I have seen that done on various consumer products.\u00a0 They’ll have a little LED on the circuit board and they’ll have a little plastic cylinder going to the front panel which carries the light out where the user can see it.<\/p>\n
I first saw it in a radio receiver called the National AN\/WRR-2<\/a> which I had use of for awhile.\u00a0 It had regular light bulbs buried inside the chassis and curved pieces of plastic to carry the light from the bulbs to the front panel at appropriate places.<\/p>\n I was in Army MARS, an organization for hams but run by the US Army to maintain an alternative communications network, particularly to handle messages to family from deployed servicemen. MARS was big during the Vietnam era but by the 1980s it was languishing somewhat.\u00a0 One of the\u00a0 benefits for the hams involved was that they might see some military surplus equipment, maybe even keep some of it.<\/p>\n My father\u00a0 is also a ham and he was in MARS for quite awhile.\u00a0 He had this big National receiver come to him for MARS use.\u00a0 It came on a big ship-board spring mounting system which he removed.\u00a0 He had it in his radio room for a number of years then transferred it to me probably around 1983-1984.\u00a0 I enjoyed use of it for awhile.\u00a0 Then I resigned from MARS (there really wasn’t much activity). The state MARS director stopped by my house and took it away, which may have been required but it wasn’t much fun.\u00a0 I don’t remember exactly, but I don’t think I got to keep any MARS stuff.\u00a0 I think they took it all back.\u00a0 I’m not 100% sure, but I think that is when I lost my Teletype Model 19\u00a0 (RTTY) too.\u00a0 I vaguely remember the guy brought a trailer and hauled it all away.\u00a0 But maybe I dreamt it.<\/p>\n So anyway, for awhile I had an AN\/WRR-2 and enjoyed using it.\u00a0 The thing was large and heavy.\u00a0 It had 61 vacuum tubes inside and operated over the range of 2-32 MHz. And it used these plastic light-pipe things (I think I mentioned that).<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/WRR-2Capture.jpg\")
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