The AM Forum

Well this year Martha really surprised me big time.  We normally give each other various tools.  I give her stuff for classic cars and she often gives me some wood working tools for my shop. 
I guess this year she figured I had almost every wood working tool so she switched gears and gave me a radio gift.  A big radio gift...a huge radio gift!  It all started with a small package for me that was delivered to our neighbor.  She went over a few days ago and picked it up and wrapped it and placed it under the tree.  It was the size of a shirt box, but she had never given me shirts for Christmas.  I had no clue what it could be.  In addition to the shirt box, were a bunch of very small boxes that you would put jewelry in.  Again, she never had given me any jewelry.  I was totally confused and had no clue what could be in the tiny boxes.  We all know that tools and radio parts generally do not come in small boxes.  Plus, they seemed very light when she was placing them under the tree.  She had all the boxes numbered and was quite insistent that I open them according to the numbers.

Number one box had a typewritten note saying "Oil and filter change"  That really confused me since she normally changes all the oil and filter in all our vehicles.  I thought maybe she was going to buy the oil and filters so it would be zero cost to me!

Number two box had a typewritten note saying "Pack Your Bags"  That one really got me worried!  Did I do something to upset her and she was throwing me out of the house???

Number three box had a typewritten note saying "Cuz we are leaving for a trip on January 15th"  I knew she liked the last cruise we went on and I thought here we go again!!

Number four box had a typewritten note saying "Hmmmm....Where could it be?????

And the final box number 5 was the shirt size box.  It had no note, BUT it had the manual for a Johnson Desk Kilowatt!!!!! 

So, before reality set in, I thought she got me just a manual since I don't have a Johnson Desk Kilowatt nor its manual, BUT no she bought me a complete working Johnson Desk Kilowatt!!!!  I was in total shock so much so that she lovingly had to give me CPR!!!! 

We leave on a road trip January 15th as the note said and its far enough away that an oil change will be required before we head out.

I am still in shock and just can't believe what she did!!  She has known for years that I always wanted the transmitter to finish out my Johnson line of gear.  Until the downstairs working museum gets done, it will be set up and put on the air from the family room!!! 

I am so excited that I just had to share my fantastic Christmas will all of you.

Joe, W3GMS     
 
                 

Joe,

Congratulations on a Great Christmas and having a thoughtful and creative spouse!  You will really enjoy the Desk KW and hopefully we can have a Desk to Desk QSO after you gets your new rig home.  I will shoot you an email later with some of the things I learned during my restoration and first few months of ownership so you can avoid those pitfalls. 

My best Christmas present was in 1974 when my parents bought me a Johnson Valiant for my first transmitter.  I had taken the Novice exam a couple of weeks before Christmas but this was during the CB boom so the FCC was taking around 10 weeks to process exams.  My parents bought the Valiant from "Mac" McIntyre who was a retired Coast Guard op and he gave me my novice test.  My mother didn't have a box big enough to wrap the rig so I was able to figure out by some judicious examination what transmitter I was getting.  For several weeks after Christmas I had to be satisfied with loading it up into a light bulb dummy load until my ticket finally arrived. 

Rodger WQ9E

Merry Christmas morning to all.

Wow, that's quite the boat anchor to round out your Johnson collection there, Joe.  Do you plan to get it on soon or go through it first?


Rodger:
FB on a Valiant as a first Novice rig. That's a dream rig for a Novice.  Back in '64 I passed my Novice and had a deposit on a used $125 Ranger at the local ham store.  I was bringing in a few dollars a week from my paper route.   Then one day a Valiant came in and was put on the shelf for $125.  I tried my best to transfer the deposit over to the Valiant, but Corky (the ham behind the counter) yelled saying I'd be running 275 watts in the Novice band. Of course he was right and he made me stay with the 75W Ranger for CW... ;D

As a fitting epitaph, when I got my General, I discovered the Ranger's AM audio section was dead. No one could fix it, so traded it in towards an Apache.  At that store you never knew what you were getting cuz there was no repiar facility.

