[Hallicrafters] A Ham Remembers- 1934

[GARDGORE at aol.com]

Please pardon the bandwidth but I saw this recently and thought others might 
enjoy seeing it also. It is about being a ham in 1934 and is related to 
Hallicrafters only in that "The Hallicrafters" ("handcraft makes perfect") began 
making and selling short-wave receivers then (S-1) and was a regenerative design 
which was preferred then over the superhets.

Decatur Georgia
2246 Vistamont Dr
September 8, 2000

Dear OM,

I have just received a newspaper article about the Motor City Radio Club and 
their participation in the recent Field Day event. I found it to be of 
considerable interest since I was a member of the club back in 1934. In those days my 
call was W8REJ and I was located in Detroit. My QTH was in Oakwood, just 
south of the Rouge River Bridge on Fort Street. I operated from there up to WW2. 
In those days I was running about 40 watts to a pair of 45s in the final. I 
began with a homebrew two tube regenerative receiver, using 27 tube for the 
detector and another for the audio amplifier. The oscillator for my transmitter was 
a 24. The antenna was a doublet fed
with a piece of twisted wire line that had a tar covered cloth cover. The 
antenna was a forty meter dipole. With that gear I managed to work all 48 states 
and 29 foreign countries. I don¹t remember having any trouble working VKs. 
There were no German stations on the air and the English stations could not call 
CQ. They had to call TEST. There were many countries that were not on the air. 
My guess is that there were only about fifty that could be worked. There were 
NO S9 DX signals at all and working DX
depended entirely on how good your receiver was because most DX signals were 
in the background noise. It is for this reason that the Super Heterodyne 
receiver was not popular. Working above 40 meters was a big problem. There were 
stations on 20 but very few, and on 10 meters there were only experimental 
stations. There were no signals above 54 MHZ. It may appear strange but there were a 
few stations on what was the five meter band. These stations were one tube 
Super Regenerative Transceivers. Almost all single tube rigs built on a tin can. 
Most of the ham activity took place on 160 which was jammed from one end of 
the phone band to the other by one continuous jumble of signals and 
Heterodynes. (There were no single side bands in those days, only double side band AM), 
If you had a 120 watts station, it was a big deal and kilowatt stations were 
very rare, even on 160 meters. In those days the exam requirement was only 10 
WPM but that meant ten words absolutely correct in any five minute period. If 
you did not pass this, you could not take the exam again for thirty days. There 
was also a sending test of the same kind. Almost everyone flunked the exam the 
first time, including me. Passing the exam was cause for a big celebration!!! 
The written part was tough also because in those days new hams were not 
wanted because they would be just more interference. There were no Amateur classes 
at all and the only way that you could become a ham was to serve an 
apprenticeship to another ham who would teach you on a one to one basis. Every ham had 
an ³Elmer². In my case, my Elmer was W8ONK. I was not a charter member of the 
Motor City Radio Club but I believe that I joined in 1934, shortly after W8FJK. 
He and several others, W8RCM, W8FJL, W8ONK, W8UAS, W8PUF and W8CHJ were among 
some of the calls that come to mind. It wasn¹t easy to join the club. The 
club charter limited the membership to 20 members. You had to be able to copy at 
least 20 WPM to get into the club. This requirement was because the club 
participated in ALL the Field Day events. The club met every Friday night at seven 
o¹clock in a small rented house on an island just west of the Fort Street 
Rouge River bridge. There was a program EVERY FRIDAY night. The minutes to the 
last meeting were not read unless called for. The lecture lasted for an hour and 
there was a half hour question and answer session following the lecture. Each 
lecture dealt with some part of electrical or radio theory. I learned more 
electronics at those meetings than in any other place. Everyone in the Detroit 
area were welcome at the meetings. You did not have to be a member to attend. 
There were times when the parking lot around the clubhouse was full with over 
fifty cars. After the meeting was over, usually about nine, the pinochle deck 
was brought out, someone was sent for beer and the card game would last 
sometimes until four in the morning. On one under age was allowed to drink beer at the 
club house. If they did they were out of the club and no longer allowed to 
attend meetings. The club had a ³Rack and Panel² 200 watt transmitter and a 
Howard Super Heterodyne receiver in a small transmitter room. We built a 13 
kilowatt three phase alternator out of an eight horse DC motor and mounted it on a 
trailer. The alternator was powered by a 1928 Chevrolet motor with a radiator 
for cooling. The armature for this machine was sound by W8PUF and I, with 
double number 12 copper wire. I guess I never got over the Field Day fun that we 
used to enjoy because I have operated in every field day contest since WW2. In 
every one I would not quit the contest until I had worked W8MRM and I have 
worked your club station in every one. My call after settling here in Atlanta was 
changed to W4KBV. I changed this later to K4MJ, which call I have today. Up 
until about 20 years ago, all my gear was homebrew but then I acquired another 
hobby. I no longer have the time and all my gear now is store bought. I don¹t 
think there is any thrill quite like the
one that you get when your gear WORKS. If then you work a DX station you 
don¹t have to give the credit to some Japanese engineer!!

73 - Walter Rowe; K4MJ