We met at Neighbor's Restaurant in Vienna, VA. After lunch, we told stories about our first rigs. Photos of our story-telling session can be found here:
http://homepage.mac.com/rrucker/PhotoAlbum104.html
Tim Donovan, WA4CLK, told his story before I turned the recorder on, and my memory isn't that good. Sorry, Tim.
John Reiser, WQ4L: John first got his commercial license while still in high school so he could work for local broadcast stations. He started at a 250w station, then worked at a 5kw station at Purdue University, and then for a 50kw station at the University of Michigan. While going to school there, his lab partner turned out to be an avid DXer and talked him into taking the Novice test.
Then one day he went to the Detroit FCC field office to pick up some forms, and there he met Dick Cotton, W8DX, who gave him the General test.
Around the same time, he found a transmitter to build in a handbook, and he still has it. It covers 80 to 10 meters, with a 6146 good for 50 watts out, and a relay to allow the cathodes to heat up before high voltage is turned on. John's CW key was hot because it opens and closes the cathode circuit. That's John holding the rig in the photo at right.
John on making his first contact with it: "When I heard my call come back, I was so nervous that I couldn't send. I sent the calling station a QSL card anyway."
Lew Bradley, W4SWP: In high school, one instructor said that anyone who builds a radio receiver that works would be exempt from the final exam, and six of us took him up on it."
"We lived in a small town in central Texas with one radio store run by a ham. For 25 cents each, he sold us old radios traded in for new ones. We dismantled them to build our own stuff. Since they were AM broadcast receivers, the coils and tuning capacitors, when re-assembled into tank circuits, still resonated in the AM broadcast band."
"We built a few transmitters and receivers and began holding a net in the evenings - on the AM broadcast band. I used the microphone from a telephone, coupled to a type-45 tube final with a couple of turns of wire."
"The neighbor of one of us became annoyed by the radio interference and reported us to the FCC. At the time, Frank Kratokvil* was head of the FCC office in Dallas. Frank and another FCC field officer drove out in their Black Maria monitoring vehicle to check the offending station out. While there, they took pictures of his illegal setup."
"All of us were called out of class the next day and told to go to the Principal's office. There we were told about the fines we would be subjected to if we ever did it again; it scared the heck out of us. But since we had all built working receivers, we didn't have to take the final."
"Then World War II came along, and I joined the Air Force. After the war, I was stationed in California and decided to get a ham license. I took the test in 1947 in San Francisco, got the license, and started to build a rig out of spare parts readily available from the Navy station at Alameda. I didn't get to finish it because Marolyn and I were re-located to Guam. There, we moved into a house that had a pair of Hallicrafter BC-610s and other gear."
"When we got back to the states, we took up residence in Arlington, VA, where I finished that home-brew transmitter in 1952. It turned out to be a TVI generator. Fortunately, Ethel Smith, K4LMB, was head of the TVI Committee in Washington, DC, and I attended one of her seminars. That taught me how to fix it, and I got it working well on 20 and 10 meters."
*Frank Kratokvil later became a member of QCWA Chapter 91, and the chapter now holds his call, K4RE.
Ralph Albers, W4ER: Ralph built a regenerative receiver that did quite well also a transmitter, showing up on the neighbor's AM broadcast receiver. He was thrilled when he heard SW broadcasts from the BBC on 40m.
He built his first AM transmitter with an O1A tube as the oscillator and a 71A (?) as the final amp. He tuned it up with a flashlight bulb and called CQ to see if he was getting out. Since he didn't yet have a license, he needed a call sign, so spotting a tomato soup can, he used the call W9TOM. He was surprised when some guy in Indiana came back to him. He acknowledged the call and signed off real quick!
Jim Richey, AG4MA: In high school, Jim and his friends had access to lots of war surplus gear. One time they found a transmitter from a Russian tank, cleaned it up, and put it on the air. He later got his ticket and built a transmitter with a 6L6 in the final. First time he called CQ, he listened but didn't hear anything at first, then he heard his callsign. At first, he thought some bootlegger was using it. Then he realized that he was being called!
Ray Johnson, K5RJ: Licensed in 1955, Ray built a home-brewed transmitter with a 6AG7 oscillator and a 6L6 final. He used it to load lots of different "antennas": a water downspot, bed-springs, a wire hanging out of a window, etc. It was then that he learned that "Life is too short for QRP!"
Carol Cutchall, WA4GFW: Carol got his commercial license first, and his ham license came later in 1962. Carol talked about operating on 6m… [The recorded audio wasn't good enough to get the story.]
Leila Cutchall, WN4PP: Leila said "If Carol could do it, she could too" so she got her Novice license. At the time, they had 5 kids and were living in a trailer. She told about how they built Heathkits together: she read the instructions and handed over the next part to be inserted, and Carol did the soldering. When the 6th child came along, that was the end of ham radio for a while for her.
Byron Black, W4SSW: Byron had friends in a dormitory who like to play poker and do ham radio. They had a transmitter with a pair of 807s in the final. The 850 vdc power supply consisted of a bunch of parts connected together and lying on a table.
He told about building his own transmitter using parts out of an old Atwater-Kent receiver. He re-wound a filament transformer, one secondary turn at at time, until he got the right voltage out.
Ken Pinion, N4PK: Ken built a crystal-controlled 6v6 oscillator driving a 6L6 final. He wound the tank coil using the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper. He discovered that he could turn a screw on the crystal to change its frequency a bit. He put up a 30' guyed telescoping pole from which he hung an inverted-V fed with coax. He was excited to work a guy in Aruba.
Dave Wiesen, K2VX: His first acquaintance with radio was when his father listened to Hitler's broadasts on short wave. In 1946, a friend gave him a crystal set to which he listened in bed until he fell asleep. Later, a relative who was a ham gave him a 2.5m transceiver that Dave converted to 2m by trimming an 1/8" off the coil and resoldering it. The tube was an acorn type, and the rig put out 1/4w.
After getting his license, he tried out several receivers, and liked an SW3 the best. It worked great as long as you didn't have more than 10' of antenna lying on the floor. His transmitting antenna was an end-fed Zepp, 5' above the roof and fed with 300 ohm line. [What rig he was using on HF didn't get recorded.]
Nelson Seese, W4BHD: In high school, Nelson had two friends who boot-legged on 160m. To minimize the risk of getting caught, they ran low power and would only talk to each other.
His first transmitter was very similar to John Reiser's. Transmitting antenna was an end-fed Zepp fed with 300 ohm twin-lead. The last few feet hung vertically because of his short back yard. He soldered a neon bulb to the end of the antenna so he could lock the key down and look out the window to see if the antenna was radiating.
Frank Haynes, W4NUA: Had an old CW command set and a model 450 receiver to which he added a cascade amplifier to gain sensitivity. He later built a rig for 10 meters, and his first contact was a station in California.
Yes, I (KM4ML) told a story, but this article is too long already and mostly I just listened.
Following the story-telling, Ray Johnson auctioned off a few items.
