Good Morning Vietnam! Radio

[Cadillac Kid]

Found this 1962 Sony TR-911 BC/SW tri-band radio suffering in a thrift store and felt I had to rescue it. It is missing it's S-Meter (How did that happen?) and has a replaced tone control knob and a chip in the case.

But, it works great. It is loud, sensitive and selective. It has a couple of interesting features. The knobs are dual function, volume/tone and tuning/fine tuning. It has two earphone outputs.

Perhaps it's classic looks are why it was used in "Good Morning Vietnam" as the receiver the soldiers were using to listen to the voice of Adrian Cronauer.

I plan on restoring it .

Anyone have one of these or the TR-1000 in their collection?

[Sandy G]

Kewl set ! I hear ya on the "Why is the S-Meter missing ?" I bought a Hallicrafters SX-73 off the E-place several years ago. It is a pretty desirable radio, made in 1951-52, costing $975 at the time, & was intended mainly for the military/commercial market. Not many were sold, period, & fewer were originally sold to individuals. Mine came in, was cosmetically pretty good, didn't work-but a trip to Terry's fixed that, of course-But was missing the handles that were used to take it in/out of the racks that most of them lived in....Why would anybody want to remove those ?!? Fortunately, McMaster-Carr had a reasonable replacement-not exact, but close enuff for gov't work. Just another reason I wish these old rigs could talk-Wonder what tales they could tell...There was some guy a few years back who had an R-390A that had been sprayed w/45 ACP bullets on the front...I'd bet IT had a story to tell...

[jr_tech]

"But was missing the handles that were used to take it in/out of the racks that most of them lived in....Why would anybody want to remove those ?!?'

Well, I have a SP-600jx and a R-390a with these handles, and find them somewhat annoying. At least on the '390 the handles bend away from the knobs, but the one on the right still is a knuckle-bumper when turning the "megacycle change" knob. Being bent toward the edges of the set, the handles interfere with access to the rack mount screws as well. NOT that I would EVER remove them, but I have thought about it.

"There was some guy a few years back who had an R-390A that had been sprayed w/45 ACP bullets on the front...I'd bet IT had a story to tell..."

Was Elvis a SW DXer?

jr

[Sandy G]

Nah. I think they were still classified then, altho a few were sold in the civilian market in the late '60s-early '70s. They were overruns from a gov't order, or maybe they weren't quite up to gov't snuff, we never did find out. The gov't started dumping them on the surplus market by the late '70s, yet still had some info on them classified until '85 or so. They NEVER did release the complete cost data on them.Yeah, I've cussed the handles on mine, too, tryin' to put 'em in or out of the cases I have for 'em...They made the handles so there is no way to put the mounting screws in or out of 'em easily...Especially when you're tryin' to hoss one of 'em in a rack up 4 or 5' high...