Hi.

Well, I was too young to remember much about the 1960s, and most of the 
receivers that I've seen from that era still used tubes.  I tend to think 
back on the 1970s when I think of old solid state receivers.  A couple of 
the classics would of course be the Realistic DX150 and the Realistic DX160 
receivers.  They were single conversion superhets with wicked images all 
over the place, but in that day and time you expected images all over the 
place unless you had deep enough pockets to buy one of the double 
conversion superhets.

Allied made some nice radios.  I always wanted an AX190.  I did have a 
single conversion Allied receiver for awhile.  I don't recall the model 
number, but remember it was single conversion, had slide rule dials for the 
main tuning and the bandspread, and the bandspread was calibrated for the 
ham bands.  It had pretty good selectivity.  Mine had been pretty 
misaligned by somebody so I can't say anything about the sensitivity, but I 
suspect that in its day, it was a pretty nice receiver.  That is the hard 
part about buying those old receivers--trying to find one that somebody 
hasn't stuck the golden screwdriver into.

I didn't go solid state in my own shack until the summer of 1979, when I 
bought a Realistic DX300, which is not a receiver that I would go looking 
for if I were you.  It actually made my old 1950s vintage Hallicrafters 
S108 look really good!

The first really good solid state receiver that I bought was the Kenwood R1000.

The Kenwood is probably getting a little too new for the nostalgia buffs, 
but it was a thoroughly decent receiver, and I have many fond memories of 
that radio.  It almost got me thrown out of the dorm at college, though.  I 
tried throwing a wire from my window on the fifth floor out to a 
neighboring tree.  Unfortunately, the dorm director had keener eyesight 
than I thought she did, and the day after I put it up, she came to ask 
about it, while I was at class.  My college roomate talked to her, and 
somehow managed to talk her into looking the other way at an obvious 
infraction of
my housing contract which strictly forbade antennas of any kind.  What a 
prince!

My wire antenna up 5 stories worked great on the Kenwood R1000.  Its a 
wonder I ever graduated with such a magnificent distraction sitting on my desk!

I sure have enjoyed some of the info on the old receivers that Russ has 
posted.  I think I am just as interested in the historical aspect of radio 
with receivers that I've never owned as I am in the oldies that I do remember.

73, de Lou K2LKK



Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
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