For many years, Scott K6AUS has been doing the mathematical analysis of serial numbers on the Drake 2-B receiver. His work has been based on mathematics developed during WWII to let the allies know -- just from serial numbers -- how many tanks the Nazis had. Scott's analysis and the gathering of Drake 2-B serial numbers has been going on since May 2011. See: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-many-drake-2-bs-german-tank-problem.html
We were saddened to learn that in spite of all this work, Scott K6AUS did not have a Drake 2-B himself. Steve KW4H stepped forward to correct this. Steve refurbished a 2-B and sent it to Scott. FB Steve. See the link above.
We have been chronicling Steve's work on this partictular Drake 2-B. Steve also wrote an excellent two part article on this receiver for Electric Radio magazine. Part I recently went out. Part II is coming.
Thanks to Scott for all his analysis of the serial numbers. And thanks to Steve for his amazing generosity.
When I recently started e-mailing Steve KW4H about the Drake 2-B and about the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion receiver (that Steve successfully built), I noticed near the bottom of his QRZ.com page a picture of an old QSL card from KP4USN. It looked familiar.
Steve and I had already determined that we were very close in age. Steve was a Navy dependent, on Puerto Rico at age 15. I was up in Congers, N.Y., also at age 15. I was on 15 meter CW.
But as Steve pointed out, there were several operators. And he was at this point mostly on SSB. It seemed that the odds were against us. But I pledged to try to dig up my old KP4USN QSL card. Steve asked me to tell him the name of the operator and he would tell me he knew him.
At first I thought the QSL card had been lost, perhaps during one of the many moves between then and now. But early this morning I found it. Slowly I turned it over. There it was: "73 Steve."
Wow, it looked like the signature of a 15 year old. I quickly e-mailed Steve and sent him the pictures of the card. He immediately confirmed that the handwriting was his! Wow, 52 years after the contact, we were in contact again.
I checked my records. I had acquired my Drake 2-B only 2 days prior to this contact. (That explains why I was on 15 meters -- my Lafayette HA-600A did very poorly on this band. But the band sounded great on the Drake 2-B! ). Later that day (into the night) I worked ZL2ACP. I woke my parents up to tell them about that one. The Drake 2-B was clearly worth every penny!
There is another signature on the card. Steve KW4H explains:That was Mike Reininga, who was a young guy back then in the Navy and was one of my elmers. In order for the card to be mailed officially and paid for by the Navy, it was approved for mailing. I just tried to look him up, and sadly, Mike passed away some years ago at age 58. He was 21 when I knew him.
I was first licensed as WP4EAI, and was living in Puerto Rico, as a Navy brat. In 1975 I upgraded to General Class (boy, that 13 wpm code test was a white-knuckler -- these were the days when you had to take the exam in front of a steely-eyed examiner). In the photo at the left, you can see some of the old wonderful gear that got me started in this hobby. A Heathkit DX-60, Hammarlund HQ-180A, and some other stuff I can barely remember. Some original QSL cards are on the left. I also operated KP4USN from time to time on the base, and was frequently a control operator for the Maritime Mobile Net, then on 14.313 Mhz. Stateside, I was licensed as WB4EZM.
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.
The passband tuner realigning went just fine. To do this, I remove the audio output transformer and push it aside, insulating it from from the components on the chassis underside using a snack-size baggie. Then, it's necessary to clip the frame of the audio transformer to ground so audio works. I won't go into the nitty-gritty technical steps, but am just pointing out that in order to align that passband tuner you've got to get that transformer out of the way. In the 4-line, Drake solved this inconvenience by putting the passband tuner above the chassis, with all of the alignments easily accessible.
The 2-B is receiving, but not totally realigned yet. But before we do that, I'm installing a custom-built calibrator/marker generator that will plug right in to the calibrator socket on top of the chassis. This calibrator provides selectable 25/50/100 kHz spacing (I'll preset it for 50 kHz). A note for you: it's operated by the "CAL" switch on the front panel, and is rewired to run on that 9V battery I've installed on the bottom of the chassis (see photo). The calibrator consumes almost no power when switched on and the battery should last a very long time. But now you know where the power source is for the calibrator. I've also attached a photo of the calibrator so you know what it looks like -- for the 2-B, the screw terminal isn't installed on the circuit board -- instead, I wire it directly to a Drake-style 4-prong plug that fit right into that calibrator socket above the chassis.
