Rare Today, Gone Tomorrow?

Government surplus radio equipment
Government surplus radio equipment
Government surplus radio equipment that was removed from aircraft, such as B-17 and B-29 bombers, that had flown over Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan during WWII.

Contributed by Ed Sawicki

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There are 3 comments for this item.

Posted by Ed Sawicki at 7:17 pm (PST) on Thu December 22, 2022   
I knew a ham who connected his oscilloscope to his HF receiver and made it function as a "panoramic adapter,"  allowing him to see signals (pips) on either side of his receive frequency. I wanted that so badly, but I didn't have the knowledge at the time.
Of course, anyone with an SDR (software-defined radio) has that these days.
In my early 20s, I worked for Tektronix for about ten years and became intimately familiar with oscilloscopes and other lab equipment.
Posted by Duff at 9:14 am (PST) on Thu December 22, 2022   
I probably went to the same government surplus store, but I got an oscilloscope.  Luckily, it ran on household AC.
Posted by Ed Sawicki at 11:34 pm (PST) on Wed December 21, 2022   
My geek teenage buddies and I would take the bus into Hempstead (Long Island, New York) to a government surplus store. I bought a radio receiver and transmitter that had likely flown over Germany or Japan. It was very cool to own these pieces of history. Buying them was the easy part. Making them work was harder.

At the time, military aircraft generally powered their electronic equipment with 24 volts DC. Additionally, these radios used "dynamotors" to convert that 24 volts into the other voltages needed for the tube circuitry. Sometimes the dynamotors came with the radio and sometimes they were missing. If the dynamotor was included, you could build a 24-volt power supply.

If the dynamotor was missing, you'd have to build a power supply to provide the voltages needed by the tube circuitry. Fortunately, articles appeared in hobbyist magazines that helped with this.

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