C13-wireless

I had acquired one as a boy. It was a delight to behold. The insides appeared miraculous. I had never encountered a truly complex electronic object before. Although I had no manual, I reverse engineered sufficient of it to biuld a control unit and power supply.

This device was to become the operational core of my ham radio setup, it become a stable source of carrier, a variable IF, and a source of frequency callibration as time when my hobby were financed through a bit of pocket money. It taught me enough practical electronics to get me a job and see me through life.

Given the extraordinary biuld quality of this set, if you are fortuneate enough to aquire one, it will probably just work without further ado.
If you are using the original vibratory supply, your 24VDC source must be clean because this voltage source is used for some low power requirement biasing voltages internally. A 24V vehicle battery supply was assumed. Complete sets with all external harness and the elusive external ATU are extremely rare. The ATUs were removed by surplus dealers for their Silver (Ag) content and very few ATUs made it into the hands of hams. It is not difficult to replicate the basic functions of the external harness. You will require an external microphone amplifier should you wish to put it on air.

some internal images taken during a recent dust off, Jan 2010. I have not opened the case in twenty years. It still has the smell that is unique to the larkspur equipment... sweet rubbery goodness ! Shown here is the reciever module swung out on its mainenance hinges. I did not have time to disconnect the front panel hardware to permit the transmitter half to swing out. Items of interest to look out for are the back of the ledex rotary relay on the sender module and some of the film strip dial and variable capacitor clockwork. The transmitter bottle is mounted in a teflon socket and sits infront of a RF sheild that some very clever person saw to that it was finely polished and doubled as a thermal reflector, helping to passively dissipate the RF final bottles' heat against the aluminum case. This radio was passively cooled unlike other larkspurs ( like the C42, C45 , C11 et al) that had a small internal fan. Purists will note that the internal dessicator is missing. This vanished about 35 years ago. When I bought it ( I was only 16 at the time ) I did not recognise its function. Maybe it was a demollision charge! , or so I thought, so I quietly disposed of it. I am still amazed at the very high component packing density.



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		this is gorgeous! Do you think anybody ever did ? What would your adjutant have done?


			there were user servicable parts inside!