[Heathkit] OT: Nostalgia: Question on Tommy Rockford Ham Radiobooks

Sun Oct 29 20:03:53 EST 2006

Hi Bob,

Fascinating! You certainly did a lot of work to come up with this young 
man's station equipment, antennas, mobile gear etc. Good for you!

Perhaps I missed it Bob, but did you mention doing this in a previous post 
to the list? I am wondering precisely what motivated you to go to this 
admirable effort to identify the equipment in the boy's station. I know it 
must be more than idle curiosity Bob, so how about telling me the deep down 
reason as to "why".

If you did this in a prior post, perhaps you could just send me a copy?

Since I am totally blind now, I have to rely on others who can see to tell 
me what radio gear they spotted in a TV program, movie or in a novel etc. I 
have asked numerous radio hobbyists what the radio gear in the original 
Twilight Zone is, but so far 'no' answers.

It is surprising, and equally amusing, how we overlook what is often times 
right in front of us. Sometimes, literally! Remember when you paid twenty 
dollars to the FCC for your Citizens Band radio license with call sign. Mine 
was KCS7650 in the Summer of 1969. Once I had a Penetrator vertical mounted 
on a tripod decorating my home's roof, I "saw" all sorts of CB antennas that 
I never noticed before! They were always there, of course, but not being 
interested, my brain simply ignored them.

I wonder Bob just how many books all of us read as children that had radio 
gear in them?

What I would like to see happen here Bob, is for everyone who can make a 
positive identification of a communications receiver, Ham gear, antenna and 
so forth post their research or discovery. Perhaps one of our talented web 
site guys can provide us with a feature on his/her web site entitled 
"Vintage Radio Gear From Novels, Old Time Radio Programs, TV Shows And The 
Movies".

This could be very interesting gentlemen! Both as serious research as well 
as pure fun! As I think what Bob has discovered for himself, also affects 
most of us in some ways to greater and lesser degrees. Those old Popular 
Electronics and Electronics Illustrated magazines in those cardboard boxes 
with multiple layers of green mold, mouse droppings, original dust from last 
century etc. Find those old books from your childhood or early teen years 
and rescue them from the basement, attic, garage or wherever they lurk, all 
but forgotten and the ravages of time slowly transforming them back into the 
dust from whence they originated.

Watch those hundreds of old VHS tapes you "just HAD to purchase" when 
whomever ran the buy one at full price and get two free sale. Take notes and 
sharpen up your detective skills. If you never had any of the genetic 
Sherlock Holmes genes transmitted into your jeans, fake it! Hey, this could 
be fun!

Any of you want to offer web site space for posting the vintage radio lore 
found and identified? How about some volunteers to build the web site? Some 
others to help coordinate the search results of the radio detectives on the 
loose and to serve as toe tag experts by labeling each piece of radio relics 
that the searchers discover and submit?

There is more to the radio hobby than resistor color codes, tracing circuits 
on faded schematic diagrams, breathing life back into thought to be deceased 
sets etc. Let's have some fun and see just how many times those Hollywood 
movie makers plugged a D-104 into the external speaker jack of a Heathkit 
RX!

Duane Fischer, W8DBF

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bwana Bob" <wb2vuf at qsl.net>
To: "Paul" <w2ec at bmjsports.com>
Cc: "List-Heathkit" <Heathkit at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 5:41 PM
Subject: Re: [Heathkit] OT: Nostalgia: Question on Tommy Rockford Ham 
Radiobooks

> Hi Gang,
>
> I have completed my research on "SOS at Midnight", by rereading the 1971 
> edition and taking notes. The original publication date was 1957. I first 
> read it when I was a kid, around 1964. It was reissued in paperback by 
> Peregrine Press (Sagamore Books) in 1971. The 1971 edition appears to have 
> only minor edits, which do not change the radio equipment types or detract 
> from the story. I found the following edits:
>
> "... but these are the 1970's, not the 1920's."  p 26
>
> "The trend now is for single sideband all transistorized equipment."  p 
> 126.
>
> "That clock's ticking had an eerie sound; like the pulsing of a dying 
> heart or the count-down of an Apollo moon launch."
>
> The radio equipment descriptions were unedited in the 1971 edition, so I 
> can state the following with authority:
>
> Tommy's equipment: DX-100, crystal mike, matchbox, all-band communication 
> receiver (unnamed), Q-multiplier, standby transmitter (unnamed), ARC-4 for 
> 2 meters.
>
> Tommy's antennas: 80 foot tower, 15 meter bowtie beam, twin-5 2 meter 
> beam, vertically polarized, folded dipole.
>
> His mobile antenna: 10 foot chrome-plated whip on the rear bumper, with a 
> "gleaming copper loading coil".
>
> 2 meter mobile gear used by Tommy and Doc: Gonset Communicators with the 
> green tuning eyes.
>
> Doc's HF receiver is a "Hammerlund" [sic].
>
> There is a nice endorsement of Heathkit equipment on page 124: "You can 
> buy transmitters all ready to go, but you miss out on half the fun, doing 
> it that way. These Heathkit jobs use top-grade components, too, so when 
> you're finished you've got something that will last indefinitely."
>
> There are literally dozens of names and call signs mentioned in the book. 
> I wonder if these were friends of the author. It would be interesting to 
> look up some of them. I wrote them all down, but that's a project for 
> another day!
>
> If there's any interest, I'll go through "CQ Ghost Ship" (The first one I 
> read as a kid, and my personal favorite) and "DX Brings Danger". I don't 
> have a copy of the fourth book, "Death Valley QSO."
>
>
> 73 and keep it green!
>
> Bob WB2VUF
>
>
>
>
>
> Paul wrote:
>> Back in the late 50's early 60's I read several books about a teenage ham 
>> named Tommy Rockford, K6ATX (the author, Walker A. Tompkin's personal 
>> call). At a hamfest I happened across a few of the books that had been 
>> reprinted by the ARRL and picked them up to reread. It appears that they 
>> have been rewritten to bring them up to date equipment-wise, so that from 
>> a "nostalgia" perspective, they didn't fit my time frame. Does anyone 
>> have a copy of the originals, from the 1957-1964 timeframe?
>>
>> What I'm trying to determine is what equipment the hams in the books were 
>> using at that time. Some of it, primarily transmitters, I recall, but I 
>> can't seem to remember what receivers were in use.
>>
>> For example, in the book SOS at Midnight, I'm pretty sure Tommy used a 
>> DX-100 transmitter. In CQ Ghost Ship, Tommy's uncle had either a KWM-1 or 
>> KWM-2 he used mobile, and Trudy (K6ZNT) had a DX-35, but again, I don't 
>> remember what receiver she used. Likewise Noisy Noyce had a homebrew 
>> transmitter, but what receiver? In DX Brings Danger, Tommy used the 
>> equipment of W7RDR but I can't recall what gear.
>>
>> Anybody have these old books or rememeber the original series and what 
>> gear was used by the characters in the books?
>>
>> Thanks, 73, Ray W2EC
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> List Administrator: Duane Fischer, W8DBF        ** For Assistance: 
>> dfischer at usol.com **         $$ See the vintage area on the HCI web 
>> site - http://www.w9wze.org $$ Heathkit mailing list
>> Heathkit at mailman.qth.net
>> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/heathkit
>>
> _______________________________________________
> List Administrator: Duane Fischer, W8DBF        ** For Assistance: 
> dfischer at usol.com **         $$ See the vintage area on the HCI web site - 
> http://www.w9wze.org $$ Heathkit mailing list
> Heathkit at mailman.qth.net
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/heathkit
>
>
>
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