[ARC5] Inspired Hack Job

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 6 Mar 2013 at 14:00, Bob Macklin wrote:

> When I got my Novice ticket in 1957 I was a USAF S/SGT (married with
> two kids) and my income was $310/mo.

When I got my Novice ticket in 1956 when I was still 13 years old, my income 
was $0.00/month. I worked all summer as a water-boy and laborer's helper 
on a construction job for my step-father's construction company to earn the 
$85.00 it took to buy a Heathkit DX-35.

I bought a Heathkit AR-3 with what little dough I had scrounged by doing odd 
jobs around the town. I couldn't afford a cabinet for it.

I built both of them and they both worked, the DX-35 much better than the 
AR-3.

I was too shy to ask my Elmer's for much help.

I never did get the BFO in the AR-3 to work. I made exactly two contacts my 
entire Novice year: one local on 80 by pre-arrangement, and a W6 on 15 
meters, by listening to the SHHH-SH-SHHH-SH  SHH-SHH-SH-SHHH, yet 
my logs from that period list page after page after page of CQs. I simply 
couldn't hear anyone.

About a year after my Novice expired, I had built up my code speed to over 
13 wpm with a borrowed Instructograph, studied the license manual, then 
took the Conditional and passed it.

A plumber-friend of my step-father's had found a beat up Halli S-41G in the 
basement of the house he had moved into and gave it to me. I replaced the 
shot filter cap and put it to work.

I got shocked several times by the AC/DC circuit.

It "heard" at least 100 times better than my BFO-less AR-3, and I made 
hundreds of contacts and rag-chews with it.

Then I borrowed a friend's S-38D. It worked even better than my S-41G as 
far as I was concerned.

I worked my first DX with it and the DX-35 on 20 meters one Jan 1,a G-5.

Finally, my mother took pity on me and over the strenuous objections of my 
step-father, she bought a BC-348 from another Elmer for me. He included a 
BC band ARC-5 as a "Q-5er" for it.

I was in Heaven.

So yes, Carl, some of us were too poor to afford decent equipment, and DID 
use that old crap...and made contacts and had rag-chews with it too.

You probably don't have any of my old QSLs...

Ken W7EKB