I have been a Amateur Radio (Ham) since high school. Back then the top of the line equipment was built by Collins Radio. It was their "S-Line" which consisted of a separate transmitter and receiver. They also made a transceiver (a transmitter and receiver in one box) called the KWM-2. There was no way a high school kid could afford anything like that. I got lucky though. When I started college at Seattle University I was given the "work study" job of maintaining the college's amateur radio station. Legally, you can't get paid for operating a ham station, but you can get paid for maintaining it. And the heart of that station was a Collins S-Line. I was in ham heaven! Unofficially, my job primarily consisted of providing telephone calls via radio (called phone patches) to Hawaii for the students from there attending the university. We also ran phone patches for the University of Washington's Antarctic station. So I had 4 years of using the best amateur radio equipment available at the time.
You know how some grey hair and no hair folks, guys mainly, like to relive some of their past by acquiring something they couldn't afford back then. For most, it's cars or motorcycles. For hams, it's old tube type radios, mainly Collins. Well over 10 years ago, maybe even 15, I purchased some surplus Collins radios from a guy in Canada. They consisted of an S-Line, slightly older models than what we had at SU, two KWM-2s, an amplifier and a few other things. All of these were guaranteed NOT to work.
So the radios pretty much just collected dust, except for the amplifier, until this winter when I got the urge to attempt to restore them. I got the amplifier working right after I purchased it and have been using it with some of my more modern equipment since. All this brings up an interesting fact. These are tube radios that put off a nice glow in the dark. I went to college studying engineer right at the start of the transistor age. The professors decided my freshman year that they would not teach tube theory, concentrating instead on transistors. What I know about tubes I pretty much learned because of amateur radio and not from my formal education.
So, after several months of work, I'm now the proud owner of a completely operational Collins S-Line and amplifier. They are the gray radios across the top. And I'm well into getting the better looking KWM-2 working using the other one for parts. I had already stolen some parts from the one to get the S-Line working.
This is the front panel of the KWM-2 I'm restoring.
The front panel of the "parts" radio
The chassis of the almost restored radio all cleaned up nice and pretty.
And the chassis of the parts radio
I hope to get back to finishing up the restoration work when I get back from this little trip I'm on down south. More about that in the next blog. I have to repair the power supply, a separate unit, and then "smoke test" the KWM-2, tune it, etc. There is quite a bit more to do before it is operational, but it's looking pretty. I'm thinking I might sell the KWM-2 when it's done since I'm not as emotionally attached to it as I am the S-Line for the reasons stated above. And, selling it restored will pretty much cover what I paid for the entire lot.
The next couple of blogs will be around my trip to warmer weather and the mini family gathering we're having in Moab, UT. next week.
1 comment:
My sister was a avid ham radio operator for years. When she became ill, it was still something she could do and she enjoyed it to the very end of her life.
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