Military Collector Group Post, Oct.31/97 BASIC JAPANESE RADIO COLLECTION PART III; By Bill Howard Steve's want's & not's; RE: DC-DC; HUMOR; Sorry Aussie's, I've often said Bill H. is worped! ************************************************** BASIC JAPANESE RADIO COLLECTION PART II; WHERE DO YOU FIND THESE SETS? A few years ago this would have been an easy question to answer. At Radio swap meets. In the last ten or more years this question has gotten harder to answer. In 1989, we began the 50th Anniversary of WW II and there was a sudden revival of interest in items of WW II. Old radios came out of attics , closets and basements. In 1988, we had a surplus electronic store that made a living selling parts striped from susplus radios and took stuff in on consignment. One day the owner called me and said he had two Japanese radios, was I interested. to make a long story short, I got these two radios for $100.00 each, which at the time, I thought was a bit high but I wanted them. What I got was a Type 94-5 receiver with the leather flaps cut off and a Type 94-3 receiver missing the front cover, a fact I was ignorant of at the time. Since then, I have gotten Japanese radios from a variety of sources. I will list the more lucrative sources. The local ferret. He went to every estate sale, yard sale and HAM Swap meet he heard about. His ability to ferret out radios of all types was amazing. He didn?t know what they were but if they were Japanese he got them and thus I got them. His main interest was pre 1925 battery powered sets. I also kept my eyes open for them but never found anything he wanted. The local Japanese Militaria dealer. This man is retired and currently runs a business of importing Japanese artifacts. He has a large following and publishes a news letter for Japanese collectors. He sets up at militaria shows and gun shows. He has material coming in from all over and I usually get first crack at a new item. Radio related surplus stores. Sometimes these places take things in on consignment, Get to know them, let them know your interests and when a Japanese whatever comes in, they will call you. Usually, they advise the owner on the value of the set from the perspective of a radio. Usually low as they do not know the collector value, however, you can not count on that. Some people find a Japanese or German radio in their attic and think they have their fortune made, ?Taint So!? Japanese Militaria collectors. Many of these people specialize in some aspect of Japanese militaria such as hats or swords or daggers. In the process they pick odd pieces and will usually part with them for a reasonable price. Find out who these people are, get to know them and also stay on the look out for what they are interested in. Other radio collectors. Finding these people is not always the easiest task unless you are a HAM radio operator. The older HAMs are the ones who brought back these radios from their days in WW II. As time passed, they became more successful and had more money, they got better and newer radios and the Japanese radios went to the closet, the attic, etc. The main means for communication, other than radio, were the HAM trader yellow sheets. In more recent times, magazines like the Old Timers Bulletin of the AWA, Electric Radio, and others have carried ads for Japanese radios , both for sale and for trade as well as wanted. Once you have established a network of radio collectors, they watch for things you are interested in and you may get lucky. HAMFESTs and Swap meets, which are always a good place to find radios and radio related items is still a good place to go. I have noticed in recent years that most of the exotic German and Japanese sets are sold long before they get to the show but again you might get lucky. Flea Markets and gunshows. You never know what will show up at a flea market, You have to check them out and keep going back, week after week. Take cash as these people never heard of credit cards and won?t take checks. Gun shows are much the same. In the 30 plus years I have been going to gunshows, I have never seen very much radio equipment. You can find keys, headphones, coils and other miscellaneous items. It is rare for someone to have radios at a gun show. The militaria shows are a better choice and then most people do not know very much about Japanese radios so they are usually cheaper. Manion?s Auction Some years back this outfit started taking in items for auction. They have a subscription service. You pay about $35.00 a year and you are able to bid on items in each auction. They have about 5 or 6 auctions per year. They publish a catalogue and some times have excellent photos of the items shown. Their ability to determine what an item is and accuratly describe it is sometimes questionable. An experimental Japanese walkie talkie was advertised as a telephone. Some times it is just cord and plug with