White elephant hunt

[Ronak]

Some of you older folks might remember that back in the 50's and 60's the general aviation crowd was so prolific that it was unusual to look skyward without seeing a light aircraft. As a career military pilot, and occasional sport throttle bender, I flew a broad range of aircraft. It was almost universal for any cross-country airplane to be equipped with an avionics package that included an automatic direction finder--an am radio coupled to an antenna that gave bearing information to the station by means of a guage on the dash. With the decline in the general aviation ranks, I thought there would be a ton of surplus ADF sets, but a visit to Ebay only turned up one, and it was real pricey. I would like to mount an ADF on my sportfishermanas a back-up to gps (kinda filling the hole coming when the LORAN plug is pulled). Does anyone have any ideas where I could score a surplus ADF?

[Deep C]

Unfortunately tou nailed it with Ebay... I have two models of VHF version on my saved searches and in two years I have only successfully nailed one down.
The older style ones with the big metal ring that you lock on say a radio station (Many were AM) pop up on there once in a blue moon. There is a place in Riviera Beach Florida that is called Sea Chest Salvage that I saw one in not too long ago.

[tomfrmnh]

I would try an avionics shop that specializes in upgrades or pick up an issue of trade-a-plane.

You may want to consider that those ADF recievers probably wont take well to the salt air. I would think you would be better served with a hand held GPS for back up. It would certainly be a lot more accurate. Good luck with the search.

Tom

[Ronak]

Thanks for the input. I already have more gps units than make sense. There are just occasional times when the fishing is so slow that I'd like to be listening to some am station play olden goldens and I can note at a glance which direction the station lies. The question I have now is, "Where the Hell did all those ADF sets go?"

[micchip]

I could have sworn those were called RDF's.
I remember when I started offshore fishing with my father we would go 140º to 140 feet of water and start a slick, then to come home to Freeport, NY we would fire up the RDF and tune in WGBB which broadcasted from freeport and we'd follow the signal home.