The signal from the calibrator will be used for some of the alignment steps, so I like to install it at this phase.
I really like the "KNOBS are greater than MENUS" sign. For years we have been saying that menus are for restaurants. FB Steve.
Steve's resotation man-cave is very interesting, as are the rigs he has on the shelf or on the bench. Lots of good work is obviously being done there.
I also have one of those KP4USA QSL cards. Steve and I got into ham radio at around the same time, so it is possible that he was on the other end of that QSO. I will check.
I was telling Steve KW4H and Scott K6AUS about my Drake 2-B (Serial #11976):
I got mine when I was still a novice on April 11, 1974. I still have it and use it. It had been spared the Magic Screwdriver, because the previous owner was my Elmer, Hilmar WN2NEC. Hilmar was a no-nonsense German immigrant, a tech who knew which end of the soldering iron to grab.
The only real mod that it had was the installation of a Jackson Brothers reduction drive. This slowed the tuning a lot, and I lost the calibrated dial skirt, but I think it was worthwhile. I have tuned "normal" 2-Bs and they seem a bit fast to me. By the way, I think you can tell a true 2-B restorer if he has replaced the string on the tuning mechanism of the 2-B, and he has done it often enough to get good at it! I am sure Steve is in this category! (Can you imagine a modern rig that actually has a STRING in it? I can't. I think those tuning dial strings capture a lot of the charm of these older receivers.)
When Hilmar sold me the receiver, it had a really cool big knob on the front. But he had specified that I had to give that knob back to him -- he had borrowed it from a device at work! Of course, as a teenager, I dallied. "I really need that knob," complained poor Hilmar. I found a replacement and gave the knob back to him.
Years later I think I replaced the power supply capacitors with a replacement from Hayseed Hamfest.
My 2-B opened up a world of DX for me. Only two days after I got it, I worked ZL2ACP on 15 CW. And of course on that same day, I worked KP4USA on 15 meter CW. The operator was Steve, who is today KW4H. With my earlier general coverage receiver, I could barely hear 15 meters. With the 2-B it was easy to tune.
I have more than 70 Drake 2-B articles on the SolderSmoke blog. Check them out:
Please let us know if you spot any errors, or if we have inadvertently missed anyone. Don't worry about being late to the game -- the challenge continues. All of the info is still available.
As of April 11, 2026 0852Z:
So far Total Receivers Built: 129. 122 plus 7 honorable mentions. Total Count: 129. Receivers built in 19 countries.
NE3U (KY4EOD) Matt
KQ4AOP First ham signals ever heard!
N9TD Derek
AC3NG Ryan
VK3TPM Peter Marks
W4KAC Ken
W4KAC Ken built a second one!
N2EPE Erik
VA3NCA Wayde (Canada)
KI5SRY Mark -- Gears on PTO screw
KA1MUQ Frying pan receiver
AA1N Adam
ZL1AUN Aaron -- Using SSB transmitter -- (New Zealand)
W8UC Never before homebrewed.
VK4PG Phil -- Nice case, "really pleased"
G7LQX Working well, video of CW and SSB. -- (England)
KE2AMP John Spring on PTO screw -- great
N9SZ Steve nice receiver
KD9NHZ Piotr Nice one
KE8ICE Calvin, Very cool receiver.
WV3V Jayson! Got it done!
GM5JDG Martin. -- (Scotland)
KF8BOG Jim: A long struggle, but success.
Chris WalesFantastic video. -- (Wales)
YD9BAX Wayan! Homebrew transformer! (Indonesia)
N0NQD Jeff
WN3F Roy -- Made new stickers!
AB5XQ Bill
KB7ZUT Andy
AA1OF Jer
VictorKees Holland (Netherlands)
KC9OJV John -- Manhattan-style convert
WZ5M 1, 2 or maybe even 3 receivers!
K1KJW Jim in Vermont
KC5DI Dallas -- friend of WZ5M
Gary Australian -- Wooden PTO form (Australia)
LU2VJM Juan in Argentina -- (Argentina)
K1OA Scott "Most fun in 50 years"
KC9DLM Ben -- Had EFHW problems
PH2LB Lex Yellow, Glue Stick -- (Netherlands)
AI6WR David
G6GEV Dave (It was a blast!) (England)
KC1ONM Wayne MakerLabs NH
KB1OIQ Andy MakerLabs NH
KA1PQK Jay MakerLabs NH
W1TKO Mike MakerLabs NH
K5KHK Karl
SM0TPW Mikael -- (Sweden)
KI7LKB Brian (coat hanger tube)
M6CRD Chris (England)
W2DAB Dave in NYC
W4JYK Wes of VWS
KA4CDN Mike of VWS
M7EFO Adrian
VK5RC Rob (Australia)
KD8KHP Dave
VK1CHW Chris (Australia)
KA0PHJ Brian
W0IT Louis
W1PJE Phil
W2AEW Alan
KN6FVK John (Barkhausen-Be-Gone Spray)
VU2JXN Ramakrishnan -- (India)
AA0MS Doug
9V1/KM7ABZ Paul -- (Singapore)
VK2BLQ Stephen -- (Australia)
N3FJZ Rick
Daniel VE5DLD -- (Canada)
Student 1 Student of VE5DLD
Student 2 Student of VE5DLD
Student 3 Student of VE5DLD
K7WXW Bill
NK3H Mitch
KN4ZXG Ted
WA1MAC Paul
N4AVC Chuck
K3IY Kevin
N6ASD Ashish in Bangalore (India)
W1DSP Rick
WD4CFN Steve
KM5Z Mike
KF5DAN Dan
Fritz Fritz
N9OK Joe
WA5DSS Bill
K0GDB Grant
G0JNR Shane Glow-in-Dark Coil Form
KK7BCO Tobias
K2BVR Bob
Robert Sutton
K5YFO Dave (Texas)
KD4PBJ Chris
KN4GAH Chris -- EE perspective
F1GMA Philippe -- (France)
W2TEF Todd
EI9ITB Karl -- (Ireland)
VU2TUM Puneit Singh (India)
AA7EE Dave Richards
KI5VIR Jay
CT7AXD Graham -- Promoted from Honorable Mention! (Portugal)
Please let us know if you spot any errors, or if we have inadvertently missed anyone. Don't worry about being late to the game -- the challenge continues. All of the info is still available.
As of February 20, 2026 1503Z:
So far 108 completed receivers, and 7 honorable mentions. Total Count: 115. Receivers built in 17 countries.
NE3U (KY4EOD) Matt
KQ4AOP First ham signals ever heard!
N9TD Derek
AC3NG Ryan
VK3TPM Peter Marks
W4KAC Ken
W4KAC Ken built a second one!
N2EPE Erik
VA3NCA Wayde
KI5SRY Mark -- Gears on PTO screw
KA1MUQ Frying pan receiver
AA1N Adam
ZL1AUN Aaron -- Using SSB transmitter -- New Zealand
W8UC Never before homebrewed.
VK4PG Phil -- Nice case, "really pleased"
G7LQX Working well, video of CW and SSB. -- England
Please let us know if you spot any errors, or if we have inadvertently missed anyone. Don't worry about being late to the game -- the challenge continues. All of the info is still available.
As of April 5, 2026 0833Z:
So far Total Receivers Built: 128. 121 plus 7 honorable mentions. Total Count: 128. Receivers built in 18 countries.
NE3U (KY4EOD) Matt
KQ4AOP First ham signals ever heard!
N9TD Derek
AC3NG Ryan
VK3TPM Peter Marks
W4KAC Ken
W4KAC Ken built a second one!
N2EPE Erik
VA3NCA Wayde
KI5SRY Mark -- Gears on PTO screw
KA1MUQ Frying pan receiver
AA1N Adam
ZL1AUN Aaron -- Using SSB transmitter -- New Zealand
W8UC Never before homebrewed.
VK4PG Phil -- Nice case, "really pleased"
G7LQX Working well, video of CW and SSB. -- England
RX built in Bandung Indonesia -- Andri used an AF transtormer from an old Japanese receiver.
