat Detroit, Collins or Drake well . .

Or look at the SB-101 from the mid 1960s. $369 for the rig,
almost
another hundred for the power supply, CW filter and
speaker. Say $450 -
for a kit! What's that in today's dollars?

Beats me but the point is there.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation

says:

$629 in 1975 inflates to $2355.99 in 2005

Slick. Love those little Java calculators.

and

$450 in 1965 inflates to $2681.16 in 2005

Either of those will buy quite a bit more rig than a TS-520S or SB-101.

I did a "reverse" run. I paid $500 for my little TS-50 HF mobile xcvr a
few years ago which is far more radio than either of those boat
anchors. I would have paid $99.25 in 1970. Which is about what one of
the early clunker CB SSB xcvrs cost in those days.

If I paid $500 for it in 1965 it would be $2,900+ today, I coulda
bought an S-Line for $2,900.

Ahhh . . the "good old days" . . but enough of wallowing in 'em . .
ONWARD!

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv