The Lost Decade

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Published 2012-07-02
A 22-minute overview of the first ten years of Collins Radio.
This video was prepared for the Collins Collectors Association
All Rights Reserved and the Property of the CCA. Copyright 2013. Introduces Art Collins, the radio landscape of the late 1920's and early 1930's, then overviews 5 pre-war Collins transmitters. Produced by WA9MZU (now K6GLH) in 1998 for the Collins Collectors Association Convention in Dallas as part of J.B. Jenkins', W5EU, presentation on the early history of Collins Radio.

All Comments (21)
  • @dave1135
    Thanks for this video. My father was a long time engineer at Collins radio, retiring in 1972 when I was five to move to northeast Missouri. During his time there, he was on the development team that designed the communications equipment for the Apollo moon mission. He was also a avid ham buff, designing and building his own transmitters, receivers, and test equipment. During ww2, he worked overseas for the us army signal corps.
  • @ampman1961
    Gary is the best! It's the reason why the people of tomorrow will know these histories and we cannot thank Gary and others like him enough. Truly remarkable. Thank you! 73 de Billy N6YW
  • @MickLBrad
    What an outstanding collection of pre-war Collins transmitters and history of their design. Thanks to all who produced this magnificent video and sharing it. 73 de Mick - WB4LSS
  • @davidkerl1431
    Wonderful video! I was happy to see the 20V-2 in there. I had 2 of them in the 1990's when no one wanted them. They came from the broadcast station in Park Falls, Wisconsin, and I was later forced to sell them to a retired VOA engineer that drove from western Colorado to northern Wisconsin to pick them up. Wish I still had them.Dave N9HF  Ormond Beach, Fla.
  • @984francis
    An excellent presentation, fascinating. Thanks.
  • @KB4QAA
    Magnificent production. I will have to watch several times to take it all in! Thanks.
  • @ElPasoTubeAmps
    I have a 30K-1 S/N 16 that I picked up in 1975 for $75 from a small town near Atlanta, GA.. Someone had tried to convert it to a CB linear and made somewhat of a mess of it. I decided to do more with it than keep it around as a museum piece and built power supplies in it to provide HV, bias and screen voltages and a tank circuit with vacuum capacitors and a roller inductor and put it to use as a 4CX1000A amplifier that I have used for over 30 years. A few years back I decided to play with different RF chassis and have since built RF decks for a pair of 4-400A in GG and a 3-1000Z. I have all of this documented on my QRZ page. WA4QGA Recently I was given, for free, a 30S-1 for the joy of repairing another 30S-1 and a Henry 2K. I use all of my equipment as often as I can rotating thru it to keep it all going including a homebrew AM station using the 310B and a James Millen amplifier running push-pull 812A. Modulation is a pair of 4-125A and a BC-610 modulation transformer. This is the equipment I wanted as a 13 year old kid when I got my general license in 1963 and now I can have and enjoy it at the age of 72. 73 WA4QGA
  • @nodoubtca
    Without this video and the restoration story there would be almost no information available on the 30J which would have left the 30J lost. Thanks for bring the 30J back to life. David VE7EPP
  • @rickvia8435
    Beautiful equipment. What a genius Art was.
  • @oh6cn
    Thanks for the video I am proud owner of a Collins 32v2 transmitter The first owner was W4MGT sk Henry E Hall
  • @thomthumbe
    One of my first tasks when I hired on with the US GOVT was to unbox new KWM2A’s and test each one before having them shipped to various overseas locations. About 25 years later, at an overseas wear house, the KWM2A had long since been removed from service, and I watched as a pile (literally thrown into a pile) of these radios was being ground up into metal strips, in a heavy duty metal grinder. They were not to be reclaimed or sold or anything. I was nearly in tears. Some had never once been used. I did claim a single, mint condition crystal pack…but it’s nothing more than a useless relic nowadays.
  • @nakayle
    When I was a young ham Collins was the "Cadillac" but I had a HeathKit budget.
  • An excellent presentation, fascinating. Thanks from Poland. Old Ham SP2EEF and 73!
  • @ik1lbl
    Ho Bob !! i found this video just surfing on youtube ! idkn if you remembe me but some years a go you sell me a 75A-4 on ebay !!! was a marvellous day !!!! i hope you are fine ! best 73s de Mario IK1LBL