[R-390] Small Voodoo Antenna

[Harry Joel]

a bit of history about antennas, if you care.

As a youngster (1943) I was fascinated about anything radio related. Living in a boardinghouse for out-of-town highschool boys, some of us got into a contest (I could call it now a DX kind) to see who could pull in the most distant AM station using a crystal set. Chrystal sets were the only type of receiver we could indulge in (private listening, small, no AC power, etc). We had them on the small bedside table.  Antennas!!! where to put them? Most just had a short hank of wire laying under the bed. There were two tall and unused flag poles about 50 yards in front of the building. My bed was next to the second floor window and reading about long-wire antennas I decided to "hoist" my antenna up there. On a week-end, with all the other boys gone home, I put a small wire loop around one pole, affixed a porcelain egg and attached one end of the antenna wire. Then attached a string to the loop and hoisted it up to the top (30 plus feet). Doing the same on the other flag pole, but just fed the wire through the eye of the insulator so it could move. Went up to the fourth floor attic and threw a long string to the ground to hoist the loose end of the antenna up. Down to attach the wire to the string then up again to the attic. Attached another insulator next to the roof line, then tightened up good on the antenna wire. Down at ground level I yanked hard on the halyard of pole number one to break the string. Now I had my long wire. Fed the down leg through the window. Presto. I won the DX contest by routinely receiving a strong signal from BBC London at my location in upper Bavaria. This was only possible when ALL AM stations shut down during air raid warnings. The other contestants wanted to know how I got the antenna up there. I led them to believe that I shimmied up on both poles. They were suitably impressed. PS: Listening to BBC was considered a criminal act by the Nazi powers, which made my private listening even more enjoyable. I can still here the station break audio of a deep kettle drum spelling out the V for victory morse code. They had a regular program on BBC named English by Radio which I enjoyed a lot.
I have other early radio memories, but this is my favorite