Sometime in the late 60s I had my hands on a Johnson Personal Messenger walkie-talkie, ran around fraction or maybe a watt i believe on 11 meters, Xtal only. That would have been a fun unit to have today, converted to 10. I think it quit and got parted out many moons ago. I remember it having a tiny schematic inside the battery case, and having discrete PNP/NPN transistors with 5 digit numbers.
I used a borrowed Lafalot CB base rig for a while, and several 100 mW HTs (always presents from uncle for birthdays, etc). Cannot remember the call, but it was another kids, and i was one of his 'mobiles'. One of th local guys was the newspaper delivery guy, and not only did he have CB blaring early in the AM but also he had a Regency scanner, the discrete one with the row of incandescent lamps that rolled across the panel. That was too cool, hearing cops, so I had to get involved. A neighbor kid and I would get on the roof tops and talk on our HTs, about a block. I think some taxi cab company was on there too, because they would get gruff and tell us to bug off sometimes. The OM (dad) took me out to meet Claude, W4EGH, in Blair, SC, and I was hooked. Talked to a W7 on 10 meter AM with his D104 + Valiant. He ran it with the cover off, and I was so awestruck. Anyway, those days were the brief start to get me to get both Novice (1971) and 3rd Class FCC. I used to get really Tee'ed off then a guy in town would crank up his 'lineer' and wipe out most of the 23 channels. I knew who it was because of his giant tower. About that time I had gotten an OO report along with an FCC warning, for transmitting on a harmonic out of my allocation. (About the time I got an Apache, probably mistuned the grid and plate, and had a multiband dipole). From the scary letter from the "C", i knew the format, so I typed up a fake FCC-like letter, using similar language, and sent it to the loudmouth. It silenced him for a while - not too long. He was definitely splattering all over the MHz with whatever he used. I remember his daughter was popular gal. Later upgraded to General and 1st class. A bunch of us idiots were on 75 meter AM using spring reverbs and other effects, to enhance our voices down there in SC. Also hung out at the local 500 watt daytimer, and eventually got a job there. This is like a confessional. I better cease. 73 John K5PRO, former WB4PRO, WN4PRO