T

Joe,
Thanks for sharing that.  That was nice.  You're a lucky guy for getting a JDKW and having your oil changed by your wife  ;) :D

Merry Christmas to you and Martha.

Good old Hatry Electronics, brings back old memories doesn't it Tom.

The only place it was difficult to properly load the Valiant at 75 watts in was on 80 meters feeding my 40 meter inverted V as a top loaded T.  But it worked well enough to check into the Mississippi Slow Net probably running 20 or 30 watts out.  On 40 and 15 it was pretty easy to load properly and I even allowed for a couple of watts for the grid since I was a good law abiding novice.  At that point I had no clue as to how inaccurate the metering is in a Valiant so it was anyone's guess as to how much power I was really running. 

My only major novice mistake was ending up out of band for my very first CQ call on 40 meters.  By '74 VFO was legal but still only 75 watts input.  My Valiant came with a couple of rocks in the crystal sockets so following the Valiant manual I used the SX-62A receiver and the crystals to calibrate the VFO.  What I didn't know was one of the crystals had been moved away from its marked frequency by quite a bit so the VFO was now way off frequency.  I called CQ and a W9 came back sending very slowly, "WN5NSC OUT OF NOVICE BAND".  I killed the power and regrouped on the VFO.  For weeks thereafter I lived in fear of the postman and ringing doorbells because I was sure the feds were going to be in touch.   But I got over my fear and a couple of weeks later VQ9MI came back to my CQ inside the novice band on 15 meters.  That was the high point of my short time as a novice.

I never tried that Valiant on AM.  Shortly after I got my general I picked up a Heathkit SB-102 and ended up with the RF deck out of a Desk KW as part of a trade deal involving my Valiant.  I had planned to use the RF deck as a linear amp but high school and college interfered and the RF deck got traded for some Hi Fi gear to travel to college.  I finally got a complete Desk KW 4 years ago (and it will not be traded for anything, it's a keeper!)

Joe, thats the best ham radio xmas story I've ever heard.  8) can ya document the goings on for us with some pix as things unfurl?

You can rest easy, Joe - I got a shirt, so the circle is complete somehow, and the world remains in balance....  ;D

Congrats on your great gift, it must've been an event much like those times as a child that we vaguely remember, filled with shock, excitement, and genuine surprise. Something we seldom feel for Christmas these days, or at least - not in the same, youthful way.

Your greatest gift of course, is having a woman like Martha. She's the exclamation point at the end of the old phrase 'one in a million!'

Merry Christmas, you lucky dawg.

Derb & all,
Yes we will continue to document the trip in picking it up.  I was really blown away with the gift.  
I was talking with Martha about hurrying up and finishing the museum downstairs and she said, put it up in the family room until you get the big room downstairs done!  So out goes the computer desk and in its place will be the Johnson KW.  The room downstairs should be done by the spring and it will go down stairs as a working station.  It will be on the air very shortly after we bring it home.  

While I am talking about the museum I want to let you all know that it won't be a bunch of old radio sitting on shelves.  There will be 12 working stations.  The first setup will be a working rotary spark transmitter and then continue with a few years of separation and going up through the early 60's.  I don't want to have stuff just on show without being working.  So each station will be set up with furniture of that period with QSL cards that match the period.  
I am hoping that we will have lots of visitors to stop in and enjoy it.  That's the main reason I am doing it.  This has been a life long dream of mine and now that I retired early, I have good health and time to finish it.
Thanks all for sharing my excitement with this new addition.  I will share where the transmitter is coming from and his special part in making this happen but I want to check with him first.  
Joe, W3GMS            

Well, I have been given permission by the seller to let everyone know where the rig came from.  Todd, KA1KAQ is the seller and a big part of making this a total surprise.  Prior to Martha negotiating the sale with Todd, weeks before I had talked to Todd about the rig.  With my recent early retirement at age 57, I was reluctant to pull the money out of personal savings since that is what we will be living off of until I am able to collect my pension and 401k.  Little did I know that once I made the decision to keep the money in the bank that Martha wanted me to have it so badly that she continue where I had left off in negotiating the sale. 
Thanks Todd for helping making this a reality for me!! 
Joe   

That's awesome Joe. Merry Christmas!

