Score !!
 

I DON'T really know WHERE this should go, but since its a Receiver, I guess here will do...About a week-10 days ago, somebody started a thread Over Yonder, the upshot of it was-"Ain't this Thing COOL ?!?" The "Thing" in question was a Specific Products Model WWVC Receiver, an undeniably cool, but patently USELESS piece of kit. It consists of a receiver that ONLY picks up WWV, can do it w/either voice or "Ticks", & has a "Too school for cool" 2" oscilloscope built in... It has 15-16 Tooobs, & is finished up to match an R-390A. I HAD to have it-It was listed on Craig's List, I tried e-mailing the guy, but my 'Pooter doesn't support Outlook, which Craig's List uses.. Stymied...Until a California member, "Chicks" offered to get it for me..Long story shorter, we did the deal, & I became the Proud Daddy of it today... It's frightfully dirty, being I'd guess 50 yrs old +/-, but it WORKS, although it will be making a trip to Dr. Dewick's Tired Old Electronics Clinic for a lube/valve/cap job, anyhow...I only gave $75 for it, I've seen a couple of 'em go for $2-300 on Evilbay. Anyhow, I'm happier than the proverbial Pig-In-Shoo-Shoo, it's impressive/Mad Scientist looking, has LOTSA Toobs, & looks to be built like a Tank, as commercial/military gear always is. No, it AIN'T a CT-100, but for a Boatanchor phreak like me, it'll do NICELY, thank you...(grin)

It's interesting to me that a receiver built only for WWV reception would need all those tubes. My Zenith Royal 1000, with 9 transistors, picks up WWV on its built-in antenna quite well, and I have had excellent reception of the station on tube-powered shortwave receivers having only five tubes. The set that got me hooked on amateur radio was my dad's 1936 Hallicrafters S-19R "Sky Buddy" receiver; it also received WWV very well from the Cleveland suburb in which I grew up, although it needed an outdoor antenna to get much of anything -- especially on band 4, 15 to, IIRC, 45 (!!!) MHz. Later I had a Heathkit GR-64, five tubes, that also got four of the five WWV stations very well (never could hear the 2.5 MHz transmitter, though). The point is that it isn't necessary to have dozens (!) of tubes in a radio just to receive one station, unless very high sensitivity and razor-sharp selectivity are required or needed.

BTW, I bet with all those tubes, your unit would overload like Heaven only knows what if it were in or near Boulder, Colorado, where the WWV stations are located. The NBS (NIST nowadays) operates five 1kW transmitters on as many frequencies (2.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz), so the signal will come in like gangbusters anywhere near the Denver area; they would probably drive any super-sensitive receiver like yours out of its electronic mind. :eek:

BTW (2): Until I read your post, I had never heard of any recent-vintage computer that would not support Microsoft Outlook, or, for that matter, that Craigslist will not operate properly under anything other than that platform. I would think if your computer is running anything newer than Windows 3.1 (i. e. Win95 up to Windows 7), it should be able to run Outlook and most other Microsoft software. From 1997 until late 1999, I had a Windows 95 system (my first Windows computer) that used all Microsoft software and would run everything then available for that operating system, including MS Outlook.

Very cool toy-I hope you will post a picture or two of it.

I do not use Outlook either, but there is a not-too-hard way to send Craigslist messages if you use a Web-based e-mail site. This works in the Firefox browser, with its multi-tab feature; I do not know of it works in Internet Explorer. Here are the steps:

-Open one tab in Firefox with your e-mail logged on.
-Open another tab with Craigslist and the ad you want to answer.
-Right-click on the Craigslist e-mail address in the ad and pick "copy e-mail address". (Do not left-click on it; that is what is making Outlook appear.)
-Go to your e-mail and start a new blank message.
-Click on the "To:" box on the new message, then right-click in that box and pick "paste". The e-mail address from the Craigslist ad should appear there. Add your message title and content as desired. (I usually also copy and paste the title of the Craigslist ad as the title of my message so it is obvious later what I was sending.)

Let me know if this trick works for you.

