[Heathkit] My first station

[Glen Zook via Heathkit]

My first station, as a Novice Class operator in 1959, was a WRL Globe Chief 90A (used) for the transmitter and a Hallicrafters S-107 that I acquired between taking the examinations and actually receiving the license 3-months later.  I traded in my Heath AR-3 receiver at the old Allied Radio Store, 100 North Western Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
Back then, very few operators even had an SWR bridge.  The antenna was cut, from the formulas, and if the transmitter could actually "load" the antenna, it was good to go.  If we had trouble working stations, then we tried various things with the antennas.
The best wire antenna that I had, when in high school, was a true Zepp that was a full half-wave for 160-meters.  That antenna worked on 160, 80, 40, 20, and 10-meters.  It did not work on 15-meters.  However, I already had a 2-element 15-meter yagi that worked very well on 15-meters.
One winter evening, December 1960 I believe, I heard a contest on the 160-meter band and wanted to participate.  To get the 260-feet of wire needed for the antenna, I unwound the filament windings from several television power transformers.  There was a "garage shop" TV repair facility a block away and the owner kept me in all the old TV chassis that I wanted to strip for parts, etc.  I also had a quantity of the old 300-ohm transmitting twinlead that was rated for over a kilowatt of r.f. power.  After soldering the wire together, I ran the wire from the house out to a 30-foot "T" mast in the side yard, then to a wild cherry tree at the end of the very large lot, and finally back to a 20-foot power pole that was in the back yard.  After hooking up the twinlead, I was on the 160-meter band.
By the way, by the time I got enough wire, it was about 3:00 AM.  Also, there was about 3-feet of snow on the ground and snow was falling at several inches per hour!  Almost a blizzard!  That antenna worked very well for the time that I lived at my parent's house.  The antenna was still "up" when my mother sold the property in the early 1990s. Glen, K9STH

Website: http://k9sth.net