A Utah Radio UAT-4 Amplifier

Provenance
I've heard tell that obsessions are not a healthy thing. I'm not sure to whom this idea should be attributed but I will say that obsessions can occupy a lot of your waking hours. For awhile I was obsessed with Collins radios. The dreaded Collins Collector Disease. This affliction started with a Collins R-390 which I unearthed in an army-navy store down in Baltimore. It was cheap and it found its way back to the shack. Followed in rapid succession by an increasingly more expensive 30-L1, KWM-1 and ultimately a KWS-1 with not quite matching 75-A2 receiver. Thankfully this very expensive version of the disease passed. But I have now contracted a maybe more insidious version of the disease. A Utah Radio Products obsession. It started when I won the auction for the UAT-1 Exciter box. It was only later that I realized there had been a UAT-4 also up for grabs. Someone else got it (for less than I paid for the UAT-1). But then they turned it around on eBay a few weeks later and it went for $400. That amplifier belonged with my exciter. I watched that eBay auction as the clock ticked down to the end. It took all my will power to not hit the Bid button. After all I was a recovering Collins Collector and I just couldn't spend $400 on a box I could have had for $50 if I had known about it. That was the last time any Utah transmitters have shown up on eBay. I have since then realized that I am now hooked. An obsession with Utah Radio Products. A much more debilitating affliction. Because it's always possible to go out on eBay and spend a few thousand dollars to get what ever piece of Collins gear you want. But Utah Radio Products. They do not exist anymore. Not just the company, the boxes. They have disappeared. You do not just do an eBay search for a UAT-4 and then type in your credit card number. Well actually you do if you have the obsession. You have at least bookmarked a Utah Radio Products eBay search. And every night, no matter how late it is you check to see if anything has shown up in the last 24 hours. And nothing ever does. Except for the car speakers from the 50's and 60's that Utah was famous for. And the occasional transformer or headphone that they manufactured. But every night you lay there in bed wondering if this might be the night when that UAT-4 Amplifier will show up at the top of the search results. And it never does.

Last April at NEARFest XXXIII I parked my truck in the lower camping area like I always do, twice a year. Facing west on Carousel Way looking up the hill at the trees behind which all the vendors are setup. It's Friday morning, and they've finally cleared the long line of trucks and cars waiting to get in. Normally I immediately setup shop, layout the blue tarp, situate my radios and paraphernalia in appropriately sellable positions, break out the folding chair and sit, waiting to rake in the cash. I usually don't like to go out buying until I'm sure I've raised a little something to spend. But this time I'm pretty sure I've got it covered ahead of time. I've got a modern, digital, USB stickable, programmable Uniden scanner which I was sure I was going to learn how to use. But it sat on the shelf for 2 years after my first attempt at programming it. I'm pretty sure it'll bring in at least a few hundred bucks so I confidently pull out my knapsack, lock the truck and head up the hill to do some buying. Last spring my big project was building a 1923 version of a classic Armstrong regenerative receiver. As I walked up and down the paths I was thrilled to find beautiful 1920's audio transformers for $5. One guy was basically giving away Fahnstock clips, rheostats and knife switches which he said came from the Tufts University Physics lab in 1914. Somewhere up there a tarp was on the ground labeled "Free". Boxes of ribbed body-end-dot resistors for the taking. I was feeling pretty good an hour and a half later as I headed back to the truck, my knapsack heavy and jingling with all manner of 1920's pieces and parts. I passed the concrete restrooms and turned left down the hill back towards the lower camping area. As I came down the incline I looked up and saw my truck about 200 feet in front of me. And in my line of vision, about 100 feet in front of the truck was the telephone pole on the corner. And next to the telephone pole on the ground were two, dark, square, familiar looking boxes. I caught my breath as I took in the scene. The owner of the boxes was standing up next to the telephone pole, behind it was one of the boxes with a yellow sticker on it. And to my horror another guy was on his hands and knees peering into the other box. It was a UAT-4 Amplifier. I hurried towards the boxes already calculating in my mind how many hundreds of dollars I would blurt out to the owner if need be. Trying to look as nonchalant as possible I paced and danced around watching the guy still on his knees peering into the amplifier. Finally he stood up and with a few words and a little shrug he walked away. I held my breath and turned to the owner. "Does he want it?" I asked fearfully. "He's thinking about it" was the answer. I reached for my wallet trying to control the quiver in my voice and asked "How much do you want?" With a kind of baffled look on his face he kind of asked "50 dollars?" The other box with the yellow sticker was a UAT-1 which he said the guy was coming back for. I briefly considered about waiting until they were both definitely available. But I shook myself awake and paid the guy the 50 on the spot and lugged the UAT-4 the last 100 feet to the truck. I set it up on my Angenieux Lens box table and ogled and stared at it all day. The obsession is still there, but the fever has broken a little. It's home now, in the shack, next to me on the table as I type this. It needs some work, I'm waiting for parts. It's a UAT-4. It's going to be hooked up to a UAT-1 someday. Hopefully sooner than later.