Japanese markings. Whatever the item is worth and or sold for, they add on a percent comission which the buyer pays as well as tax and shipping. The $75 dollar bargain quickly becomes a $100+ item. Increasingly the inter net and radio collectors groups are proving to be a good source for these items. I recently got two Japanese radios from a collector in Colorado who told me about a supply of Japanese crystals in a local surplus store. Through his efforts, I got the crystals. I would never have known about him or the crystals were it not for a radio collecting group of which I am a member. In the same way, I was able to help a collector in Maryland get field telephones and a switchboard from a local shop that he would never have know about. You can also consider a small picture ad in the local newspaper or if you spend your vacation in one area, consider taking out an ad in the local paper. Make it big enoughnfor people to see. Best to include a line drawing of a Japanese radio, some people who have these items do not even know what it is. They may see the drawing and think, ?I?ve got something like that in the basement?. In summary, there are many places where these radios and accessories are to be found. It is advisable to have some of the references I mentioned in Part 2 when you get there. In the next part, I will discuss a basic ?Type? Japanese radio station and then some specific sets. THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 ************************************************** Steve's want's & not's; Dennis, Any LandRover enthusiasts in the group. I recently bought an ex army LandRover radio truck, and would be interested in talking with an 'expert' about it. A couple of things I have that I don't want to have. Please put on my trade/sell list. Heathkit Laboratory CRO, cant see the model number as front panel is facing the wall and its buried under other stuff. The following is a doodad that I have no idea what it is. Name plate as follows: Power Unit Mains 6665-110028 Serial No ^ WJH 1158 | 1954 Is in a metal cylinder about six inches tall. Has mains plug on the end with two round pins. Earth is a bigger round pin. (Don't know what country uses this) Has a selector switch for 110/220V. Apparatus Loudspeaking No1C (AUST). Dated 1944. Built by Bland radio in Adelaide for the army. Looks like a portable pa system. Runs off 12V DC, has 1 Moter Gen set for HT. MG set tested OK, otherwise condition unknown. Also included a second unit which is basically complete, except MG set is U/S. Caps in both units probly need replacement. No tubes in either unit. Cheers. Steve Hill VK4CZT 39 Banbury St. Carina. 4152. Brisbane. Australia. ************************************************** RE: DC-DC >The only draw back of mine >is that it uses 44(for up to 70v) & 88(for up to 135v) mh toroids that >can no longer be found with any regularity. Also as this circuit uses the >original windings as the secondary, it is impossible to get other >voltages like heaters, & bias. The only thing that is hand wound on these >are the primary & feedback windings. The completed transformer is only >about 1.5"x .5",& the completed supply can be put in a box 1.5 x 1.5 x 2" >with ample room left over for such things as bias batteries etc. I've been quite since I stirred up the pot on this issue. Glad to see Mark comment on this. If we all agree, we can have those 44/88 mh torroids duplicated with the extra windings we need. I'm not in love with the exotic switcher chips. Sounds like your TIP xsistor circuit is pretty minimal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ralph, True the TIP-41 circuit does require an absolut minimum of parts, & the exotic IC's that Mark like are sometimes complicated. Mark seems to think that they offer several advantages, also the use of FET's instead of transistors. We shall see. Dennis ****************************************************** HUMOR; ALL ABOUT AUSTRALIA Australia was England?s answer to over crowded prisons. Instead of sending criminals to jail, they send them to Australia. Some of them even lived through the long sea voyage and got to Australia where they found out there were no jails so they had to build their own. Eventually some them finished their sentence but as there was no way to get back to England, they stayed. Some even escaped from the jails they built and went and bred with the natives who are known as Aborigines. Everybody in Australia is either very rich or very poor. The rich own everything in sight and even land that is out of sight. The poor people work for them. Most Australians travel in horse drawn carts, sleep in tents, and shear sheep for a living. Those who don?t shear sheep, sometimes sleep with them. Other people hunt crocodiles. There are a few motorcycles in Australia which is why they have roads. Some people live in underground caves and claim they are digging for