[Hammarlund] Hammarlund transmitter

[Peter A Markavage]

I'm sure some of it is driven by nostalgia, rekindling the youth,
stepping back, wanting to "live the good old days", etc., but I'm
guessing many of today's amateurs are finding out they can press a button
labeled AM on their transceiver and find out that AM actually sounds
better than SSB. There's still a lot of old rigs out there that surface
on a regular basis, so finding a transmitter shouldn't be that difficult.
What's sometimes difficult to determine, is its internal condition,
before you drag it home.

Pete, WA2CWA

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 01:25:26 -0500 "Craig Roberts" <crgrbrts@verizon.net>
writes:
> 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
> 
> _______________________________________________
> List Administrator: Duane Fischer W8DBF
> ** For Assistance: dfischer@usol.com **
> ----
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/hammarlund
> 
>