WW1 Radio receiver for Military Indian motorcycle

C

cobrafreak

New Member
I just made this from parts from an old non-working HAM radio set I found in a field. I will put this on the back rack of the indian when I show it at events and when I have my uniform on. All the knobs and switches flip or turn.
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That's cool looking. Love it. I'm a a ham myself. I don't like seeing old hollow state stuff put to waste when it works(cause when it's gone, it's REALLY gone.. saw some lady a few months ago selling "steampunk jewelry" out of actually good vacuum tubes and caps recently and other components.. some of it had mercury in it, but hey, she wants to throw away the past to some hipsters, she can hand them the sidebenefits :D ) , but this is out of all nonfunctioning stuff and really looks good. Fantastic.

Reminds me of an old single-tube regen receiver. Where did you get the chickenhead knobs?
 
adastra said:
That's cool looking. Love it. I'm a a ham myself. I don't like seeing old hollow state stuff put to waste when it works(cause when it's gone, it's REALLY gone.. saw some lady a few months ago selling "steampunk jewelry" out of actually good vacuum tubes and caps recently and other components.. some of it had mercury in it, but hey, she wants to throw away the past to some hipsters, she can hand them the sidebenefits :D ) , but this is out of all nonfunctioning stuff and really looks good. Fantastic.

Reminds me of an old single-tube regen receiver. Where did you get the chickenhead knobs?
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Thanks a lot. This is great that a HAM guy thinks it resembles an old radio unit!
The Field I found the old HAM radio in belongs to my former next door neighbor down the street. His Father has been passed away for about 10 or 15 years now. Anyway, He usually built his own HAM radio sets, and went to flea markets for decades scrounging up any and all radio parts he could find to use on his 100 foot tower in the back yard. The radio I found was rusting and half apart buried in mud and was next to an old (steel) engine oil can full of old knobs and such. I told my friend what I wanted to do with the parts and he gave it all to me. The one tube you see was the only tube left in the derelict radio. I'm glad it wasn't broken because it adds some pizzaz to the unit. I can unplug the tube and store it inside the box (which is an old 5.56 ammo box btw) I was thinking of making an old telegraph sounder with a wire going into it so It can play the part of a transceiver rather than just a receiver. Maybe I'll put a hand crank on the side of it for faux power generation.
 
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I put a couple of jacks on the face of the radio unit to plug in the headphones and the sounder that I just made. I also put a heat sink and a wire loom on top for the connection of an antenna and power supply to the bike. Looks like it works huh? Maybe I should have had a career making movie props, lol. That would be too much fun.
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I went through Schipperfabrik and got a U.S. ARMY Doughboy uniform with helmet and a pair of English field boots. Cool bike you have.
 
cobrafreak said:
I put a couple of jacks on the face of the radio unit to plug in the headphones and the sounder that I just made. I also put a heat sink and a wire loom on top for the connection of an antenna and power supply to the bike. Looks like it works huh? Maybe I should have had a career making movie props, lol. That would be too much fun.
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Great looking prop, but you need to label it with an old military radio equipment identifier like "AN/ARC-5", which was a real radio they used. As you know all things in the military had to be marked and labeled some how so you knew what it was.
 
dracothered said:
Great looking prop, but you need to label it with an old military radio equipment identifier like "AN/ARC-5", which was a real radio they used. As you know all things in the military had to be marked and labeled some how so you knew what it was.
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Good idea. Correct me if I'm wrong ,but the AN/ARC-5 was a WW2 radio, right? I need to get one of the earliest identifiers for a portable unit. Time for more research.
 
In WWI the German "Trench phones" were in leather bags and the British and American ones were in a wooden box. My dad has a couple of them, I'll ask him if I can catch a picture or two for you. Schipper is about the only place to get a repro WWI uniform. My dad however, is the only place in the world to get repro helmet liners and now repro doughboy helmets. Schipper sells the doughboy helmets? I didn't know that... Anyway, the WWI dispatch rider thing is pretty fun to do. Have fun!
 
