[Lowfer] Cornell's Book
Peter Cranwell
pete at pcranwell.com
Wed Sep 16 21:43:59 EDT 2009
I have no idea of who his children are. He never talked much about them.
He might have mentioned a son once but that’s all.
Ked divorced somewhere in the early 70s and moved from Westfield NJ (we
lived about 5 block apart) to Pt. Pleasant NJ. As soon as his wife
received her inheritance, she filed for divorce and split as soon as she has
the cash. They sold the house in Westfield and Ken moved.
One night, while living in Westfield, I called Ken at 10PM. "Sweetness &
Light" answered the phone & proceeded to rip my head off over the phone.
She was such a sweet thing!!!!
I helped him with a lot of the solid state circuits at the time (mostly MPF
series FETs). Ken fiddled with his coil winding machine & I resorted to
brute force techniques. My ant loading coil was a 2.5 Mhy RF choke and a
365 PF variable Cap. It was far from what Ken did but I did manage to work
out to the end of Long Island one Sat morning. My receiver was so sharp I
could pick fly dirt out of pepper. It was an old ARC-5 which had additional
converter stages added and a sharp audio filter made from 88 Mhy loading
coils. Ken's ant was mounted to the side of the house, (he had a small
lot) and mine was in the clear.
He claimed he didn't run more than the legal limit from his rig. Neither
did I with my 6AQ5 driver and 2E26 final. Honest, I didn't!!!!.
My beacon keyer was a PC board, etched with the letter "P", using wire relay
contact wires for a pickup & it ran on a re-cycled phono player. Great
engineering.
Ken's call was "K" mine was "P". We ran on 189.5 and had an agreed upon
schedule where each beacon would run for 15 minute period, in rotation, and
if we could hear each other, would use the last quarter hour to attempt a
QSO.
The late 60s were fun days & I have a lot of memories.
Now I listen with a 16 turn loop (4 foot on each side) , balanced preamp ,
VLF converter & Orion receiver.
Cheers
Pete
WA2EIN/(formerly K2RBV)
-----Original Message-----
From: lowfer-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:lowfer-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Warren Ziegler
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 9:07 PM
To: Discussion of the Lowfer (US, European, &, UK) and MedFer bands
Subject: Re: [Lowfer] Cornell's Book
Peter,
Thanks for de-bunking the often repeated myth that Ken's family
stood in the way of reprinting the book!
I had heard that story so many times that I came to believe it!
--
73 Warren K2ORS
WD2XGJ
WD2XSH/23
WE2XEB/2
WE2XGR/1
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 8:56 PM, Peter Cranwell <pete at pcranwell.com> wrote:
> Ken was divorced & never remarried. His former wife has no claim.
>
> I am not aware of who , if any, his kids are.
>
> I helped Ken work on his book back in the late 60s.
>
> Ken followed published coil winding data, as a starting point. After that
> he did a lot of experimentation with his coil winding machine.
>
> I spent many evenings with him in discussions.
>
> I have a Word version of his 10th workbook 58 Meg.
>
> Pete
>
> WA2EIN former K2RBV
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lowfer-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:lowfer-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
> On Behalf Of Warren Ziegler
> Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 11:21 AM
> To: Discussion of the Lowfer (US, European, &, UK) and MedFer bands
> Subject: Re: [Lowfer] Cornell's Book
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> Have the 9th edition here, fun reading but somewhat dated.
> Ken was a tinkerer not an engineer (one example - he didn't believe in
> calculating inductance - he believed in making coils by trial and
> error).
> To me his book is in the same category as 1950s QSTs - good bathroom
> reading.
> I would be willing to contact Ken's heirs regarding reprints if anyone
> has any idea who I should talk to.
>
> There is lots of good stuff on the web today, but for a book I still
> recommend "The Low Frequency Experimenter's Handbook" by Peter Dodd
> G3LDO - published by the RSGB and available from the ARRL.
>
> --
> 73 Warren K2ORS
> WD2XGJ
> WD2XSH/23
> WE2XEB/2
> WE2XGR/1
>
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Peter Barick <pbarick at niu.edu> wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> We've all heard about the legendary Ken Cornell, "Mr. LowFER" of the
> 70-80s? Oh well...
>>
>> Saw advertised on QHT site a copy of his The LF Scrapbook and expect to
> have it in short time. I'm under no illusions of find the font of
> all-knowing LF think, ha, they did it w/ tubes and no beaconing back then.
> Oh well, guess it's the Not knowing yet seeing refs. in LowDown that's
> compelling.
>>
>> I understand his heirs do not allow a reprinting of his published. Wonder
> why, it's not rocket science - er, is it?
>>
>> --Cheers, Peter
>>
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