This is what I consider the "vintage" side of my former radio shack. Okay, there's a computer too, but it was mostly analog over here. I'd recreated my college-era Drake B-Line station, and acquired an S/Line that was built when I was 4 years old. With the help of others, I'm finding some magic in radio from this gear. For DXing and the little contesting I do, there's more modern gear on the other side of the shack. Thanks Dad, N3ADT, for bringing home a radio that glowed, and starting me in this terrific hobby.
-SO
I'm planning to keep posting picasaweb content as I undertake various radio-related fiddling. Thanks to Maury, W4HYB, for selling me his 1958 S-1/Line. I've done my best to keep it nice after all his years of taking such good care of it. A few months later, the RE 30L-1 was added. My sincere thanks to K3TRM for "making it happen." It completes the S/Line nicely and adds the first 8 dB or so to the signal from the same size package as the transmitter and receiver. Frank also provided a 312B-4 that I spruced up, but I was never happy with my repaint job on the cabinet, and replaced it with one from ebay in very good condition, so now I have a winged emblem console. You can see more pictures of the amp clean-up at RE 30L-1 from a yard sale and view other shots of the S/Line at my picasaweb site.
Here is a fun restoration project. The Hallicrafters HA-1 T.O. Keyer appeared with several slight variations over the years it was manufactured, including differing knobs, and the addition of the newer, round, red logo, and new Hallicrafters logo on the aluminum trim band on the front panel. It was a little hard to tell that it had black an gray under the dirt and dust, but it cleaned up nicely, at least from the outside. It seemed wrong to use a solid-state keyer with all the hollow-state gear. My thanks to John, W1JA, for making it available to me. A more complete pictorial record of the cleanup and refurbishment is shown at http://picasaweb.google.com/kfourso/HA1KeyerDeW1JA#. I'm honored that this keyer is now in the shack of a famous local contester. I suspect it's part of a vintage station there. Meanwhile, I've replaced it with one that required less cleanup. Having one in the black & gray corner just seems right.
Here's an S/Line of similar vintage to mine. This was clearly not so well cared for, but you know, it all will end up this way someday. BTW, the asking price was $400 :-)