The GPR-90 is home. This is my 1st tube shortwave radio. Stability is amazing, not used to setting radio china and not having to tough the tuning dial for hours! Will report more on use later. Audio quality is really good.. Tech only did an alignment and replaced two tubes, rest was ok.

http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/...psb6291bb1.jpg




On Tuesday, July 2, 2013 5:15:57 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tuesday, July 2, 2013 12:33:10 PM UTC-4, Michael Black wrote:

On Tue, 2 Jul 2013, Channel Jumper wrote:











'Michael Black[_2_ Wrote:



;806491']On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, wrote:



-



My restored, aligned GPR-90 is coming home tomorrow - excite to try the







beast on my long wire antenna! Will report later, maybe post a video.



-



I paid $20 for mine at a garage sale last August. I didn't get out to



the



garage sales early, so by the 1pm or so I expected to find little. I



turn



down a street where a sale had been advertised, and a couple of houses



away I could see a shortwave receiver, I couldn't tell what brand or



model, but clearly it was a classic. I get close, it's a TMC GPR-90.. I







figure it will be way over my price range, but I ask and they say "$20".







I say "I expected three or four hundred" and they still said "$20". It







was too good a price to ignore. So I haul it home on foot and bus, the







other plans for the day cancelled.







And it sits there, other things in the way. The rectifier tube is loose







in the base, so I have dig out that box of tubes and hope I have one..



And



the fuseholder is missing, the piece that screws in with the fuse. That







may have come off on the trip home. So until I find those pieces, it's







not even getting turned on.







I don't know if it will need much work. Physically it's in great shape,







maybe a bit of rust on the bottom. No case, but that doesn't bother



me.







I assune that if I'd not come along at that point, it would have been



tossed. There have been garage sales at that house before, but this



time



it was younger people, relatively so, and I guess they were the kids



clearing out the hosue. When I did a search when I got home, I found an







earlier ad from the same area offering a GPR-90, so it had to be them.



They tried at $100 and had no luck, so I was the last call I suspect..







I've been going to garage sales since about 1990. And I never saw



shortwave receivers until one rummage sale in 2006, a Grundig Satellite







500. I find one about every year now, some just average analog



portables



with a band or two, but some digitally tuned and fairly high grade, and



I



pay almost nothing. I even got a Grundig mini 300 for 2.00, right after







getting a Sony SW-1 for ten dollars. The mini is an odd thing, single



conversion and analog tuning, and not a great receiver, but it has a



frequency counter so no need to fuss with dials. By making it extremely







complicated, the unit becomes much simpler. It's probably as bad as my







hallicracters S-120A I got in 1971, except with the frequency counter



dial, I can actually tune to a specific frequency. The GPR-90 is the



only



tube receiver in the bunch. I would have expected to find a cheap



receiver like the Hallicrafters S-38 or even a Radio Shack DX-150 long



before finding a GPR-90.







Michael



The Generations change.







The old people dies and the young people thinks that they see dollar



signs and that you can get rich off a old broken piece of junk.







When they realize that there is almost no one interested in it, they



either sell it for what they can get out of it, or they throw it in the



garbage.







The dumpsters at some hamfests are full of unwanted boat anchors.







Well you should have been around forty years ago, when the stuff was



really unwanted. It was tubes, it was am only, and nobody wanted it,



which made it cheap. Endless stuff that is now expensive passed around



for little or nothing. And that attritiion helps to make the current



equipment more expensive, since supply has gone down as demand goes up.







Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.







Not much call for a AM radio - not much to listen to anymore.







The GPR-90 was a mid-range receiver, not up there with the R388 but better



than a lot of stuff. It's not an "AM radio", it's a shortwave receiver..



And like so many of that era, it lacks a product detector but you can use



it for SSB by turning down the RF gain, turning up the audio gain.







But if you can find a general coverage receiver that does the Amateur HF



bands, there is still a lot to listen to when the bands are open.







Hook it up and enjoy.







If you do not have a amateur radio license, get one.







If you can fix a old radio, I'm sure you can study and pass a couple of



35 question, multiple guess tests...







You are clueless. You haven't noticed me posting in other newsgroups?







I'm sure by your CB handle I've been licensed longer than you, since June



of 1872, and the test was a lot harder here in Canada since it wasn't



aimed at the beginner.







Michael



That is amazing... What type of a Time Travel Machine do you have?

On Monday, July 1, 2013 1:49:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
My restored, aligned GPR-90 is coming home tomorrow - excite to try the beast on my long wire antenna! Will report later, maybe post a video.

I have owned DX-150s, 160s, Drake R8s, Grundigs, the list goes on and on. None of those get close to the quality or stability of this GPR-90. Of course, the thing is so big it is a pain in the ass to locate in the house, but net of that (maybe I will set it up vertically - would that hurt the tubes in any way?) it is one of if not the best shortwave receiver I have owned. I may keep this one for a while.

On Fri, 5 Jul 2013, wrote:

On Monday, July 1, 2013 1:49:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
My restored, aligned GPR-90 is coming home tomorrow - excite to try the
beast on my long wire antenna! Will report later, maybe post a video.

I have owned DX-150s, 160s, Drake R8s, Grundigs, the list goes on and
on. None of those get close to the quality or stability of this GPR-90.
Of course, the thing is so big it is a pain in the ass to locate in the
house, but net of that (maybe I will set it up vertically - would that
hurt the tubes in any way?) it is one of if not the best shortwave
receiver I have owned. I may keep this one for a while.


I thought it was kind of small. But it's been a long time since I had the
use of an SP-600, or close contact with an R388, so I may remember those
as being larger than I remember. Or, I was smaller and so the radios
looked bigger. The GPR-90 seems smaller. Wait, I carried it part of the
way home, so it has to be lighter than the SP-600, which I could barely
move on the desk.

Michael

wrote:
On Monday, July 1, 2013 1:49:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
My restored, aligned GPR-90 is coming home tomorrow - excite to try
the beast on my long wire antenna! Will report later, maybe post a video.

I have owned DX-150s, 160s, Drake R8s, Grundigs, the list goes on and on.
None of those get close to the quality or stability of this GPR-90. Of course,
the thing is so big it is a pain in the ass to locate in the house, but net of
that (maybe I will set it up vertically - would that hurt the tubes in any way?)

Interesting question. This information used to be present in the tube
manuals, some of which, such as the old RCA Receiving Tube Manual, are still
available as reprints. A wild guess would be that it would be the older
tubes, plus the power output tubes, that you would have to worry about.

it is one of if not the best shortwave receiver I have owned. I may keep this
one for a while.

So who made the GPR-90?

George Cornelius wrote:

wrote:
On Monday, July 1, 2013 1:49:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
My restored, aligned GPR-90 is coming home tomorrow - excite to try
the beast on my long wire antenna! Will report later, maybe post a video.

I have owned DX-150s, 160s, Drake R8s, Grundigs, the list goes on and on.
None of those get close to the quality or stability of this GPR-90. Of course,
the thing is so big it is a pain in the ass to locate in the house, but net of
that (maybe I will set it up vertically - would that hurt the tubes in any way?)

Interesting question. This information used to be present in the tube
manuals, some of which, such as the old RCA Receiving Tube Manual, are still
available as reprints. A wild guess would be that it would be the older
tubes, plus the power output tubes, that you would have to worry about.

it is one of if not the best shortwave receiver I have owned. I may keep this
one for a while.

So who made the GPR-90?


Technical Materiel Corporation