[Boatanchors] HT-20 and Clipperton DXpedition

Michael OBrien k0myw at sbcglobal.net
Sat Jun 19 17:08:48 EDT 2010


All this talk of the HT-20, plus the mention of its use on the Clipperton DXpedition, reminds me of a wonderful interview I had almost 20 years ago with Bob Denniston, W0DX in later years but W0NWX in the spring of 1954 when he and fellow Iowans Gene O'Leary, W0VDQ, and Leo Olney, W0NUC, set sail for the tiny island in the pacific 600 miles off the coast of Mexico.

The purpose of our talk was to discuss the SX-88 for an article I did for Electric Radio and later QST. But we talked some about the HT-20 as well.

Bob got a pair of HT-20s, two HT-18s to serve as VFOs and two SX-88s on loan from Hallicrafters for the DXpedition. He told me he just called up Fritz Franke at the Chicago factory and asked: "I figured the worst he could do to me was to say No -- but amazingly he said Yes."

Denniston said that weight of the HT-20 (and the SX-88, too, for that matter) was a real challenge: "If we'd waited a couple of years, we could've taken lighter transceivers. But almost all of the rigs in the early '50s were heavy. And, besides, we weren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth."

Bob is SK now. I don't know about O'Leary and Olney. I do know that I gave up my own HT-20 several years ago in part because it was too heavy for me to horse around. But I always felt a little wimpy for doing so because of how those guys hauled theirs on and off that island in rough seas.

Mike, K0MYW



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