[BC] First Real Receiver

[Stanley Adams]

After making my point about the greatness of the SP-600 as compared to the
lowly Hallicrafters (:)), what I did not say was that my first real receiver
was an old RCA ARB unit out of a Hellcat my dad brought back from the
Pacific.  We home brewed a 110 volt main supply but had to turn the dial
with a little stubby rigged thing since we did not have the tuning box.  It
was sensitive and the band pass was really smooth; could pick up about
anything, too.  Then I moved on to an older RCA AR 136 which I still own (or
better my brother has).  We used that old radio to check for harmonics when
doing proof of performances on the weekend.  Taking a VTVM and using the
basic 20(log) V1/V2 we were able to measure the strength of any harmonic or
spur that we could find.  Boy, it took an entire weekend to find all the
spurs on an old WE 503 series FM.  That was not a clean transmitter as
regards spurs, harmonics were fine as I seem to remember. But using it to
listen to Radio Netherlands, Radio Cuba, WNYW (out of NYC), it was pretty
neat. Pretty read dial too.  And on the topic of EBS (EAS) it had a built in

carrier detect circuit so as to trip a speaker.  



Stanley Adams
Memphis