[Hallicrafters] More Novice Tales

[David Hollander]

Here is a tale of my early operations which is very "Hallicrafters"

I got my license in November of 1963. I had studied over the summer. My
dad had given me his Hallicrafters S-41W receiver which I recently got
back from him. This was about 12 months prior to getting my license. At
the time, my dad worked for Hallicrafters but he was not a ham. He said
all hams were members of the "nitwit network" What may surprise most of
you was that he worked for Hallicrafters in Santa Ana, California. Very
few people to this day even know that they had an operation in Santa
Ana, California. Hallicrafters was there from around 1962 until 1965
when they closed up this operation and moved it back to Chicago. They
did not make ham gear  at this location but had a club station
consisting of an SX-115, and HT-32, an HT-33 and a HyGain Hytower for
antennas. I will have to ask my dad what they did there as I don't
remember.

Anyway, I passed the test and was waiting for my license, he brought
home an HT-40 kit which I assembled. I was 11 years old. It worked the
first time or so we thought. This transmitter was setup with the S-41W
and he bough and erected a Mosley NS-3. NS-3 was for "Novice Special-  3
bands". This as I recall was an inverted "L" made of open wire line with
traps. I think the horizontal portion was maybe 10 feet above the roof.
My license came a few days prior to the Kennedy assassination so ham
radio went by the wayside for several weeks. By December, I attempted to
start making contacts but was totally unsuccessful working anyone and in
this case it was not the fault of the receiver.
About the 4th week, he comes home from work and asks me to hold the door
open from the garage to the house. He than proceeds to walk in to the
house with an SX-115. "Where did you get that?" I asked. "We dismantled
the ham station because we needed more space in the building for our
expanding operation" said my dad. "I borrowed the receiver and my boss
borrowed the transmitter/linear". Naturally I was in awe and did not
have a clue what most of the controls were for much less did! Of course
this 11 year old boy learned quickly.

Still no contacts. Finally we suspected the transmitter and the
transmitter it was. Of course back than we had no SWR bridge which would
have told us immediately. Their was a problem with the transmitter (like
not putting out any power).  It had tuned up "normally" and you could
hear it in the receiver. After fixing it I began to make contacts. The
rest was pretty typical of the other stories
call CQ and listen all over
the band for stations calling you. I think I had maybe 4 crystals. I
pretty much stayed on 80 because it seemed to work OK there. Did not
have a clue about 15 meters until a few months later and did not like 40
because of the foreign broadcast. There is a picture of this first
station on my web page under at:  http://members.cox.net/n7rk/    It is
under history of N7RK.

My best operating story from my novice is in the next e-mail.

I hope you enjoy this "Hallicrafters" tale

Dave N7RK


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Dave  N7RK                    http://members.cox.net/n7rk
Phoenix, Arizona         *DXCC Honor Roll*    *WAZ#23 - 75 Meter SSB*

            ex-XE2/N7RK, N7RK/ZB2, VK2ERK, ZM0AJN, WB6NRK, WN6IWX

Boatanchor Collector Extraordinaire preferring Hallicrafters, National
and what ever else looks interesting!