Jim's Antique Radio Museum
Real radios glow in the dark and are warm to cuddle up next to!..
HALLICRAFTERS RADIO PAGE
I have a significant collection of Hallicrafters radios so I thought it would be appropriate to have a page dedicated to that brand.
Actually, the S-38 radios is what I blame for this insane collection. You see, when I was a young novice ham radio operator this was the first ham receiver I owned. So around 40 years later I thought it would be cool to have one of those for nostalgic reasons. So I found one on eBay and purchased it. But then I found out that there was also an S-38A, an S-38B, an S-38C, an S-38D and an S-38E. And now I have one of each of those (and a few duplicates). There is also an S-38EB and an S-38EM. The EB is in a blond cabinet and the EM is in a mahogany cabinet. The only one I am missing is the EB so if you want to donate one of those I would be forever greatful!
I have reached such a "critical mass" with my collection of Hallicrafters radios that I can justify a page specifically for them.
This shelf contains most of my Hallicrafters radios. The top shelf has 3 S-38's (plain, no letter) and two of them are wrinkle finish and one is the smooth finish. The next shelf has 2 S-38A's and an S-38B. The next shelf down has 2 S-38C's and an S-38D. The shelf below that has a 5R10, then an S-38E and an S-94 Civic Patrol.
The big boat anchors at the bottom two shelves are an S-85 and then an S-40B. The very bottom shelf has an SX-25 (pale blue?) and an S-20R Sky Champion.
Rounding out my Hallicrafters collection and not shown here is an SR-150 HF Transceiver with matching power supply/speaker and an S-108 receiver. A few more Hallicrafters have been added to my collection since this page was created so I have more website work to do in the future.
Thanks to a lot of good inputs from several people, I now know that the "X" in the "SX" models stood for the radio having a Crystal Filter, which most people shorten to Xtal. The use of Xtal probably came from CW ops who found wonderful ways to shorten words in order to speed up traffic handling.
If you are interested in some "original" historical material on Bill Halligan, founder of Hallicrafters radios then please visit this website.
HALLICRAFTERS SX-101 MK-I
This Hallicrafters SX-101 Mk-1 is from 1957.
The SX-101 series was the first Ham Band only receiver built by Hallicrafters. Prior to this model the other radios had bandspread available on the ham band portions of the dial, but this model was strictly ham bands.
This radio is very heavy. I don't know why that was necessary but even the hinged cover is heavy...hahaha. This must be the very essensce of what they mean by Boat Anchor.
This picture is as the radio was received. I have not done any clean up or other work on this rig. It was said to have been working, but it seems to have some problems that need debugging before I can verify that statement.
HALLICRAFTERS SX-96 MK-I
This Hallicrafters SX-96 Mark I radio was manufactured from 1955 - 1956.
This handsome unit was donated to the museum by the daughter of Tom Monahan who wanted it to be someplace where many could enjoy it as her father did.
This is a four band, dual conversion set and is one of the more popular SX models of its time.
As you can see, I badly need a replacement band switch KNOB which is that redish looking knob second from the left on the bottom row.
Based on the weight of this baby, I think it would qualify as a Boat Anchor Radio.
Also included in this donation is the companion Hallicrafters R-46A speaker and an original manual for the SX-96. This is a 3.2 ohm speaker and the radio has provisions for either 3.2 ohm or 500 ohm speakers.
Both units are in very nice condition and it won't take much to bring them back to new looking condition.
HALLICRAFTERS S-85 RECEIVER
Here is another very nice condition Hallicrafters S-85 receiver.
These were made from 1955 - 1959 and provided continuous coverage from 538 Kc to 34 Mc. Again, this radio has AM and CW but no SSB. It has the usual bandspread dial and a "pitch" control for CW. I beleive this pitch control is the like a variable BFO.
Like the S-40B the set has 8 tubes with the exact same tube complement as the S-40. So Hallicrafters made very little change, if any, to several models of receivers, but packaged them differently to keep up with the times.
Hallicrafters SR-150 HF Transceiver
w/power supply and speaker
This is an SR-150 HF transceiver with its matching power supply and speaker cabinet below it.
These sets were manufactured from 1961 to 1963.
One unusual thing about this set is that it has 19 tubes, but it uses a mix of 6 volt and 12 volt filament tubes. There is even an OA2 voltage regulator. The finals are a pair of 12DQ6B's in parallel. This rig has 150 Watts PEP for SSB and 125 Watts for CW. There is no AM or FM on this rig.