I ain't got Firefox, either...It got loade-up w/viruses, now I only use Windoze....

Jeff- This thing is "Hevi-Dooti"-It has a BFO circuit & COLLINS filters...I can't wait to take it to Terry's & get the caps straightened out, a good Lube Job/Cleaning, etc...This thing was made for people who HAD to have access to WWV, come Hell or high water...I'm guessin' it was $1500-2K Back in the Day...I just wish some Arsewhole HADN'T put a Sticker w/a UPC code on the front...Can't seem to get it off....

That super-sensitive receiver may also have been designed to be super-resistant
to overload. I would be interested in seeing a picture of the beast! TIA.

I think this unit must have been designed for broadcast or other transmitter site use for WWV reception. All those tubes are there I think to be overload resistant. After all, many a decent SW radio would have been prone to that issue. Ironically, my old Zenith Trans-Oceanic Royal 1000 had no issues around transmitter sites.

Well, its been down at Terry's for about a month now-But like I always tell him, "Take your time, & no rush." I kinda doubt this thing would overload, it DOESN'T have an RF gain control, but I just get the feeling it just wouldn't. And it seemed to be sensitive too-I hooked up a 2-3' length of scrap wire & it was pullin' WWV in on one or 2 frequencies...

Congrats Sandy, though I have no idea what you're talking about.
How can it pick up WWV? Temporal displacment?

What about WWII, now that would be interesting to listen to!

I told you I had no idea.... :D

Eric, there was a wonderful TV show back about '79 called "Darkroom" that had an episode that sorta dealt w/that theme...A man finds an old morse keyer/receiver, starts playing w/it, & SOMEHOW picks up his deceased father's destroyer in WW2...Long story short, he warns them of a U-boat, & then falls asleep..He wakes up, his father is alive, & about that time, the local Offen-Fuhrer struts in...All the cars are 1979 models, but they're all VWs, Mercedes, Audis...The newspaper is no longer "The Cleveland Plain-Dealer", its "Die Cleveland Deutschlander"...(grin) WWV is the Nat'l Bureau of Standards time station in Fort collins Colorado. It broadcasts continually on several different frequencies, so if you NEED absolutely correct time, you can have it. Now, computers off er extremely accurate time, & its available from a number of different sources as well, but "Back in the Day", you had WWV or its Canadian counterpart, CHU.

A little browsing through some old AK listings found this and I think from the threads it is Sandy's set complete with UPC tag.

http://chicksolutions.com/ak/Specifi...C/100_4754.JPG

It is a 2 rack-unit high device. In my early broadcast days, our station did not have one and had no need for one. We had no kind of outside long-wire antenna. We relied on CBS to be on time.

Dat be de One ! (grin) There is precious little info on thease things on the web-But from what I've been able to sorta "Specklate", they must have made several versions, some didn't have the scope, some didn't have the speaker, & they were apparently even made into the solid-state era. I don't know for certain, but I'd date mine between 1955-1965. I think I've only seen 'em on Da Bay just a handful of times. They're really almost utterly useless unless you REALLY need seconds-accuracy, but they are just Kewl as all Get-Out. To me, anyway....

Or you could just call (303) 499-7111 for WWV (Colorado) for the WWV time. And yes, they are still on the air. Now we need a scope app for phones and we would be up there with Sandy's beast.

I get it now, pretty cool, makes no less sense than my using 75 year old Telechron clocks to keep time.

I'll have to check out that show, I love Time Travel Stuff.
I've been sick with the Flu since Thursday and have watched about 20 episodes of Star Trek "Enterprise" season three, it was pretty much all about time travel.
Interspersed with episodes of Rock and Bullwinkle for cartoon breaks, and of course the "Wayback machine".

When I started in this hobby, WWV was in Greenbelt, MD, not too far from where I grew up in the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C. Needless to say, it pounded-in like gangbusters on the G.E. P930 AM/SW portable my parents gave me for my birthday.

However, as with all things, WWV itself could be changing. Here is one possibility:

http://www.lownoiserecords.com/wwv_the_tick.html