HFU HF Underground
Technical Topics => Equipment => Topic started by: Skipmuck on May 17, 2017, 0024 UTC
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My dad had this exact one when I was a little tyke in the late 1950's/early 1960's ;D
http://www.esnarf.com/7394k.htm
(http://i.imgur.com/rDKHBTl.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/R94T9Jp.jpg)
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They were selling those in Cracker Barrel restaurants until just a few years ago. I haven't seen them lately. The same box and graphics.
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I stopped in CB for quick look today and didn't see any. They still have the antenna kit, aka a "Slinky". From going through the CD rack I suspect the guy the who runs OTR is Cracker Barrel employee. Nothing but vintage radio programs.
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Pigmeat, I find it interesting that such a thing would find a market in today's digital world! I don't recall having been in a Cracker Barrel Restaurant before...not sure if there is even one in the local vicinity and I have not encountered one in my travels over the years. I wonder if the rocket crystal radios were a new manufacture and from whence they came. I was pondering purchasing one of these newly found "old stock" sets, but the price was more than a little too high for engaging in a bit of nostalgia from those early days of my life when everything was mysterious, new, and exciting. Sadly I don't get that feeling all that much these days.....of course, like many of my age, I had built a crystal set in the 1960's with a 1N34 Germanium diode and a Quaker Oats box....the variable cap was salvaged from an old transistor radio. A few years later a Radio Shack 50-in-1 electronics kit was found under the Christmas tree and I had some enlightening moments with that! How things have changed since those early days.... :-\
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They were new, but whether someone had bought the rights to them or it was the same company I couldn't say. The graphics were the same though.
Cracker Barrels used to be located mostly in the South, but they've spread over the past couple of decades. I've seen them as far north as PA and OH.
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We have a few Cracker Barrels here in Colorado. I've never stopped in one, but now I have a reason.
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"Pigmeat, I find it interesting that such a thing would find a market in today's digital world!"
If you visit one you'd be hard pressed not to notice the age of most of the crowd. Most of them are old enough to be our parents, hence they may have had one of those rocket xtal rigs when they were kids. The boomers definitely keep cb and Bob Evans in business.
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"Pigmeat, I find it interesting that such a thing would find a market in today's digital world!"
If you visit one you'd be hard pressed not to notice the age of most of the crowd. Most of them are old enough to be our parents, hence they may have had one of those rocket xtal rigs when they were kids. The boomers definitely keep cb and Bob Evans in business.
Indeed....as I was born in 1955, I doubt that most of them are old enough to be my parents! ;D I did find there is a local Cracker Barrel restaurant in nearby Holyoke MA, but a quick search of the Bob Evans website found nothing within 300 miles of Western MA. I may eventually head over to Holyoke to see if the CB ambiance strikes that nostalgic chord of mystic memory.....
(http://i.imgur.com/vNfBnP3.jpg)
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Lots of vintage tools and signs, along with vintage radios on display on the walls and shelves in the dining rooms. I like their burgers. The rest of their food is o.k., but I can similar stuff of better quality and at cheaper prices at local Mom and Pop's type places. The entrance and checkout area is an entire room full of products that are hard to find and general tourist stuff. I started stopping at them as they had an exchange library between their stores of books on tape. It was great for long trips. You could listen to the book for a small fee and drop it off at the next convenient one when you were done. I think they still do it via CD these days?
BTW, you can buy a coonskin cap, they've got 'em, don it, and belt out the theme song to "Davy Crockett" on your way home.
I do like the "Drink Yoo-Hoo" and "See Rock City" signs. The last one was so common when I was kid, when people would later ask me what "my sign" was, I'd tell them "See Rock City".
Traveling America before the interstates were everywhere was an adventure-land of tourist traps and oddball sights.
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I encourage all to join with me in badgering Pigmeat into writing his memoirs here at hfu repository.
https://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/
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Badgers on mushrooms. It damn near gave me a seizure!