[Hammarlund] OT: Nostalgia: Question on Tommy Rockford Ham Radio books

[Jon Teske]

I don't have the series as I read at least the first one (SOS at Midnight)
from a library copy.  I was an exact contemporary of the protagonist, Tommy
Rockford (I graduated from high school in 1960 and was licensed as an 8th
grader in Jan '56) I remember thinking that the equipment listed was pretty
accurate and indicative of what someone would use at the time although my
ham friends and I were a bit envious of some of the equipment he used and
thought that "California Kilowatts" were something more than just legends.
My teen ham buddies of the era grew up in the "rust belt" of  a Wisconsin
factory town and our equipment was much more modest. I had a Heath AT-1 and
a Hallicrafters S-38D which was hardly an adequate ham receiver, later as a
General Class, I got an Adventurer and an HQ-100) Needless to say, I became
proficient at CW (and still am.)

What I liked about the one book I know I read was that the protagonist was
"cool" and did have a girlfriend who I believe became a ham as well. I liked
the idea of a "cool" hero because there was a perception that the teen hams
in our town were "geeky." I was anything but a geek, but we had an image
problem to overcome as one of the more visible teen hams in our town was an
archtypical "geek" right down to the plastic pocket protectors and
eyeglasses mended with tape in the center. Try as I might though, I never
persuaded any girls in my classes to take up radio. Girls just didn't do
that very often then. I totally failed with my girlfriend of the era who
ultimately became my wife (and still is). She just didn't get it, still
doesn't. Her baby sister though (10 years younger) also married a ham, also
her teen boyfriend, and did become one herself.

Despite the accuracy of the ham radio matters in the book, I do remember a
few howlers. The protagonist was a scholastic overachiever as were many teen
hams, but when the book said that Tommy Rockford was taking fourth year
Physics in Highs School we realized that the author hadn't been in a school
recently. There was probably not a high school in the country back then
which offer any more than one year of Physics. The courses Tommy took
were more akin to graduate school at CalTech :-) The norm was that student
were usually required to take one year of General Science as a Freshman,
Biology (which included some subject now taught in Health) in 10th grade and
that Chemistry and Physics were electives for the last two years, mostly for
the college bound. My school only sent about 15% of its grads to college. I
probably would not have gone had it not been for ham radio even though my
college majors were a long way away from radio subjects (English and
French). I did end up working in intelligence for the Gov't and my radio
knowledge became a very important part of my career.

It would indeed be interesting for those of us at that age to reread these
books unrevised as they came out in the late 50's. I think most of the kids
who read the book in my town borrowed it from the library where I worked (it
was purchased at my suggestion to the head librarian.)  Most of them were
the teen hams although I do remember suggesting the book to a few of my
(guy) friends because it was an easy read and relatively easy to crank out a
required book report for an English class. In today's environment of AP
classes you would never get away with reviewing a book like that but I
probably handed it into at least three different English teachers (my mom
raised no dummy!.) A couple of my friends from that era did become hams much
later in adult life and I wonder if their exposure to the subject may have
come from this book or by chumming around with me although I didn't live,
eat, sleep ham radio by the time I was in high school.


Jon Teske W3JT, Olney, MD (I was K9CAH as a kid in Wisconsin.)