Drake prototypes on Ebay sale

Sadly it is all too common for sellers of old or interesting radios to hype them for sale, using terms such as "rare, prototype" etc. looking for a good price. But here, I believe, we probably have the genuine artlicle; three pre-production prototypes from the Miamisburg, Ohio, firm of R L Drake, best known as producers of ham radio gear. They are on Ebay sale from an anonymous seller in Dayton, Ohio, into the locality of the Drake plant, possibly a former employee. They take the form of three fm-only radios with 72-108 MHz coverage, apparently never going into production due to failure to obtain FCC approval. In reply to a question from myself the Ebay seller told me that the FCC approval was witheld "due to the sets not having an AM band." (US members' comment on this welcome. ) I was also told that the radios were Drake designed but produced abroad. To view/bid do an Ebay "Advanced Search" on item 200963466251. (I have no connection personally with the sale or the seller.)

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The FCC had or still does have a requirment that any radio that had an FM band also had to have the AM band. This was supposed  to give the AM band a chance to be competitive in the radio market. The FM band had an advantage over the AM band with less background noise and crystal clear reception within it's broadcasting range.The disadvantage with FM is the range is relatively short. The advantage for the AM band is much longer range, but there is a lot more interference from lightning strikes and other static producers. The FCC also had a requirment that CB radios that were sold after a certain date had to have more channels ( I am not clear as to how many) than the 23 that were originally assigned. As to the FM band, the only way you could buy an FM only radio was to buy a add on converter that that could play thru a TV set or an AM radio.

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Thanks to Garrett for that contribution which supports the seller's claim regarding the FCC ban. I have also noticed that the two silver sets are badged "Milcotech MR-306". A Google search on this brought few results, evidence of a total of three sets on sale globally, two in Finland 2007/8 and one this year in Romania. Possibly just a sell-off of an initial production batch by the manufacturer trying to recoup tooling costs. So the black Ebay set might be the only actual "Drake" prototype.

• One Drake and two Milcotech MR-306 named sets. (151 KB)

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