Provenance

I've heard tell that obsessions are not a healthy thing. I'm not sure to whom this idea should be attributed but I will say that obsessions can occupy a lot of your waking hours. For awhile I was obsessed with Collins radios. The dreaded Collins Collector Disease. This affliction started with a Collins R-390 which I unearthed in an army-navy store down in Baltimore. It was cheap and it found its way back to the shack. Followed in rapid succession by an increasingly more expensive 30-L1, KWM-1 and ultimately a KWS-1 with not quite matching 75-A2 receiver. Thankfully this very expensive version of the disease passed. But I have now contracted a maybe more insidious version of the disease. A Utah Radio Products obsession. It started when I won the auction for the UAT-1 Exciter box. It was only later that I realized there had been a UAT-4 also up for grabs. Someone else got it (for less than I paid for the UAT-1). But then they turned it around on eBay a few weeks later and it went for $400. That amplifier belonged with my exciter. I watched that eBay auction as the clock ticked down to the end. It took all my will power to not hit the Bid button. After all I was a recovering Collins Collector and I just couldn't spend $400 on a box I could have had for $50 if I had known about it. That was the last time any Utah transmitters have shown up on eBay. I have since then realized that I am now hooked. An obsession with Utah Radio Products. A much more debilitating affliction. Because it's always possible to go out on eBay and spend a few thousand dollars to get what ever piece of Collins gear you want.

But Utah Radio Products. They do not exist anymore. Not just the company, the boxes. They have disappeared. You do not just do an eBay search for a UAT-4 and then type in your credit card number. Well actually you do if you have the obsession. You have at least bookmarked a Utah Radio Products eBay search. And every night, no matter how late it is you check to see if anything has shown up in the last 24 hours. And nothing ever does. Except for the car speakers from the 50's and 60's that Utah was famous for. And the occasional transformer or headphone that they manufactured. But every night you lay there in bed wondering if this might be the night when that UAT-4 Amplifier will show up at the top of the search results. And it never does.

Last April at NEARFest XXXIII I parked my truck in the lower camping area like I always do, twice a year. Facing west on Carousel Way looking up the hill at the trees behind which all the vendors are setup. It's Friday morning, and they've finally cleared the long line of trucks and cars waiting to get in. Normally I immediately setup shop, layout the blue tarp, situate my radios and paraphernalia in appropriately sellable positions, break out the folding chair and sit, waiting to rake in the cash. I usually don't like to go out buying until I'm sure I've raised a little something to spend. But this time I'm pretty sure I've got it covered ahead of time. I've got a modern, digital, USB stickable, programmable Uniden scanner which I was sure I was going to learn how to use. But it sat on the shelf for 2 years after my first attempt at programming it. I'm pretty sure it'll bring in at least a few hundred bucks so I confidently pull out my knapsack, lock the truck and head up the hill to do some buying.

Last spring my big project was building a 1923 version of a classic Armstrong regenerative receiver. As I walked up and down the paths I was thrilled to find beautiful 1920's audio transformers for $5. One guy was basically giving away Fahnstock clips, rheostats and knife switches which he said came from the Tufts University Physics lab in 1914. Somewhere up there a tarp was on the ground labeled "Free". Boxes of ribbed body-end-dot resistors for the taking.

I was feeling pretty good an hour and a half later as I headed back to the truck, my knapsack heavy and jingling with all manner of 1920's pieces and parts. I passed the concrete restrooms and turned left down the hill back towards the lower camping area. As I came down the incline I looked up and saw my truck about 200 feet in front of me. And in my line of vision, about 100 feet in front of the truck was the telephone pole on the corner. And next to the telephone pole on the ground were two, dark, square, familiar looking boxes.

I caught my breath as I took in the scene. The owner of the boxes was standing up next to the telephone pole, behind it was one of the boxes with a yellow sticker on it. And to my horror another guy was on his hands and knees peering into the other box. It was a UAT-4 Amplifier. I hurried towards the boxes already calculating in my mind how many hundreds of dollars I would blurt out to the owner if need be. Trying to look as nonchalant as possible I paced and danced around watching the guy still on his knees peering into the amplifier. Finally he stood up and with a few words and a little shrug he walked away. I held my breath and turned to the owner. "Does he want it?" I asked fearfully. "He's thinking about it" was the answer. I reached for my wallet trying to control the quiver in my voice and asked "How much do you want?" With a kind of baffled look on his face he kind of asked "50 dollars?" The other box with the yellow sticker was a UAT-1 which he said the guy was coming back for. I briefly considered about waiting until they were both definitely available. But I shook myself awake and paid the guy the 50 on the spot and lugged the UAT-4 the last 100 feet to the truck. I set it up on my Angenieux Lens box table and ogled and stared at it all day.

The obsession is still there, but the fever has broken a little. It's home now, in the shack, next to me on the table as I type this. It needs some work, I'm waiting for parts. It's a UAT-4. It's going to be hooked up to a UAT-1 someday. Hopefully sooner than later.