[R-390] The radio machine, getting bit by the bug

[Roger Ruszkowski]

Found my first two receivers in a trash can while engaging in what is how
referred to as social engineering. I have never looked back.
My years here on the reflector have been worth more to me than
any other aspect of my electronic interest.

And I thank you all for your participations in the communication.

I go old timer today  having been first licensed 25 years ago as KC6TRU in La Puente California (LA).

Roger AI4NI

 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Nickels <ranickel at comcast.net>
To: r-390 <r-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Fri, Apr 15, 2016 9:30 pm
Subject: Re: [R-390] The radio machine, getting bit by the bug

Early 60s, I was 12 and kept bumping into the limits of available 
technology after making foxhole radios and fiddling around with old 
phones and #6 batteries.    My folks were friends with a couple who had 
no kids and normally I'd be bored when we'd visit but this time the guy 
said "I've got something you might like" and there in his den sat the 
mast amazing thing:  a Hallicrafters S-20R "Sky Champion" receiver with 
maybe six feet of aluminum clothesline wire poking up behind it.    The 
only stipulation was that I'd use the set of (very uncomfortable) Trimm 
headphones to keep the noise down, which of course was not a problem.    
Naturally they had to pry my cramping fingers off the dials hours 
later,  but as we were leaving he handed me two issues of Popular 
Electronics.  One of them was the July 1961 issue that included an 
article "How to become a Ham" by Don Stoner W6TNS (who I later became 
something of a devotee of), and that set the wheels in motion.    That 
S-20R jumpstarted my interest in getting a ham license which happened a 
few years later, and eventually became the novice receiver for a high 
school buddy.   My own novice career made use of an SX-110 which was a 
modern incarnation of the two dial single conversion Hallicrafters 
design that traced its origins back in the S-20R and before.

My abiding memory of spinning those dials wasn't hearing exotic voices 
from all over the world or hams yakking in AM mode (although I heard 
plenty of each) - it was the jammers!   I had no idea what those really 
loud obnoxious noises could be and figured they had to be caused by some 
defect in the receiver or my tuning of it.   I also recall helping 
everyone set their watches to WWV, and listening to the test 
transmissions from shortwave stations of AT&T and fishermen on the 
marine bands who sometimes said words that 12 year olds weren't suppose 
to say back then (see, the headphone weren't all bad!).      Now I have 
my own S-20R,  with it's own aluminum wire antenna and pinchy Trimm 
earphones and when I turn it on, I'm 12 years old again, even if the 
jammers and many of the other shortwave signals are gone.

73, Bob W9RAN
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