Friday, March 12, 2021
I hit the eBay jackpot today — two items I purchased a while back both arrived.
R-46 SPEAKER. I spotted a rather rough-around-the-edges Hallicrafters R-46 speaker on eBay recently. The seller accepted offers, so I gave it some thought and then shot him a rather low-ball offer. To my surprise, he accepted my offer.
The speaker is rather rough, but that’s OK with me, I’m not a purist who wanted a minty fresh R-46. I plan to repaint the speaker and clean up the grill; in fact, my plan is to convert this speaker into a look-alike for a Hallicrafters R-46B.
The R-46B is a better looking version of the same speaker. Rather than being one color gray (as is the R-46), R-46B has a darker gray cases with silver trip and black grill. The silver painted trim and black grill really make the “h” logo stand out. It’s a much nicer looking speaker, despite being basically the same as the earlier R-46.
I have one R-46B in the shack and love how it sounds. This one was cheap enough to make it worth the price.
MON-KEY KEYER. I spotted this beauty on eBay — the Mon-Key fully automatic keyer built by the Electric Eye Equipment Co. of Danville, Ill.
The Mon-Key keyer was one of the first commercially offered automatic keyers on the Amateur Radio market. It is truly automatic; however modern hams would have to get accustomed to the fact the key doesn’t autocomplete dots or dashes. When you’re sending, its easy to cut a trailing dash by letting off the paddle a little early.
This particular Mon-Key came out of Burlington, Kansas, and it was in fantastic original condition. The key doesn’t look like its been used much at all — if any. Its obvious that years ago, someone replaced the original caps with more up-to-date caps, but judging from the capacitors, it wasn’t in recent history.
The case, the base and the plexiglas cover on the key are perfect; even the plexiglas cover — at 70-plus years old — is clear, almost like new. What’s better yet, the original cord is in pristine condition, and its resistive element is intact — the key works great!
The key has the easily worn off Mon-Key decal on the side of the cover on the key.
Now honestly, I probably have half a dozen Mon-Keys in my collection. Over the years, when I see them selling for little of nothing on eBay, I’ve snapped them up. Only two of the Mon-Keys I own arrived in working condition; the resistive line cord on the rest are all open. One of the working ones was made operational again by adding three power resisters in the case to take the place of the resistive line cord. Its probably not the best fix, but its simple and effective. The resistors don’t generate noticeable heat when the key is in use.
This new Mon-Key was special too because it came with the original user manual, and was packed in its original box. And the key was shipped to World Radio Labs in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I don’t know if they kept it or if they sold it to a ham who hung onto the original box, but judging from its condition, it spent most of its life in its original box.
I have another Mon-Key in my collection that I bought in its original box, complete with the original sales receipt and invoice, and instructions. That particular key is in mint condition too, however the line cord resistor is also open on that one.
I purchased several sets of power resistors to install on some of my non-operating Mon-Keys in order to get them working. The beauty of the Mon-Key is that its keying relay is basically an open relay capable of handling 2 amps — and it will key any tube, hybrid, or modern solid-state rig I own.
I’ll have to make a video of the Mon-Key in use; the clacking relay makes it a bit noisy, but its still a hoot to operate.
73 es CUL …. de KY4Z …. SK …. SK …. (dit dit) ….