Obviously I am interested in the Drake 2-B. Steve KW4H restores rigs of this vintage (similar to our own vintage!). He has sent me some notes on his work on the Drake 2-Bs.
Steve writes:
Attached is a photo of a completely needless 455 kHz mechanical filter I found in this 2B. Never seen this before, but I found the info -- this was the Henry DMF-2, which was a modification kit sold for the Drake 2A and 2B. Yet more snake oil sold to the "I need a mechanical filter like a Collins" crowd. There was a REASON why Drake didn't filter on 455 kHz -- it wasn't nearly as effective as filtering on 50 kHz, which is exactly what the passband filter does. That, along with the 2-BQ Q-multiplier/speaker makes for a terrific receiver that rivals even many of the modern rigs of today.
That filter is clearly unnecessary, and Steve was completly right in getting rid of it. Still, it is a Kokusai. Pete N6QW gave me one of those. I think I have it in my Mate for the Mighty Midget receiver. One other note: As a kid, Steve was in Puerto Rico and operated from the navy base club station KP4USN. I have that station, during that period, in my log book (I worked KP4USN on April 12, 1974 on 15 CW). I have to dig up the QSL card to find out if it was Steve, or one of his friends.
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