Thanks Steve...as you can tell I am excited. 
A very Merry Christmas to you and Carol.  It was good talking with you and the other folks on the WFD net! 
Best Wishes,
Joe

That's a great story!
I got a great chuckle reading this aloud for my wife, and explaining the significance of the desk-kilowatt.

Absolutely wonderful   ;D

Wow Joe, and she does oil changes too...a keeper
Merry Christmas!

Bruce,
I am glad you read it to your wife and I am glad you enjoyed my Christmas story. 

Frank,
Yes Martha, N3QBE is a quite good with cars.  She is into restoring classics and when she gets grumpy (very seldom) with inside chores, I send her to our garage we built and she always comes in with a smile on her face.  Her baby is a totally restored 1973 Mach 1 with a 351 Cleveland in it.  We found it in St. John New Brunswick.  Now she is restoring her Dad's old Chevy truck from Tennessee where she is originally from.  We put a lift in the garage and nothing puts a smile on her face like working under the lift! She will do an engine swap on the Chevy truck and is deciding what type of motor to put in it. She like a lot of horsepower under the hood!!

Her day job is in banking so its quite a contrast.   
Joe, W3GMS     

Well Joe,
The only way to trump getting a desk as a gift would to buy her a fresh on the crate Rat motor with a good set of headers.

Joe - Tell Martha that I'm sending Maggie over for Christmas Gift Training!

COngrats, Joe - Martha's one in a million - or perhaps one in a bazillion???  My wife bought me my GPT-750 - all I had to do was drive the thousand miles and pick it up  ;D

I had my suspicions as to where the xmitter came from as I started reading the top of this thread.  Todd told me he sold his to someone in the community but didn't say who.

That'll be a really nice trip for you both.  Todd's an outstanding host!

Paul,
I am sure Martha would love to offer a training session, so send Maggie over anytime!  While she is here she could teach her about cars as well! 

John,
Well if your wife bought you your GPT 750 you know the feeling really well.  We are both very lucky since a lot of Ham's don't get that kind of treatment surrounding Ham Radio.  In fact a lot of divorces occur over Ham Radio as being a sticking point.
We are very much looking forward to our visit down to see Todd and Jen.  We both like road trips very much and will do another cross country one in a few years.

Joe, W3GMS     

Indeed, Joe.  Because of that it's my most prized possession.  Although the Uncle Sam hat HUZ got me as a going away present is close  ;D

(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b153/throbbo/Picture003.jpg)

Merry Christmas to all......

Joe,

I have seen that rig many times at Todd's place and had said that it was a real nice transmitter, you will be real happy with it. Todd had told me about the scheme a while ago and I thought, "What a lucky guy" to have such a good wife...When we spoke on the air a few times I was wondering what you say at Christmas when Martha present you with that gift. Hope you really enjoy it.

Happy New Year,
Joe  WA2PJP

John,
That is quite some hat and I am sure its real near and dear to your heart! 

Joe,
Thanks for the kind words and yes I am blessed and lucky man.  I assure you, I don't take that for granted.  We are really looking forward to the road trip going down Todd's way to pick it up.  Martha and I are trying decide what vehicle to drive down when we pick it up.  The choices would be either my Toyota pickup or her Jeep Cherokee.  Its going in the family room until the room downstairs gets completed.  So hopefully  I will have it on the air real soon.  Over the years I have collected spare Plate, Mod and Filter iron for it just in case I would ever need it.  I will use one of my Ranger 1's to drive it and I noticed the picture in the manual had a HRO-60 receiver and I have one of those as well.  I also have the Johnson speech amp and driver should I ever decide to use it.  Oh, I can't forget about the Johnson KW Matchbox to couple into the open wire line.  So other than the HRO it will be an all Johnson set-up. 
I guess you can tell I am pretty excited!   

