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Back in the late '60's and early '70's, during the height of the Cold War, I did alot of
shortwave listening on a Knight Star Roamer kit I assembled, and later on a Halicrafters
SX62. Besides pulling in hundreds of AM stations from most of the US, I picked up quite a
few foreign counties on shortwave. A few I sent reception reports to and in response, I
received the colorful and collectable QSL cards listed below.
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| My original Knight kit Star Roamer. I think
it cost about $39 in 1968. Took a lot of hours to build but was one of the most enjoyable
things I have every done. I picked up more stations on this little radio than I did on my
expensive, commercial built Hallicrafters. |
They don't built them like this anymore!
This was before the printed circuit came out. All point to point wiring. Each wire, each
resistor, each capacitor had to be cut to a certain length. Now you know why it took days
to build. Today all this comes on one IC. |
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| Close up view of the detector section. After
finishing, remarkably, I had only one or two errors. |
Next I bought this used Hallicrafters SX-62
in the 70's for $160. It weighed a ton, had alot of tubes and I used it for a few years.
Sold to a ham after that. |
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| Next in the early 90's I bought this used
ICOM R71A. Kept for a couple of years and then sold. |
The Drake R8B. Bought new for about $1200.
Kept for 2 years and sold to someone in Texas for $900. When it was shipped, UPS destroyed
it. I had it insured for $1100 so I made $200 on the deal! |
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| Then I add this Icom R75. I connected to the
computer and used it to receive weather faxes, RTTY and CW. I sold it this year to buy the
used radio to the right. |
My latest and greatest radio, a used Icom
745 HF transceiver I just bought on Ebay. I am working on getting my General ham licensee.
This rig will allow me to transmit and still receive shortwave. |
My QSL Collection
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