My first 'station' cost me all of $5.00.
I received a Heath AR-3 kit for Christmas 1956, which was fun to build, and had a lot of fun
listening to the SWBC and Ham signals. I had been experimenting with some old telephone equipment
my Dad brought home from his company. They had completely renovated the phone system and had dozens
of desk sets, patch boards, cables, etc. that all went into the dumpster.! After playing with that
for a while, I managed to get a friend two houses away interested. The phone stuff wasn't much fun,
since we already had phones (Gee, kinda like SSB today!) so we decided to put in a telegraph line
between us. We knew just enough to be VERY dangerous, and ran a single wire from his room to mine,
through a tree in the back yard of the house between us. A few hardware store items, and we had a
40W light bulb and key in each of our rooms, with the return the power ground.! Yes, the wire
carried 120 VAC... Fortunately, the neighbor never trimmed his tree or we would have had a very
messy situation! Anyway, that got us to learn the code, and I went on and studied the License
Manual and Handbook to get my Novice license in 1957, KN4OAH.
I had a lot of help from my Elmer, W4EEI, who provided much encouragement and had the neatest SX-28
/ Viking II station. 'We' built a single 6L6 along the lines of the 'QSL 40' from a 1938 QST with
parts from his junk box. It wasn't pretty, but sure would light up a light bulb with 600 VDC on the
plates. Just don't hold the key down too long.
After listening to a friend's ARC-5 receiver, and seeing how much more stable and easy to tune it
was than my AR-3, I bought a brand new BC-454 for $4.95. The power transformer, rectifier tube and
socket, and electrolytic cap were 'borrowed' from the AR-3 and mounted on the back deck of the
BC-454. When my license finally arrived, (or perhaps 'shortly' before,) I was actually heard by a
few stations on 80M. I made a LOT of contacts with that station, including one with the Grand
Island Nebraska FCC monitoring station! Strangely enough, that was my best DX at the time from KY,
and even stranger it was on 7440 kHz even though I was transmitting on 3720 kHz.!
While the BC-454 was VERY stable and sensitive, the selectivity was great, for FM..... The IF BW
was spec'd at 30 kHz, meaning I could hear the entire 80M Novice band without moving the tuning
knob. This was handy for spotting responses to CQ's, (most only had one or perhaps two crystals,)
but made it difficult to hear just ONE, especially in the evening on 80 when the Novice band sounded
like today's contest weekends. I determined that I needed an IF frequency lower than the 1415 kHz
of the BC-454, and just happened to have a clock radio on hand. So I wove a piece of hookup wire
into the loop antenna on the back of the clock radio, and stuck the other end down into the top of
the last IF of the '454. Tuning the clock radio to 1415 kHz, I had a double conversion receiver,
PLUS _Passband Tuning_ . This helped matters considerably, and then I saw a Heathkit Q-Multiplier
in operation and HAD to have one. I managed to get it installed in the clock radio, with only a
couple of house fuses blown before I got the grounds correct!
I used this rig for a few months, and got my General license when the FCC came to town on one of its
bi-annual trips. This let me stretch out to the lower part of 80M. My Dad took pity on me and
'helped' me purchase a WRL Globe Chief 90 kit and a Heathkit VF-1 kit. Looking back, I think he
just wanted to prevent any further contact with the FCC, which was a pretty formidable organization
in those days.
About this time, a friend from school came over and decided he wanted to get a Ham license also. I
showed him what I was doing, demonstrated the code, and loaned him my License Manual and Handbook.
About a month later, he said that he was still studying, but was losing interest. "Just can't learn
the code". However, it seemed his Dad had bought him ..... A brand new 75A-4, AND a brand new
factory wired Johnson Ranger! Yikes! My friend allowed as how his Dad wasn't too pleased that he
had 'lost interest', and would I be interested in buying his gear to get him off the hook! Yeah,
right, assuming I could talk MY Dad into selling the family car and my Mom to get a job. :-) So,
the next question was could I help him sell it? About the same chance as me buying it, but I said I
would try. The next unbelievable statement out of his mouth was, "Why don't you set it up in your
shack so you can show it, and, get it out of my Dad's sight!" Of course, I was reluctant, but to
help out a friend!!!! The next day he showed up with both units, in their boxes, to set it up. I
scraped my 'station' off on the floor and set that A-4 and Ranger right up there. A little hook up
work, and I was on ALL bands. Talk about culture shock..... Unfortunately, after about six weeks,
someone actually offered to buy it, and I was done. What a drop... I just couldn't face putting my
'receiver(s)' back on the desk and had accumulated $50 in lawn mowing money, and found that I could
afford a used Hammarlund HQ-129X. I transferred my Q-Multiplier, and had a decent station for the time.
Visiting another friend, I saw a Drake 1-A. It sure was a funny looking receiver. All the
manufacturers were touting "big", "heavy", "battleship", and other words in their ads, and here was
this little 'mailbox' that didn't weigh anything. I wasn't all that impressed until I started to
tune around with it. AMAZING!! It sounded as good or better than I remembered the 75A-4, was VERY
stable, and you could tap or even thump on the cabinet and it stayed right on the signal.!! I was
sold! I bought my first 'used' Drake receiver about three months later, and have since owned at
least one of all their HF radios. The S-Line is in the closet, the B-Line is on one desk and the
7-Line on another.
73, Garey - K4OAH
Glen Allen, VA
Drake 2-B, 2-C/2-NT, 4-A, 4-B, C-Line
and TR-4/C Service Supplement CDs
<www.k4oah.com>
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