VOLUME 17            JULY 2000                NUMBER  7

RADIO MISCELLANEA -- JULY 2000

From Antique Radio Classified for July 2000
(Copyright 1996-2000 by John V. Terrey - For personal use only.)

"Antique Radio Classified" invites its readers to contribute letters and information for inclusion in "Radio Miscellanea" and elsewhere in the magazine. "In The Marketplace" is based on information submitted by the businesses themselves. All topics should be of general interest and sent to A.R.C., P.O. Box 2, Carlisle, MA 01741. All material submitted should be verified for accuracy and may be edited for publication, which is not guaranteed. See the masthead for more details.

Raleigh, N.C., Swap Meet Canceled
Dear Editor:

The Carolinas Chapter-AWA swap meet announced for July 22, 2000, in Raleigh, North Carolina, has been canceled. The cancellation is due to a scheduling conflict with the North Carolina Fairgrounds and to the difficulties I have encountered in trying to arrange a meet more than three hours away from my home.

All future CC-AWA meets will have a local person handling the planning. However, I will continue to do the publicity for such an event.

If anyone is interested in hosting a swap meet in the summer of 2000, please contact me. If possible, I would like a firm date by September 1.

--Ron Lawrence, P.O. Box 3015, Matthews, NC 28106

The close proximity of A.R.C., the organizer of the Westford, Mass. radio winter meet, to the locale contributes greatly to its success. (Editor)

10-Year A.R.C. Fan
Dear Editor:

I've been a continuous subscriber of A.R.C. for 10 years and haven't missed an issue. It's gotten to be a habit, almost as necessary as eating. Except for a few (lent and not returned), I have all my copies.

Just about everything you publish -- the articles, questions and answers presented, auction listings -- everything is useful and interesting. I enjoy reading about the models I serviced in my shop and in homes. Even now, after 43 years in the field and having sold the business, I get to restore an old gem like the Kennedy Model 20 on the bench right now.

Keep up the good work.

--Lawrence M. Kellett, Fond du Luc, WI

Crosley Heir Passes Away
Dear Editor:

Lewis Crosley, grandson of Powel Crosley, Jr., founder of the Crosley Radio Co. of Cincinnati, passed away in Sarasota, Florida, on May 8, 2000. As I said in my February 1999 A.R.C. article, the Crosley summer mansion in Sarasota is being restored partially as a museum for the Crosley collection, dating from the early 1920s to 1956. Lewis was a force behind that effort, which is ongoing.

Born September 8, 1933, at the Crosley mansion, built in 1929, Lewis lived there for only six years. He then moved with his family to their other home in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he grew up. After service in the Air Force, he worked for the Cincinnati Reds baseball team organization, which his grandfather owned. Lewis did not return to Sarasota until his retirement in recent years.

The hope is that the Crosley radio heritage will continue at the mansion, which, as I said in my article, is worth a visit for its spectacular setting alone.

--Dave Crocker, Mashpee, MA

More on Carpinchoe
Dear Editor:

Regarding Ted Rogers' inquiry in the May 2000 issue of A.R.C. [responses in the June issue], engineers at Stromberg-Carlson felt that carpinchoe leather, the skin of a South American rodent, had the best characteristics (strength, pliability, etc.) for attaching the speaker cone to the frame. I was an electronics technician in the Research Lab at Stromberg-Carlson for several months in 1942 and again after my return from Air Corps service in World War II. Helping engineers in the Acoustics Lab, I saw many carpinchoe speakers.

--Dick Bender, Winter Haven, FL

In the Marketplace
Waves on the Move

Dear Editor:

Waves, since 1978 a New York City purveyor of antique radios, phonographs, telephones, TVs, neon clocks, and signs, among other collectibles, is on the move to a new and larger storefront. The location is the Downtime Recording and Rehearsal Building at 251 W. 30 St., between 7th and 8th Ave. A fine selection of vintage recordings from the turn of the 20th century to the R&B rhythms of the 1950s will also be available. Continuing services will include repair services and rental of stock for stage productions, music videos, and other media.

--Charlotte Mager, Waves, New York, NY

On the Collins Auto-Tune
Dear Editor:

I hope the following information about the Collins auto-tune transmitter (May 2000 A.R.C., Miscellanea) proves useful to Alton DuBois. During a tour as an instructor at a Navy Class C Electronics School, we had an AN/URC-32 "Auto-Tune" transmitter, made by Collins, that could tune-up on several preset frequencies. When the old telephone dial on the front was dialed to one of the numbers 1-0, it would tune the necessary doublers and triplers to arrive at the correct transmitting frequency. Then the antenna coupler would automatically tune and load for minimum standing-wave ratio to the whip antenna normally aboard ship.

We had a complete set for training purposes with a whip as found aboard ship. Students were taught in a few weeks to maintain the complex installations. Later, aboard the heavy cruiser USS St. Paul, we had whips coupled to transmitters by similar "Auto-Tune" antenna couplers. Any HF frequency sent to the coupler would cause it to load the whip to the best possible standing wave ratio for optimum radiation. The coupler's main problem was leakage of pressurized nitrogen (used to allow tuning without arcing) causing an interlock system to prevent operation when the pressure fell below a minumum amount.

--Stan Lopes, Concord, CA