HALLICRAFTERS S-108 RECEIVER
This is a Hallicrafters S-108 receiver that works well, but it has several cosmetic problems.
These radios were manufactured from 1959 to 1961.
You can see that someone tried to clean the dial glass and dissolved the lettering and scale of the dial. The radio is also supposed to have a polished aluminum strip running horizontally across the front, just behind the two main tuning knobs. So, other than those cosmetic problems, this is a very fine rig.
If you have a dial glass and/or that aluminum strip then pleasecontact me.
HALLICRAFTERS S-38 (PLAIN, no suffix)
This is the Hallicrafters S-38 (plain, no letter) with the smooth finish.
These radios were manufactured in 1946 and the early models had a smooth finish and 6 tubes. The later models had only 5 tubes and a wrinkle finish. I have two with the wrinkle finish as well as this one.
This radio is my reason for being interested in Hallicrafters. I had one of these as a Novice Amateur operator and so I wanted to get one later in my life for nostalgia reason. Judging from the set of shelves above, I have gone a little overboard with the nostalgia.
HALLICRAFTERS S-38A
The next in the S-38 series was the "A" model. These were manufactured in 1946-1947.
The S-38A has 5 tubes and has a black smooth finish. The major difference between the A, B and C radios were in the cabinet finish. The electronics were pretty much the same.
This set has had an after market modification with a phone jack added above the main tuning dial on the left.
HALLICRAFTERS S-38B
The next radio was the S-38B.
These were manufactured from 1947 to 1953 and had a black wrinkle finish. The finish is about the only difference between the A and the B.
HALLICRAFTERS S-38C
This is the next one, the S-38C and it was manufatured from 1953 to 1955.
Again, the only real difference is the finish. All the C versions had this grey hammertone finish. All the S-38's had 4 bands and a built in speaker.
HALLICRAFTERS S-38D
Next was the S-38D which was manufactured in 1955 - 1957.
Now you can see a major departure in cabinet design by going to a slide rule dial for both the main tuning and the bandspread.
This model came in a smooth gray finish.
HALLICRAFTERS S-38E
This was the last in the series of S-38's, the S-38E. This model was manufactured from 1957 - 1961.
This set added a BFO to the features, but maintains the sliderule dial introduced with the S-38D. There were two other models of S-38E and those were the EM and the EB. The EM had a mahogany colored cabinet and the EB had a blond, or beige colored cabinet.
HALLICRAFTERS 5R10
Although not called an S-38, this Hallicrafters 5R10 is a very similar design to the S-38D.
This set was manufactured from 1951 - 1953, before the production of the S-38D, which was from 1955 - 1957. So I guess the S-38D really traces its ancestry to this model.
There were 4 radios in this series. They were the 5R10, 5R10A, 100R10 and the 100R10A. It appears the only difference was in cabinet finish.
top
HALLICRAFTERS S-20R SKY CHAMPION
Hallicrafters used the word "SKY" in a lot of their radios and this S-20R is called the Sky Champion.
This radio was manufactured in 1939 - 1945. The radio has a built in speaker and covers frequencies from 540 Kc to 44 Mc.
I like the Hallicrafters letter "H" logo over the speaker grill. You will notice that Hallicrafters changed its logo several times over the years. This logo is my favorite.
HALLICRAFTERS SX-25 SUPER DEFIANT
This ugly thing used to be a wonderful Hallicrafters SX-25 Super Defiant receiver.
These were made from 1940 - 1945. It is obvious that this powder blue color was not original, but like a lot of radios, it is all there and can be restored close to its original appearance.
HALLICRAFTERS S-40B RECEIVER
This is a very nice Hallicrafters S-40B receiver.
These were manufactured from 1950 -1955. The radio provides continuous coverage from 540 Kc to 43 Mc. It is probably an updated version of the S-20R shown above.
This is an 8-tube set and it has the usual bandspread control and receives AM and CW. Note that this set did not have a SSB (single sideband)setting.
HALLICRAFTERS S-94 CIVIC PATROL
This Hallicrafters S-94 Civic Patrol radio covered from 30 - 50 Mc, in one band and was FM only.
There is an identical-looking radio called the S-95 that covers the frequencies from 152 Mc to 173 Mc. The radios were made from 1955 - 1962, during the "cold war" so they must have been designed for some special purpose of interest during those years....like monitoring aircraft, or such.