Memorable (or not so memorable) Radios..1961..

I remarked to a friend on a Yahoo Group the other day that, in reality, two of my fondest wishes would be to have (1) sufficient wealth to purchase and keep all of the radios I bought over the course of my amateur radio years and (2) to have a shack big enough to stable them all.

Let's face it, we may not be geniuses but we ain't that stupid either. Like me, certain sure you have hauled in some real dogs from a swap meet and, after twiddling the dials and putting out a few calls, you realize that, while your little treasure works just fine, it ain't making it into your rig hall of fame.

Nossir!

I thought I'd make an entry here and post some of the goodies I have owned and some of the dogs as well. Consider it a work in progress and a labor of love. Here we go.

Where to start? Well, some radios in my past put an emotional tug on the heart strings. The melancholy is intertwined with the richness and promise of my (relative) youth, my two sons, and the circumstances in which I was forced to part with them. (The radios, not my sons.)

I was first licensed in 1961 as a Novice (one-year, not renewable) and received the call sign WV6KJK. (Wholly unmemorable; definitely not a keeper.) I still have that shred of paper -- hand signed by C. B. Plummer -- along with other fragments of that pre-high-school period including my Vibroplex bug and some no-so-fond memories of my Heathkit DX-40 and Hallicrafters S-38E receiver. I also built up a Heath VF-1 but never used it because we were required to be crystal controlled. I remember my crystal crystal

frequencies: 3,720 Mc, 3,730 Mc, and 3,740 Mc for 80 meters and 7,196 Mc and 7,198 Mc for 40 meters. (I think I still have a couple of the 80 meter crystals.)


But nothing in that setup tugged at my heartstrings and I worked no memorable DX (unless you consider Castro Valley from Woodside, California. And, I want to go on record as saying that the Hallicrafters was THE WORST receiver a young, aspiring ham could have.


About the only thing that can be said about that era was my dad's generosity: he bought

me the receiver and the DX-40 which came as a kit, so I built my own. In fact, dad (at that time a former ham) also sprung for the VF-1 kit, a Heath O-Scope and signal generator kits.

As desultory as my ham radio efforts int those days were, my father's kindness planted the hook firmly. After high school, college, and the U. S. Air Force, I was destined to return with a vengeance.

-72-