wrote in message
oups.com...
I recently received this large single-frequency transmitter
from an elderly gentleman who used to be a ham radio operator.

I have not been able to pin down exactly what it is. Some
folks have given the opinion that it may be an old VOR transmitter.

I'm wondering if someone can identify it? Give a date range?
or any other information?


It looks suspiciously like just another standard government-issue HF
transmitter which we used for point-to-point voice (and CW Morse code)
communication in the Arctic prior to 1965 (and it looked "old" even back
then... at the time I was under the impression that it was WW-II surplus).
Using frequencies in the 4 to 6 MHz range. The physical look was certainly
similar... but I do not recall all the details, such the coil and tube
detail that your pictures show...

It is possible that this gentleman obtained one as surplus and converted it
to work within one of the 40, 80 or 160 meter HF amateur bands???...
possibly even 20 or 15 metres???

From the size of the coils, I doubt very much that it would be a VHF rig of
any type, including VOR.

If not HF (as I believe), it would probably be MF or LF: either an NDB, or a
carrier-provider for FSK teletype. Both were often rigged for voice
modulation which was often used to provide the equivalent of ATIS (only
live, and just once every half hour...you had to catch it). Also, where
aircraft had difficulty reading HF transmissions, the ground station might
use the beacon to reply to an HF call in the hope that the a/c could read
that.

-----

We called it by a short alpha-plus-numeric model identification, something
like *AS8* or so, but I do not recall exactly.

Ours were set up to run at a remote location at the antenna farm. The
microphone jack was not used... the operator's desk would be some miles away
and the remote push-to-talk and audio lines were wired in directly.
(Receivers were also similarly remote several miles in the other direction.
On good days, the HF skip was such that we could hear our contact several
hundred miles away, better than we could hear our own transmitter.)

The main AC power switch is in the lower part of the front panel. When one
our these units was particularly cantankerous for the umpteenth time, I
recall our technician angrily turning it "off" with his foot, with
sufficient force so that it never worked again.

There are collectors of such stuff, and in working order it is probably
worth something substantial. Maybe even if not in working order.