[R-390] first radio thread

[Robert Moses]

lee wrote:

>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).
>
The statute of limitations has certainly expired by now hasn't it? :-P

>
>Lee, w0vt
>Houston, Texas 
>
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