[Boatanchors] Ham Radio - Then and Now

Sat Dec 15 15:19:40 EST 2012

GREAT STORIES MICHAEL!!

I can remember when it was common to hear the NASA links around 19 MHz on SSB.

There was a TON of interesting traffic on the HF non-amateur bands back in the era of my 
youth - about 1960 onward. Secret 5-figure phone and cw coded groups,  MCW, LORAN, 
maritime, various other links, Armed Forces entertainment Broadcasts, broadcasts in  
ENGLISH, MARS, Illegal CB ops just below 28 MHz, Armed Forces Day etc. Most of it has 
slowly disappeared over the past few decades. 

I wonder what else you fellas can conjure from your memories of that period?

Brian, AF4K

On 15 Dec 2012 at 14:00, Michael D. Harmon wrote:

> Hi Folks.
> 
> I'm not one of those guys who remembers the 'really old days', but
> I'm 
> 63 and I've been interested in electronics a lot of years.  I grew
> up on 
> vacuum tubes and can remember well when all the old timer radio-TV
> service guys in my hometown folded up shop and retired when solid
> state 
> circuitry and printed circuit boards took over the consumer
> electronics 
> business.  They just felt like they couldn't adapt to the newer 
> technology, and weren't interested in learning all the newer 
> troubleshooting and repair techniques.  For quite a few years there
> was 
> a real shortage of qualified techs.  Eventually, the correspondence
> schools and a few tech schools and junior colleges developed
> electronics 
> curricula and started producing techs with updated skill sets.
> 
> I became interested in electronics at the age of 13 and built my
> first 
> kit - a Knight-Kit tube tester - that same year.  After that, I was
> hooked!  Before I had finished high school, I had built a Heathkit
> VTVM, 
> a signal generator, a shortwave receiver, code practice oscillator,
> and 
> another kit of two I can't remember.  My dad would come into my
> room, 
> see all the parts laid out, and leave shaking his head, convinced
> that I 
> had spent all my allowance money on a pile of parts that would never
> be 
> of any use.  Back before communications satellites were commonplace,
> NASA used ground relay stations to retransmit spacecraft 
> communications.  These stations used single sideband and Popular 
> Electronics magazine used to publish the frequencies so that you
> could 
> listen in.  My little Heathkit GR-64 receiver was tuned into the
> NASA 
> frequencies every time a big space mission was underway.  It's hard
> to 
> explain how exciting it was to actually hear the astronauts and
> Mission 
> Control talking to each other!
> 
> When I got to college, I worked at the FM college station.  I built
> dozens of small Heathkit tuners and receivers for the various
> offices on 
> campus.  After the station went to 27 kW stereo, I was hired as 
> assistant chief engineer.  Of course, all repair work was 
> component-level work.  We might replace a defective module to get
> back 
> on the air, but it always found its way to my bench for repair.  I
> built 
> a lot of custom module test jigs when I worked there.
> 
> I got my Novice license at 18 and my FCC First Class Commercial
> license 
> with the Radar Endorsement the following year.  Over the years, I 
> upgraded to Technician, then Advanced, and finally took the Extra
> test 
> and passed in 2000.   Even though I chose a career in IT,  I've
> never 
> stopped being interested in electronics.  I was fortunate to be able
> to 
> retire at 51 and have been having a blast ever since.  I consider
> myself 
> primarily to be a technician, and secondarily an operator.  I have a
> shack crammed with Tektronix, HP and Fluke test gear, the majority
> of 
> which were EBay orphans brought back from the brink with lots of
> TLC.  
> I've given a number of scopes and other gear to young kids who were
> interested in electronics.
> 
> I worry somewhat that today's newcomers to electronics don't have
> the 
> curiosity and excitement that so many of us old-timers had when we
> were 
> kids.  I think many of them have a jaded ho-hum attitude toward 
> technology.  They've grown up with cell phones, Playstations,
> big-screen 
> LCD TVs, Ipods, and other technology, and it's not fascinating to
> them - 
> just a part of life.  I have a 3-month old grandson, and I'm
> planning to 
> fix him a place in the ham shack when he's older where he can come
> and 
> watch me work on things.  Maybe I can instill a little bit of that
> spark 
> in his mind.  If he will sit still long enough, I'll let him talk to
> hams all over the world.  He can go to school and instead of telling
> about the TV show he watched about a foreign country, he can tell
> about 
> the people he talked to who lived there.
> 
> Just my two cents' worth ...
> 
> Mike, WB0LDJ
> mharmon at att dot net
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