Wow, I lit a loaded fart off here, didn't I?

First, I said use a Hallicrafters band switch and an Eddystone dial
because there's probably a market for those with old Hallicrafterses
with bad bandswitches and with regen builders respectively. The
problem with the Hallicrafters band switch replacement market is that
there are so many DIFFERENT ones, if they were all the same they'd be
reproduced. Remember rotary switches are modular, to a degree, the
company that makes them builds them out of mostly off the shelf parts,
and in fact you CAN get new ones built, but the problem is that they
cost more than the value of most hallicrafters radios, since they have
to put them together as one offs. 500 units takes the price from $400
to $25-50 each. At twenty five bucks a shot you could sell a couple
hundred in six months....IF you had a unit that went into enough
popular radios.

Eddystone dials are a similar thing.

The market has to be a mix of nostalgia and survival mentality. Yes,
a solid state radio can be made EMP proof, or highly resistant, but it
takes some doing.




As far as power in such a situation....In the old days they used car
batteries for heater voltages and a stack of dry cells, a dynamotor or
a vibra-pack for B+..

Look carefully at the old Collins and National sets. They developed
it to something of a fine art.

As an aside, any "survivalist" with half a brain has buried a couple
of solid state complete radios as well as a pile of surplus
semiconductors useful post-Blast in old ammo cans. A stash of common
bipolar and FETs, silicon diodes, common chips for radios and whatnot,
buried under ground could be more valuable than gold and at a hell of
a lot lower current acquisition price today. Some discussion on which
types would be interesting.

I don't consider myself a survivalist but I have a couple of guns and
some ammo buried along with a couple of full jerry cans of 100LL avgas
(it doesn't go bad) and some electronic stuff, plus some garage sale
Craftsman tools, some spools of wire from a motor shop (short ends),
and a couple things I won't mention. Better safe than sorry I figure.