Anybody know what this is
 

Anybody know what this is??? http://salem.craigslist.org/clt/1401714341.html

Looks like a home-brew ham radio rig. That's probably a 2AP1 green phosphor CRT.

Could be a "Panadaptor"- a device that hams use for monitoring the quality of the signal they're putting out, & short wave/VHF monitoring guys use to see if there's any signals adjacent to the MAIN one they're receiving.

Very curious. It looks like there are four 2501MP Switchcraft screw-on type connectors on the bottom row with red and black tip jacks the sides of each one. I wish the photos were higher resolution or he said what the scales were.

For $10 someone out that way needs to get it just to figure out what it is!

John

It's definitely two things: Prewar, and homebuilt. Although it's possibly a prewar TV from a magazine schematic, it's more likely a scope of some sort, as suggested by Bandersen and Sandy G. Looks like a 2" tube, so it's probably doubtful that anyone would have gone to the trouble to build an experimental TV set and use a tiny little tube.

Charles

Throw my vote in for a homebrew oscilloscope.

I agree that it's a home-brew test instrument of some type, an oscilloscope with possibly other functions. I would be nuts enough to buy it if I was near there.

I've seen this before but can't find a picture of it. I think it is a piece of test gear used for adjusting the mark-space ratio for frequency shift key shortwave radio transmitterequipment. I looked in some really old books on shortwave including a 1948 Amateur Radio Handbook. #:^(

Cliff

It looks military to me. It looks like it mounts into a wall console in array of other possibly related equipment, like on a ship. From behind it looks like a student lab kit from National Radio Institute, circa the mid to late 40's. I had a similar item and sold it sight unseen to a collector for $700. I figure if I got that much then either the man was eccentric and rich, or it is really worth ten times what I got. I still have the complete N.R.I. correspondence course material. Really cool reading. The guy it belonged to graduated and ran his own TV repair business his whole life. Then he died and his wife threw all of this stuff out on the curb. Luckily, a fellow techie recovered a lot of it and gave it to me...