Craig strikes again! The McElroy MT-35 was not part of the original ton but still came our way courtesy of Craig's enormous list.
So just what is a McElroy MT-35? That in itself is somewhat of a mystery. Ted McElroy was the world's champion radio telegrapher, setting the record for fastest copying speed. He managed to make a business out of his reputation, selling code keys, bugs, code training gear and associated equipment from offices in Boston and Littleton, Massachusetts.
His telegraph gear is reasonably well known. But a McElroy transmitter? It appears that shortly after WWII McElroy decided to branch out. Primitive looking now, the MT-35 was not unreasonable for its day, using the popular 807 tube for a final and offering CW and AM. With only a single 807 it does not offer a lot of power, 20 watts out or so.
The rig is crystal controlled and can operate on any frequency from 80 meters through 10 meters, by use of plug in coils and matching tuning capacitors. Somewhat oddly, the tuning caps have to been physically mounted to the chassis and soldered in even though the matching coils are easily plugged in and out (this was changed in the WRL Globe Trotter).
Three switchable positions are provided, meaning you can have installed coils/caps for three bands along with a suitable crystal for each and can change from one to the other from the front panel. There are no tune-up controls externally--tuning requires opening the top and adjusting the caps with a screwdriver!
The MT-35 is quite rare. We've heard there are only 5 or 6 of them. If you have one, please contact us and share what you know!
At some point, WRL obtained the rights to sell what is essentially the same transmitter as the WRL "Globe Trotter", which itself is pretty rare. This was first offered for sale in mid-1946. Information on the Globe Trotter is also hard to come by. If you have one or know more about them please contact us and share!
So, here are some photos of our MT-35:
Inside our MT-35 we were fortunate the find the original "manual". This consisted of exactly two pages. You can view them here:
McElroy MT-35 manual, page 1
McElroy MT-35 manual, page 2
Some say there are only five or six MT-35's ever built. Here are the ones we've been able to track down.
Since the MT-35 evolved into the World Radio Lab Globe Trotter it's interesting to compare the two. Thanks to Charles Hugg K5MBX we now have some hi-res photos of the Globe Trotter.