Why have NO receivers been built in Japan? And none in China. Only one in all of Latin America. Not one in all of Africa.
Please let us know if you spot any errors, or if we have inadvertently missed anyone. Don't worry about being late to the game -- the challenge continues. All of the info is still available.
As of August 17, 2026 0845Z:
So far, total receivers built: 138 (130 plus 8 honorable mentions). Total Count: 138. Receivers built in 19 countries.
NE3U (KY4EOD) Matt
KQ4AOP First ham signals ever heard!
N9TD Derek
AC3NG Ryan
VK3TPM Peter Marks
W4KAC Ken
W4KAC Ken built a second one!
N2EPE Erik
VA3NCA Wayde (Canada)
KI5SRY Mark -- Gears on PTO screw
KA1MUQ Frying pan receiver
AA1N Adam
ZL1AUN Aaron -- Using SSB transmitter -- (New Zealand)
W8UC Never before homebrewed.
VK4PG Phil -- Nice case, "really pleased"
G7LQX Working well, video of CW and SSB. -- (England)
KE2AMP John Spring on PTO screw -- great
N9SZ Steve nice receiver
KD9NHZ Piotr Nice one
KE8ICE Calvin, Very cool receiver.
WV3V Jayson! Got it done!
GM5JDG Martin. -- (Scotland)
KF8BOG Jim: A long struggle, but success.
Chris WalesFantastic video. -- (Wales)
YD9BAX Wayan! Homebrew transformer! (Indonesia)
N0NQD Jeff
WN3F Roy -- Made new stickers!
AB5XQ Bill
KB7ZUT Andy
AA1OF Jer
VictorKees Holland (Netherlands)
KC9OJV John -- Manhattan-style convert
WZ5M 1, 2 or maybe even 3 receivers!
K1KJW Jim in Vermont
KC5DI Dallas -- friend of WZ5M
Gary Australian -- Wooden PTO form (Australia)
LU2VJM Juan in Argentina -- (Argentina)
K1OA Scott "Most fun in 50 years"
KC9DLM Ben -- Had EFHW problems
PH2LB Lex Yellow, Glue Stick -- (Netherlands)
AI6WR David
G6GEV Dave (It was a blast!) (England)
KC1ONM Wayne MakerLabs NH
KB1OIQ Andy MakerLabs NH
KA1PQK Jay MakerLabs NH
W1TKO Mike MakerLabs NH
K5KHK Karl
SM0TPW Mikael -- (Sweden)
KI7LKB Brian (coat hanger tube)
M6CRD Chris (England)
W2DAB Dave in NYC
W4JYK Wes of VWS
KA4CDN Mike of VWS
M7EFO Adrian
VK5RC Rob (Australia)
KD8KHP Dave
VK1CHW Chris (Australia)
KA0PHJ Brian
W0IT Louis
W1PJE Phil
W2AEW Alan
KN6FVK John (Barkhausen-Be-Gone Spray)
VU2JXN Ramakrishnan -- (India)
AA0MS Doug
9V1/KM7ABZ Paul -- (Singapore)
VK2BLQ Stephen -- (Australia)
N3FJZ Rick
Daniel VE5DLD -- (Canada)
Student 1 Student of VE5DLD
Student 2 Student of VE5DLD
Student 3 Student of VE5DLD
K7WXW Bill
NK3H Mitch
KN4ZXG Ted
WA1MAC Paul
N4AVC Chuck
K3IY Kevin
N6ASD Ashish in Bangalore (India)
W1DSP Rick
WD4CFN Steve
KM5Z Mike
KF5DAN Dan
Fritz Fritz
N9OK Joe
WA5DSS Bill
K0GDB Grant
G0JNR Shane Glow-in-Dark Coil Form
KK7BCO Tobias
K2BVR Bob
Robert Sutton
K5YFO Dave (Texas)
KD4PBJ Chris
KN4GAH Chris -- EE perspective
F1GMA Philippe -- (France)
W2TEF Todd
EI9ITB Karl -- (Ireland)
VU2TUM Puneit Singh (India)
AA7EE Dave Richards
KI5VIR Jay
CT7AXD Graham -- Promoted from Honorable Mention! (Portugal)
