[R-390] first radio thread

[lee]

My very first radio was a simple Philmore crystal set.  I think I got it 
around 1951.  Then for Christmas I got a pair of wall telephones that got 
hooked up between my house and the neighbors house.  (I used a water pipe 
for the second phantom telephone wire.  This amazed me).  Somewhere in Boys 
Life magazine I saw an ad for a Loop Stick Antenna which would replace the 
loop antenna in any AA5 broadcast band radio and was supposed to make any 
AA5 radio "hotter".  This was in 1953.  Right after I got it, I was home 
sick with a cold and didn't go to grade school that day.  I was in bed, 
bored and had little to do so I thought I would hook up the Loopstick 
antenna to my Mother's Motorola AA5 white tube table radio she used in her 
kitchen.  I peaked the tuning slug and it worked good, but probably no 
better then with the wire loop antenna built on the back of the radio's back 
panel.

However, when I pulled the slug way out of the coil, VIOLA!   The radio now 
picked up the 75 meter phone band and it was fairly sensitive too.  There 
was no hint of AM broadcast stations on the dial, just 75 meter phone 
signals!  Back then most hams used AM and this thing was picking them up all 
over the 75 meter phone band.  Back then, 75 meters was used like 2 meters 
today, especially in the daytime with all the mobiles running AM.  I was 
living in a Northern suburb of Milwaukee.  I think every ham in Wisconsin 
was on 3950 back then.   This experience introduced me to ham radio and I 
have been hooked ever since.  I passed my Novice license in late 1953, and 
received my call WN9DRC.  I then upgraded to General 3 months later in early 
1954.  The benefit of having a pilot light on the AA5 was, it would flicker 
when the received station was loud while modulating his rig.  What a great S 
meter!  My first real short wave radio was a S-38C which I used in my Novice 
days as well as in my General days with a Globe Scout 40A.  In 1956 I 
upgraded to a SX-96 receiver and a DX-100 transmitter.

My first transmitter was a "slat board" 6V6 rig and then later a Gross 
EAGLE( like a Philmore NT-200).  (Actually my first transmitter was a "Ford 
model T spark coil transmitter but we don't talk about it much).

Lee, w0vt
Houston, Texas