Opals. Most Opals were found driving on the Autobahns in Germany. This was documented in the the Movie ?Outback Bound?. This starred Donna Mills and started out to be a pornographic bondage movie but the producers were so fascinated by the cave dwellers that they ran out of film before the good parts were filmed. Australian women seldom live past the age of 18. A documentary on Paradise Beach in Queensland showed that only one woman in twenty makes it past the age of eighteen. All women in Australia are named Matilda which resulted in the ever popular folk dance ?Waltzing Matilda? Those women not named Matilda are named Sheila.. All Australian men ever do is look for a girl named Sheila but then end up with one called Matilda. Australian Society has one big event every year and it is called the ?Alice Springs Yacht Regatta? Alice Springs came from a very poor family of crooks in England and did not know much about yachts. She did not realize they were boats so the yacht regatta is held in a dry stream bed. The other major social events of the year are a horse race and a derivitave of an English game similar to cricket called Two up. Left and right handed batters step up to the plate, two at a time and try to hit the ball. Sometimes they hit each other.When they are finished, the umpire calls out ?Two More Up? Australia best know horseman was the Man from Snowy River who lived on a mountain now where near any river. The encyclopedia does not list a Snowy River so it must have been an Alias. He worked part time for Kirk Douglas and Kirk?s brother who was also named Kirk Douglas. One year, while trying for the anual Darwin Award he rode a horse over the side of the mountain and managed to survive. God created the Heavens and the Earth in Six days and rested on the seventh. Australia was the last place on earth that he created. He finished on the sixth day and then proceeded to get drunk. After he was about half snookered, he realized he had forgotten to put some animals in there so in a drunked stupor he created the anumals found there. A larrge rabbit like creature that hops around and is called a Kangaroo. Most Austrailans have a pet kangaroo they call Skippy. They also have a Koala bear that is not really a bear but looks like one. They also have a strange creature called a Duck billed Platypus. God used up all his spare parts when he created this one. Some Australian?s break with tradition and have dogs that they call Dingo?s. This comes from their training methods, They throw out a stick for the dog to chase and the stick comes back to them. They call it a boomerang. When the dog comes back looking a bit confused, they say, ?Didn?t Go? and then the dog then answers to the name ?Din Go? Australian men are well known for their contribution to the military. They have fought in ever major conflit that Great Britain was in. Sometimes the Australias even fought with the enemy. Their main contribution to the military was their knowledge of earth moving and they were called diggers, probably from their time digging for opals. Their American counter parts in WW I thought that digger was an Australian term for dumb nigger. The Austrailian?s military became famous during the Boer Wars when they established Rule 303 of Military justice. Anybody that is suspicious is shot with the 303 rifle. This was modified during the Vietnam war to include rule 7.62 and rule 5.56 Crime in Australia is negiligble, since there is some honor among theives. In case of crime, Australia has a police force. They are called Bush Rangers. John Lennon of Beatles Fame once served as a Bush Ranger. At that time he was using the name Ned Kelly so that people would not recognize him. There are a few smart people in Australia, They are called scientists. Most moved to New Zealand so they could study sheep farting. Some remained in Australia and furthered their education. Some got PhDs in carving boomerangs for training their dogs. One of the best know scientists in Australia studies poisonious snakes. He likes to crawl up and kiss them. Another world famous scientists had an entire city named after him. His name was Darwin and each year there are ?The Darwin Awards?. The original natives are called Aboriginies. Some times they are called Abos. They go on walkabouts , often travelling all over the countryside. This is frustrating for the rich people they work for. When asked where is so and so, the answer is usually about so many miles but in their native language it is ?ABO? ten mi way. That was how they got the name Abos. They are not very well educated but they have a very colorful language. Copied from the English but with out all the extra letters. They use words such as QANTAS as they saw no need for U. Bill Howard --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When finished reading use browser back button or go to http://www.prc68.com/MCGP/MCGP.html