A strange one on eBay

[Bob Thomas]

The TR-4 (the ORIGINAL TR-$) is an old friend. It was made by Abbott
Laboratories for the old 2-1/2 meter band before the war and then re-issued
for 2M, probably in 1945.

It has a modulated oscillator for AM using an HY-75 and a superregenerative
detector using that little tube with two(!) caps on top. One cap was the
grid, the other the plate -- a hot VHF tube in its day.

A mentor of mine, W3DQE, used one and sometimes two of them in his car on
transmitter hunts in the early '50s and believe it or not, he won more than
half of the hunts against superhets and converter/BC sets. A cubical quad
was antenna of choice. Ed could detect subtle differences in the rushing
sound of the superregen, and he would vary antenna coupling to get just the
sound he needed to discriminate signal strength. Those call letters and
number on the one on eBay make me wonder if a BC station used a bunch of
them illegally for remotes or field communications.  Tsk, tsk.

You would probably get killed if you ran that modulated oscillator on 2
meters today!

Bob - W3NE

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