"Alan Douglas" adouglasatgis.net wrote in message
...
I can add some information, based on research done back in
1980 by H.
L. Chadbourne of La Jolla, CA. Quoting from a letter of
his to me:

"...I saw the name Ray Morehouse with call letters
attached to one of
these ads [the QST ads] , so I looked him up in a recent
callbook and
wrote him. Had a very nice letter back. He'd worked for
Cardwell from
1924-1947. He had a little on the receiver, but referred
me to Moe
Joffe in Los Angeles for more. Moe was directly in on the
project.

...Allen D. Cardwell...toward the war's end...wanted to
broaden the
product line. He talked with Grenby Mfg. Co. of Plainview,
CT about
some sort of joint venture, with Cardwell doing R&D and
Grenby as the
manufacturing arm. Grenby had started in 1940 and during
WWII made
mainly parts for Pratt & Whitney. It was a sort of
machine shop
operation. However at one point Lockheed gave them an
electronic
assembly to make, and they liked the work, so decided on
it for
postwar. Hence the Cardwell discussions. But the two
firms could not
reach agreement and the talks ended by Grenby buying out
Cardwell and
moving the firm to Plainville. Mack C. Jones, who had
been an
engineer with Raytheon during WWII, was hired by Grenby as
Ch.
Engineer, and he suggested the 54 receiver project. Moe
Joffe was
under him.

"I had a fine phone conversation with Joffe and hope some
time to
interview him in person. He said the 54 was a very
advanced set, but
was not put into production because of its extremely high
cost, $700 -
$800 a unit. The market did not seem to be there at the
time--possibly again, the huge supply of surplus put a
damper on new
sales. Joffe eventually went on to Squires-Sanders and
their
communications receiver projects."

I have Morehouse's letter here also; he said he didn't
know what
became of the 54 prototype.

Alan

Very interesting and more than is known about some
other projects. Note that the cost of the SP-600 and 51J
receivers was up in the this range. The 51J is advertized in
the 1950 edition of the ARRL Handbook at $875, a veritable
fortune at the time and the SP-600-JX was also up around
$900. However, I think both had a market base in military
sales and civilian sales were just extra. It would be
interesting to know more about the Cardwell receiver.
Evidently it was single conversion which would have put it
at a disadvantage in comparison to the Collins and
Hammarlund products. There is an ad featuring the Cardwell
54 in the 1947 edition of the ARRL Handbook with a fairly
large illustration but I can't tell for certain if its a
drawing or a retouched photo. It might be a photo of a
prototype or possibly a mock-up. If anyone has a Radio's
Master or Allied or other large catalogue of the time please
see if you can find this rx advertised there. I know such an
ad existed but don't know what year. The question, of
course, is whether the receivers were actually available,
the above post, and lack of any actual receivers, suggests
they were not.


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL