Herculodge

A Tale of Greed and Desperation on Larry Mantle Today

 

 

 

Today on AirTalk author Scott Carney discussed his book, a disturbing tale of greed, evil, and desperation, called The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers. 

Carney described a horde of kidnapped souls forced to give blood until near death at which time they were dumped on the outskirts of town. 

Day 3 of Natalie's Croup Renders Her Sleepless and Melancholy

Natalie's twin sister Julia had croup about 12 days ago.

Now Natalie has joined the party. Her dry coughs frighten and pain her. What is a croup cough like? Imagine slamming the brakes of a Mack truck with no brake pads.

Between 9PM and 12:30 A.M. it's a major fuss fest and she does not wake refreshed to say the least.

The good news: She didn't need to go the ER like her sister. The bad news. When will this end?

Ken Looking for Info Regarding His Mysterious IMA Cassette Recorder/Player

I picked up this unit a while back at an estate sale and have been unable to find out a single thing about it on the web.

 

I'm guessing it's from the late 70's, but I've never seen any other item from "IMA". It basically does everything: Cassette Recorder/Player, 8 Track player (first one of those I've had in 25 years, I scrounged up a bunch of 8 tracks that can been seen next to the unit), AM/FM, line in and out. It's also got a digital frequency display (710 AM WOR in NY is on the dial in the picture). Everything works fine except that the cassette runs a little slow. My SR2 is on top of it for size comparison.

 

Sound quality from the side speakers is suprisingly loud and listenable. On AM and FM it's an average performer.

 

Basically right now the thing is a conversation piece in my basement. If I have a few friends over it's fun to pop in an 8 Track for nostalgia sake. But I'd sure like to know a little more about it. It's a solid unit, I'm thinking it was maybe top of the line of whatever radios "IMA' was putting out back then.

 

Thanks for any help, and keep up the great work!

 

Ken in NJ

Very Retro and Very Cool Circa 1960 Sony TR-650 Portable Radio

 

I have a hunch collectors are going to get busy on the bidding for this Sony TR-650.

John Arranges Some Vintage Radios Over Memorial Weekend

On the left is a Grundig RF 121u not working I got for free. The middle on is a nice little AM Tube radio made by Farnsworth in 1946. It is a model ET-066 and it does work. My Dad picked it up for $20.00. The radio on the right is a working Grundig TR-807 a co-worker gave to me. Pretty happy. I think I can fix the little Grundig stereo. I suspect it is a bad transformer.

 

John

A DSP Radio for My Wish-List: The Sangean CL-100

Not many DSP radios appeal to me, but this one, described by Tim, does: 

Last week I received my Sangean CL-100 radio from Amazon. I haven't compared the sensitivity to other radios yet, but it seems to be at least average. I'm using it as a bedside radio, to replace my Sonido. I can say this, though: the sound is quite nice. I've turned the treble up all the way, and the bass about two-thirds. The tone is slightly mellow, but surprisingly rich for a compact radio. 

AM sounds moderately clear, FM quite good. The general sound is substantially better than the Sonido. I would call it excellent - again, for a compact. 

The programming is self-intuitive enough, although I did have to check the manual a couple of times. Welcome to the world of menu diving, as with everything else. If the Sangean 909X offers the same quality sound, I'll be thrilled.

Update:

Tom adds:

The reception on this radio should be excellent since it is a DSP-based radio. When I 1st read about this radio I thought it would be a bit of a sleeper.

I started thinking about getting an appealing DSP radio after reading this comment from Mark Roberts:

I would argue that the availability of DSP chips is a real game-changer, the biggest change in radio since digital tuning. It certainly is for FM reception -- no more front-end overload, the bane of relatively sensitive but cheap radios! The jury seems to be out for the other bands; there seem to be more variables in play. But for FM, most of my DSP-based cheap radios perform comparably to my mid-to-high-end NAD tuners.

 

 

 

Lonely Hobbyists and Limerence

 

Hobbies can be a good thing. They provide a healthy escape and distraction. Or they can cross the line and make us fail to confront problems that need confronting. 

Or they can cross the line and become addictive. 

I see this with my own hobbies whether they be radios or watches or whatever. On a personal note, I’ve always had obsessive tendencies, since early childhood (had an encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs at the age of seven) so hobbies and obsession are nothing new to me.  

One thing I’ve noticed about blogs that draw people together, whether I’m on a website about watches or politics, is that a lot of people are lonely. I just read a watch geek’s thread about him owning close to 250 watches.

He buys the watches, then talks about them on various sites. I see a lot of loneliness there. I’m not above loneliness. And I’m not above admitting it’s powerful to connect with others regarding similar interests. 

One word that fascinates me about this subject of connecting with others is limerence. I came across this word recently while reading David Brooks’ The Social Animal. We tend to be drawn to people who are like us. We seek such people in romance and friendship.

Making these connections is fine by me. I just don’t want to be the guy who buys 250 watches.  

 

Twin Daughters Equals Twin Cases of Croup

 

Julia (above) had croup about 11 days ago. She had to go to the ER and is fine now. Yesterday her sister Natalie (below) showed symptoms for it. So far Natalie's case isn't as extreme and she hasn't had to go to the hospital.

Here's a question: Can Natalie re-infect Julia with croup?

 

Amazon Selling the Invicta Leviathan with Mother of Pearl Dial for $219 and Free Shipping

 

 

Excellent price for this Invicta Leviathan with mother of pearl dial. 

I paid about $80 more for mine:

Andreas Calls the Braun T 1000 Radio a Milestone in Design Suitable for Casual Listening

 

(Re-post)

The Braun is a milestone in design, ease of use and overall concept. Today it's still a very nice unit for casual listening. But technically seen it's state of the art of the sixties. Single conversion, from todays point of view only mediocre filters etc. A well made modern set will blow it away in performance. So, again: a collector's item. A very intriguing one of course!!! But if you just wan't to listen to a good radio, there are much less expensive alternatives.

Martin Bösch again
An inspiration for homebrewers: this guy made a nice mini replica of the Braun. The circuit is completely different, but I'm sure it's a beauty on the desk as well:

http://tinyurl.com/37yqlsm (sorry, poor Google Translation)