ARC-5 was ww2 era, yes. As far as actual wwI gear, you're not likely to find any actual portable wireless gear with a tube from that era. A small station using regular equipment from that era might look a bit like the stuff in this equipment (and scroll midway down for image of two doughboys from the Army Signal Corps):
http://www.radioblvd.com/DoddStation.html

WWI era equipment would probably a rotary spark gap transmitter, if there was one at all (in the field, unlikely) The Receiver might well be a tube and components on a breadboard (or metal box) , or it might simply be a giant "crystal radio set". Lots of wire on a big drum cable, catwisker on a galena crystal, and headphones. Wheras there was telegraphy in the trenches, it was mostly old fashioned wires. Good reliable transmitters with range were enormous affairs like Alexanderson Arc Generators that required small armies to maintain. Wireless communication to the field was more of a one-way affair, unless it could be relayed by multiple users. The techniques were pretty new and more guesswork than theory. No one had a clue about short-wave propogation. That changed pretty rapidly after the war.

Though getting into the period a decade later, or so: something like this could have been found mounted on an ammo can by some
http://www.wadsworthsales.com/siteimages/SINGLE-tube-regenerative-recei.jpg
 
adastra said:
ARC-5 was ww2 era, yes. As far as actual wwI gear, you're not likely to find any actual portable wireless gear with a tube from that era. A small station using regular equipment from that era might look a bit like the stuff in this equipment (and scroll midway down for image of two doughboys from the Army Signal Corps):
http://www.radioblvd.com/DoddStation.html

WWI era equipment would probably a rotary spark gap transmitter, if there was one at all (in the field, unlikely) The Receiver might well be a tube and components on a breadboard (or metal box) , or it might simply be a giant "crystal radio set". Lots of wire on a big drum cable, catwisker on a galena crystal, and headphones. Wheras there was telegraphy in the trenches, it was mostly old fashioned wires. Good reliable transmitters with range were enormous affairs like Alexanderson Arc Generators that required small armies to maintain. Wireless communication to the field was more of a one-way affair, unless it could be relayed by multiple users. The techniques were pretty new and more guesswork than theory. No one had a clue about short-wave propogation. That changed pretty rapidly after the war.

Though getting into the period a decade later, or so: something like this could have been found mounted on an ammo can by some
http://www.wadsworthsales.com/siteimages/SINGLE-tube-regenerative-recei.jpg
Click to expand...

Here is sort of what I was shooting for. A field wireless set type "M".
http://www.henderson-tele.com/royal-signals/vby/vby/vo1a.html
It all fit on a motorcycle and could be operated by one person. Yes, the tube on the top of my mock radio is probably not Precise for period correctness, but it conveys to the average person that it is a radio of some sorts, which is what I wanted to get across. I was worried that if I made a perfect period correct radio it would be much too large (probably) to ride around on. I was also concerned that if it was an accurate radio of the period it wouldn't look like a radio like folks understand radios look like, and people would wonder what it was. One of those creative license moments. I will be showing my bike with the new equipment for the first time at a local vintage motorcycle show in town and I will be able to gauge the radio unit on the questions and responses of the public and judges. From there I will see if I need to make it more correct or leave it alone.
 
cobrafreak said:
No, Schipper does not have the helmets. Send a link to your Dad's helmet liners.
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Funny, I did find your Fathers WWI Helmet business before you gave me the link. I was going to use him for my new liner because, as you said, nobody else does it. Very cool. Yeah, I'll eventually get the right liner through him. It's kind of cool that He does WW1 and you do motorbikes. Has your Dad seen my bike? What does he think about it? I would like to know. Thanks.
 
Ok, cool. That must be you standing behind the bike wearing one of your Dad's helmets. Neat! What kind of engine is on my bike? I use a harbor freight Greyhound GX200 clone. They don't make them anymore. They make Predator engines now.
 
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