AMAZING FIND!!! POST WW2 Radio Receivers!!!! WITH RADIO!!

[olekyground]

Ok friends. I just purchased this awesome receiver radio and receivers from someone. I didnt know what I had until I noticed the stamped may 45 on it and the US navy on it as well. I did some research and found them. The only pics I could find were pics of them displayed in a museum! Please give me any info you can on these. I still have a lot to learn from them. Don't know much else as of now. thank you for any comments!!!

 

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[Sheldon J]

Great find, depending on your plans you may wish to contact an aviation museum and advise them of your find, many are scrounging for parts in Restoration projects.

looking closer at your photos, they are for long range HF sideband, and Morris Code, not the shorter range VHF band, I know that is not of much help, but I thought it may be useful to know.

 

[piegrande]

A Collins 51-H3. Google is your friend. Lots of information on that top radio. The COL in the name tag should have indicated Collins, I guess.

http://www.hypertools.com/ is only one place to find information.

When I went to Infantry radio school USASESCS, in 1964, we used a similar WWII radio, for all I know it was a 51-H3. In any case, it was also auto-tune. I assume they let us have them to learn on, because they probably had tons of them in a warehouse, and if we blew it up, they could drag out more.

I need to look at the other pictures.

 

[piegrande]

Morse code, invented by Samuel Morse.

 

[fistfulladirt]

Great finds those old radios.

 

[piegrande]

http://aafradio.org/flightdeck/b29.htm has lay-outs for the B-29 aircraft, which includes that radio 51-H3. It is not clear to me if the Enola Gay had one or not.

We used 51-J receivers, I think made in early 50's, as test equipment well into the 80's. Collins made good stuff. When Desert Storm happened, they learned the modern Japanese solid state ham radio would fail from static in sand storms. So, they had Dennis Brothers who worked on the old KWM-2 before he left Collins, round up some old KWM-2's and refurb them for communicating with family back home. They were what? Thirty years old?

 

[piegrande]

Great finds those old radios. Wish I'd learned Morris code.

Today, you can get a suitable radio, hook up the audio to a suitable computer, load in a program, and it will decode the Morse code and print it out on your computer screen. Hit the keyboard and it will send it out as Morse code.

 

[piegrande]

The military in WWII bought designs from inventor companies, such as Collins. They then ordered them from any company which could effectively build them. Which is why the other radios show show different manufacturers even though they were the same model.

I have no idea their value. There are people who still get those things and make them work. At least two hits for hams who got that 51-H3 working in recent years. And, yes, I am sure the mechanical parts would be valuable for those working on them for nostalgia reasons.

But, items like that are worth what someone will pay for them. I would not expect a fixed value as you might find for items which sell enough to establish a market, like for example the KWM-2 I mentioned.

 

[piegrande]

One of the problems with old military radios like that, especially those used in aircraft, is the voltages they use. Few were 115 volts 60 cycle. They at times worked only with special supplies, and sometimes one common device would supply voltage for another radio. Or, on aircraft, at times they had special generators to produce the voltages needed. Seems like in those days, not sure by memory, the aircraft used like 28 volts. By poor memory.

 

[Sheldon J]

Collins S line was a big deal among amateur radio operators, n they had the government contact

 

[piegrande]

Yes, it was. I did not work on that series.

The KWM-380 produced years later was essentially a pile of junk, and did not last long.