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Vintage Amateur and Military Radio Amateur/military receivers and transmitters, morse, and any other related vintage comms equipment.

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Old 18th Dec 2012, 8:12 pm   #1
G6Tanuki
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Default "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

From a yachting-type elder acquaintance I've just acquired a WWII-era "Gibson Girl" SCR-578 rescue-radio, which is in good unmolested condition (though the yellow paint shows some small localised patches of flaky alloy-oxidation beneath) and complete with its signal-light, crank handle, antenna wire and containment bag.

From what I can tell, the case hasn't been opened since it was manufactured. I don't really want to break the seal.

Only thing it's lacking is the firing rocket-tube and the box-kite used to erect and support the antenna.

Now, these things are essentially useless for their original purpose since nobody's listening on 500KHz any more. So - should I keep it as an amusing but bulky antique, give it to a museum [RNLI?], or eBay it?

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Old 18th Dec 2012, 11:11 pm   #2
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

I think that if you give it to a museum the chances are it will be buried unloved in a storeroom until somebody takes it 'for safekeeping' or it gets chucked in the skip.
Me, cynical?

Keep it as an interesting relic or sell it to someone who would appreciate it!

I don't have an American 'Gibson Girl', but I do have an example of its less succesful but rarer British predecessor, the T1333.

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Old 19th Dec 2012, 7:40 pm   #3
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

Sadly I fear you're right. It's not a spectacularly-rare piece of kit neither does it have any practical radio-use amongst the "boatanchor" community (pun intended).

It's also somewhat too big to use as a display-piece. Hence it's going in the attic and will remain there for the forseeable future.
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Old 20th Dec 2012, 1:40 am   #4
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

Here in the US they are quite popular as a collectors item. I have seen them go for as high as $150.00 USD
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Old 20th Dec 2012, 8:00 am   #5
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

I don't know much about the set but would it not be possible to get it going on the new 472 kHz amateur band?

472 kHz Amateur Band
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Old 20th Dec 2012, 1:01 pm   #6
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

Doer anyone know the title of the film where robbers use one to jam mobile radio in a security convoy? I saw it once on TV around '69-'70, and would love to see it again.
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Old 20th Dec 2012, 1:13 pm   #7
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

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Originally Posted by Alf View Post
I don't know much about the set but would it not be possible to get it going on the new 472 kHz amateur band?
Alas the Gibson Girl would probably upset anyone else on 472KHz, with its self-excited-oscillator as the RF generator, and tone-modulated-CW output.

(OTOH I have had thoughts about recreating a pre-WWII 112MHz "Organ-pipe" self-excited-oscillator transmitter and trying to put it on 2 metres; the evil-genius in me wonders if I could FM it by making the end-plate of the organ-pipe a thin conductive diaphragm and then shouting at it so it vibrates and alters the resonant frequency? I have a "dual horned" VR135/CV6 triode that's just waiting for a purpose in life).

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Old 20th Dec 2012, 1:50 pm   #8
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

I had a very nice one of these some 30 years ago and was impressed with how nicely made it was. 12A6 in the PA I think.

There I was in my shack with about 4 feet of aerial wire hanging out of it twirling the handle and musing on how much extra effort was needed when it was actually transmitting. I was receiving the auto S O S on a nearby receiver being impressed with the quality of the tone when I realised a helicopter had stopped overhead. Oops thought I and stopped twirling. I realised that the helicopter was most unlikely to have heard the signal but a guilty conscience conjures up all sorts of imaginary things.

One of the Gibson girl look alikes has a facility to send hand CW on about 8.6 mHz. That could surely be dropped to the 40 mtr band and used.

The thing is with the effort required to rotate the handle whilst transmitting the morse might get a bit ragged.

Has anyone noticed how in war films they get the most injured person to operate the transmitter. The producer has obviously never tried one himself.

Jim
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Old 20th Dec 2012, 3:19 pm   #9
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

It would partner well with the Eddystone 400B that recently featured in this section...

Colin.
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Old 26th Dec 2012, 9:00 pm   #10
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

I recall an episode of the BBC drama series "Warship" in the 1970s that showed a hand-cranked CW transmitter being used to send an SOS call from a lifeboat. If I can recall correctly after all this time, one person was doing the cranking while another operated the key. Was that one of these rigs?
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Old 27th Dec 2012, 9:29 pm   #11
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

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I recall an episode of the BBC drama series "Warship" in the 1970s that showed a hand-cranked CW transmitter being used to send an SOS call from a lifeboat. If I can recall correctly after all this time, one person was doing the cranking while another operated the key. Was that one of these rigs?
Might have been: The "Gibson Girl" can be manually-keyed via a button on the front, but generally you just turned the handle and the internal mechanism keyed the tone-osc with a "SOS" message.

Must admit, if I was floating around in an inflatable raft somewhere in the freezing North Atlantic having just been shot out of my aeroplane, or if my warship had just been torpedoed from under me and I was now sharing a lifeboat saturated with oil and the blood of my co-mariners, my ability to manually generate any kind of readable Morse would be spectacularly low.
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Old 27th Dec 2012, 11:33 pm   #12
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

I believe a series of cams also keyed the vessel's callsign along with a suffix to indicate a survival craft. I assume the hand key enabled a position to be sent.
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Old 23rd Feb 2013, 10:00 pm   #13
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

I too have a Gibson Girl transmitter designated BC 778-D made by the Kingston Products Corp. I can't recall recall whereit came from. In the 1970's I travelled in my job as a manager in the repair field, and in cities where our shops were, often visited the local war surplus sellers.

I had several tins of balloons and hydrogen generators, and may still have some remnants of these.

The useful function of the radio set was to provide a generator which was mounted on a stand for an electricity class I taught.

I am searching around for bits and pieces now, and will remount the generator inside the radio. The aerial and ground leads are intact,
but there is no signal lamp, nor leg straps. The case has a fewdings.

If one of these was demonstrated with a marine automatic distress alarm receiver it would make a nice museum show.
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Old 3rd Mar 2013, 7:50 pm   #14
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

I've recently uncovered my long-missing Gibson Girl (allegedly ex-RAF Coastal Command, from a Catalina). It's tempting to try and get it QRV on 472kHZ, but I'll never find the time.

Wonder if I should sell it? I wonde what are these things worth in the UK? I'd be sorry to see it go, but it might be the most sensible thing I could do with it....
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Old 3rd Mar 2013, 9:39 pm   #15
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

A friend bought one recently complete with box kite... I'll ask him for a rough valuation.

Cheers, Scott

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Old 4th Mar 2013, 8:37 pm   #16
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Default Re: "Gibson Girl" SCR-578

Quote:
Originally Posted by echelon View Post
I've recently uncovered my long-missing Gibson Girl (allegedly ex-RAF Coastal Command, from a Catalina). It's tempting to try and get it QRV on 472kHZ, but I'll never find the time. .
I rather suspect the frequency-stability could prove an issue: over christmas I fired up my Gibson Girl and found that by running it into a dummy-load through a L-C matching network that gave me plenty of intriguing series/parallel combinations it would shift over about +/-8KHz depending on the particular combination of aerial-loading and speed-of-winding-of-the-handle.

"Crank-like-mad" and it would go HF. Be lazy on the winding-handle and as the power-output dropped it would drift LF.
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