[Hammarlund] Hammarlund transmitter

[Craig Roberts]

No doubt, the resurgence of interest in and operation of AM transmitters is
driven by nostalgia. I would guess that the vast majority of active amateur
radio operators are baby boomers who origjnally became interested in ham
radio while in their teen or pre-teen years. I, for instance, am 57 years
old and was first exposed to ham radio when I was about 12 whole working
toward my Boy Scout Radio merit badge.

I had a newspaper route at the time and the house of one of my customers
especially intrigued me. In its backyard was 40-foot radio tower and on top
of it -- I observed -- was what had to be either the biggest TV aerial in
the world or a ham radio antenna like I'd seen illustrated in my merit badge
handbook.  After stockpiling my courage for several weeks, I staked out the
house one evening and awaited its master's return from work. As his Chevy
rolled to a halt in the driveway, I shyly approached the man and asked if he
was, indeed, an amateur radio operator. He glanced toward his tower in the
backyard, fixed me with a stare and said sternly "What do YOU think?"

I was about to run away when he snagged me with a laugh and invited into his
basement shack. It was magnificent. Centered on a huge operating desk was a
massive National HRO receiver flanked by a multi-tiered relay rack on each
side.  Slung in the racks were several black wrinkle finished, pilot-lit and
twitchy-metered devices that, as I learned, were the components in his
beautifully crafted homebrew transmitter. They included a massive, heavily
humming power supply, an aptly-named exciter, a modulator, speech amplifier,
monitoring scope, control panel and a linear amplfier. Wow!

Fascinated as I was by the machinery, i was even more impressed by the
formidable power of his radio set. He could -- if you can believe it --
converse from his St. Louis basement station with fellas in Chicago and
Detroit and South Bend, Indiana and Omaha and Cleveland....  (One evening,
after I'd gotten to know my "Elmer" a bit, I even heard him chatting with an
exotic foreign gentleman in faraway Puerto Rico!!!)

His mode of choice was Amplitude Modulation. And, boy, did those AM signals
sound swell as they resonated from his huge "hi-fi" monitor speaker.

I have, obviously, never forgotten my first, wonderful impression of ham
radio and -- like most of us boatanchor devotees -- enjoy rekindling that
childhood memory by recreating the past a bit.  I embrace digital technology
wholly and during my career have even nurtured it. But, when I get home at
night I truly enjoy a relaxing conversation with a buddy -- new or old --
while being warmed by two dozen or so softly glowing orange "magic bottles".
And the AMers -- aside from those cranky old coots with overt agendas and
nasty opinions -- seem to have the most relaxing conversations of all.  I'd
like to join them.  That's why I'm looking for an AM transmitter to
complement my newly restored HQ-170A.

73,

Craig
W3CRR