[Hallicrafters] Aeronautical Mobile

[TC Dailey]

Back when I was selling Cessna, Mooney, and anything else we could get our
hands on at Roach Aircraft (yeah, we laughed too), at BJC (Jeffco,
Broomfield, CO), I'd been an old avionics guy (King Radio Eng. Tech & Denver
Avionics), so I found a spare inspection plate, installed a 2m "full length"
duckie, and a piece of coax... that way, I wasn't violating the aircraft's
W&B or data log.  I'd run it right into whatever aircraft I happened to be
in, and hook up the O2AT (.5 or 2.0 watts), and have a hell of a lot of fun.
When I got where I was going, I'd fish the coax back out, and replace the
actual insp. plate, and nothing was disturbed.

One time, coming out of the old Fairfax Airport in Kansas City (It's gone
now... the airport, I mean), I had my pretty-new ICOM IC-230 synthesized 2m
rig (first synthesized rig made), and my buddy and I were in a 310T.  Well,
"Dumb-O" here forgot about the 28v electrical system, vs. the 14v of
single-engines, and man-o-man, was I running some DX... 250 miles on my wire
1/4 wave in the windscreen, on .52 direct was 5/9+... then the
"grain-o-wheat" light bulbs began popping, and as the sudden realization hit
me, I turned off the radio... just in time to see the smoke curling out of
the external speaker jack on the back - it fried the power-regulator,
drivers (it had 2), and the finals.  ICOM fixed it all for $30.00 plus
shipping - 'course, that was in 1975!  I didn't do that, again.

Later on, I interviewed for a Field Engineer's posit with King, re. the KING
HF transceiver w/one of the first auto antenna-tuners.  The job description
SPECIFICALLY REQUIRED a General Class or higher amateur license.  I had my
Advanced at the time, and when I asked them why, they said "well, a ham is
famous for making stuff work that's not supposed to... besides, a ham can
test this thing on numerous frequencies, and not just on 5, 8, 13, and 15
mc.  I was beaten out by a guy with a PhD. EE, but that's okay... I was
second up.  Turns out, the method preferred was to shunt-feed the fuselage
of the commercial jets these radios went into... made sense to me.