Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy_dan
I have 3 Johnson Messenger II Black Faces. It's amazing these big tube radios were considered either base or mobile rigs. I have one that was a police radio with the add on to it. I had one since the 70's and have since bought 2 from eBay to have spare parts but I never fire them up.
|
Once you got used to the buzz from the square-wave on-board inverter in DC/mobile mode -- usually nothing compared to engine noise -- they had a deep rich tone. Better than the tinny treble from transistor transcievers, IMO.
Also the output was better than FCC specs -- being grandfathered-in from previous regulations.
I wonder if it would fit under the dash on my '68 C/10 with a 4-speed stick? Might be more room under the seat, but that would limit access to the controls: channel change, volume, squelch, etc. A pre-amp/noise-canx Mic was the mod everybody did back then. Remote speaker would be good too.
One limitation of the Ones and Twos was the need for a pair of discrete crystals for each channel. Five channels in the Whiteface [10] and ten in the Blackface [20]. A remote channel selector [w/40 freqs] that plugged into the input for a single pair of crystals would improve the unit's utility. I was never able to find such a thing in 11 Meter /27 MHz equipment. I'm not a Ham.