[Boatanchors] A good idea ---- Lamenting about the down hillspiral

[Nick England]

Dear fellow boatanchorites -
Well, for me, the Golden Age of ham radio has been the last 15 years.
Although first licensed in 1961, the best I could afford as a teenager were
parts for my homebrew novice and 6m xmtrs, and a BC-348 with Ameco
converter. I had a great time learning and experimenting and that magic of
radio  led me into an incredibly interesting career as an electronics
engineer.

However in the last 15 years, I think I've had a thousand times more fun
with ham radio! Like you, my hobby has been exploring boatanchors - the
interesting gear of the 50's and 60's that I never dreamed I'd own back when
I was drooling over the Allied catalog. I've had the chance to dig into,
learn about, repair, renovate, and operate probably hundreds of Johnson,
National, Collins, Hallicrafters, Heathkit, etc. rigs. Lately I've gotten
really intrigued by Navy HF communications gear and am currently restoring a
triple-diversity receiver that cost the USN $60K back in the 1951 - that's
probably $3M in today's money. What 1961 teenager could have ever dreamed
he'd have something like that in his shack - heck it was classified back
then so I never even knew it existed!

And all along I've been talking to boatanchor people on the air, meeting
them at hamfests, sharing info over the e-mail lists, etc. What great fun!
What a great bunch of people! And it is still incredible magic - vibrating
crystals, glowing tubes full of streams of invisible electrons, LC circuits
doing their crazy oscillatory dance, and all connected to a bunch of wires
hanging in the Carolina pines - and somehow, somehow, that magical
concoction lets me communicate with a newfound friend in Atlanta or
Cincinnatti or Ulan Bator - with no wires! - with nothing but Maxwell's
equations to carry voice, code, RTTY, whatever - what an incredible magical
experience!

And what do I see at hamfests and hear on the air? - other people clearly
having fun and an interesting time doing whatever it is that intrigues them
- repeaters, ATV, ragchewing, traffic, nets, contests, mobiles, boatanchors,
riceboxes, moaning about politics, whatever - they are all doing it because
They Enjoy It. What a great hobby!

73 & for pete's sake - HAVE FUN,
Nick KD4CPL