I just picked up a couple of really nice boat anchors at an
auction house that was forced to shut down by recent events.

An AR-88 and an R-96/SR.

Other than obviously needing retubing, I have a couple of
questions.

First, the simplest one. Is there any source for the S-meter
for the AR-88. Mine is the model without it and while it isn't
really needed to use the radio it would be nice.

The second is stranger. I got two manuals for the R-96/SR.
mine is different from both of them. While there is a hole in
the front for the crystal switch, there is no switch, there are
no crystal sockets and most important, there are no numbers on
the face plate where the switch would have been. Has anyone
ever seen one of these? Is it an older model or a newer model
and the crustal option was eliminated? One other question, I
guess. Are parts available for this one, too? The dial bezel
is missing and so is the power connector. Again, neither is
really needed to use the radio but it would make it look nicer.

Oh, yeah. Both work. The AR-88 picks up a lot but doesn't
seem to have the power to drive a speaker. manual says it
only had 2.5 Watts of audio, so maybe that's normal but it
works great with my H-227/U headset. The R-96/SR picks up
some stuff, but I think only strong signals and even some
of them on MW don't come in. Defintely needs retubing.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

bill
KB3YV