Lafayette Guardian 6000 resp. 99-35065W, manufactured in Japan, distributed in the USA under the Lafayette brand.

The Lafayette Guardian is a simple multiband receiver covering longwaves up to the maritime communications shortwave band and VHF and VHF ranges, and was apparently used by Swiss authorities Switzerland in the detection of RF interference.

• Principle: single conversion superhet, ZF
• Operation modes: AM (A3), FM (F3)
• Frequency range: LW, MW, SW (1.6 - 4 MHz), VHF, Air Band, VHF (147 - 174 MHz)
• Frequency display: analogue dial
• Frequency memory: none
• Signal strength indicator: S-Meter
• Signal processing
• Features: rotatable ferrite antenna for the AM ranges.
• Sensitivity: AM (A3) / Selectivity: kHz (-6/-60 dB)

• Mains operation: 117 V (US - voltage!)
• Batteries: 4 x 1.5 V (UM-2)

• mm, weight kg

• in Switzerland in canvas bag to be used as interference detection receiver (PTT?)

The Lafayette Guardian 6000 is a multiband receiver, probably of Japanese production, distributed by the American electronics dealer Lafayette.

The set I have is equipped with a canvas bag and a typed German language instruction manual, which indicates that it was probably used in Switzerland as a interference detection receiver (similar to the Velectra 3349) by the PTT or a similar organisation.

On top of the case is the rotating ferrite antenna, which can be used as a rudimentary direction finder to detect sources of RF interference.

On the left side of the front panel is the loudspeaker grill with the small red button for the dial illumination and the headphone connectors, and to the right the vertically arranged frequency dial and the controls on the right face of the cabinet.

Below the tuning knob is the band selector, in a small window the band range is signalled with the same colour as the corresponding dial. Below are the volume control and the squelch control, the squelch has an adjustable threshold. For search reception, the squelch should normally be set to 0 or the minimum position until you hear the background noise.

At the bottom of the front panel is the signal strength meter, which is also used to find the RF signal maximum (perpendicular to the axis of the ferrite antenna) or minimum (along its axis). The automatic RF gain control can be switched off for this purpose (MGC, „manual gain control“), so that the bearing minimum is not masked by the automatic gain control.

Single conversion superhet.

The set is equipped with semiconductors.

• Lafayette Guardian 6000 on the website of www.radiomuseum.org