Joe   

Joe,

All I can say is... wow! Just... wow! Great story and can't wait to hear it on the air! Should be a fine adventure!

:O)

Rob

Joe,

That is going to be a nice setup. 

I used an HRO-60 with mine for awhile just after I put it on the air so it would be just like the Johnson advertisement.  Then I started substituting as net control for the Midwest Classic Radio net and found I had to patch in my Drake R-7 during net time to hear effectively through the QRM.  That was too modern so for quite awhile I ran it with a Hallicrafters SX-101 because being able to select either sideband on AM is necessary sometimes to pull a weak station through the QRM.  I now use an SX-88 with the Ranger/Desk which has to be re-tuned to select the desired sideband but with it set for 2.5 Kc selectivity I can pull out the weak ones the HRO could not. 

You will probably be very satisfied with the HRO-60 as it worked fine for me probably 90% of the time.  But if you find yourself using this as the main station you may want to wire in facilities for quickly patching another receiver into the setup.  This is not a slam on the HRO-60 and I own and use HRO's from the original through the HRO-500; I have just really become a fan of having the ability to select sidebands on AM. 

The Hammarlund HQ-170/180 receivers also do a great job under lousy conditions and I bought a parts unit HQ-170 on ebay to make a counterfeit HC-10 since my real one is tied to a GPR-90 and the actual HC-10's are extremely expensive when they come up for sale.  This way I will have a second unit to move around and pair up with other 455 Khz. IF receivers.

This is a Christmas you will never forget and have a fun field trip down to Todd's place.   I picked up my Desk KW project from south of Houston just before Christmas a few years ago and drove back to IL in a single day.  The only interesting aspect of the trip was in a few hours driving the temperature dropped from the mid-60's in Texas down to the single digits just after I entered Missouri.  I stopped in a truck stop in Missouri and added some anti-gel and topped off the tank with midwestern diesel so I wouldn't be stuck with a gelled up truck on the side of the highway.  I was afraid they didn't use winterized diesel in the south of Texas.

Joe,
     Congradulations on getting such a FBOM Christmas gift from Martha. You two are among the very nicest of people I've ever met, and it shows in your hospitality and generosity toward other people. It only makes sense that you would treat each other the same way. I know you probably have many spares, but if you ever need 810's or 4-400's for it let me know. I have a "in" with the 810 and 4-400 fairy hi!

Thanks for sharing the story with us all, and I can't wait to hear the big rig on the aether! Yes, it may be another project, but a most welcome one in the W3GMS museum of Amateur Radio. A super addition to your EF Johnson collection.

I hope you and Martha had a very merry Christmas and hope you two have a terrific new year. Looking forward to talking to you on the air.

If you're able to make the AWA "Topband Net" on 1945KC at 8PM Monday evening, PLEASE share your story with all the net members. I think everyone would like to hear it!

Here's to happiness, health and a Johnson Desk Killowatt!
                                                                            Joe Cro N3IBX

Roger & Vortex Joe..

Roger first:

Thanks for sharing your insight into the station as shown on the inside cover of the manual.  It just so happens that I have a very pristine HQ-170 and I can certainly appreciate the advantage of that receiver during heavy QRM conditions.  When the band allows, I usually copy in a wider bandwidth with audio being picked up off the detector of the receiver sent to an external monitor amp and speaker.  My current station upstairs is a very modified Ranger II driving a pair of 3-500Z's.  The receiver I use most is a Ten Tec Jupiter.  I like it since it uses DSP in the IF to go from 300 Hz to 8 KHz.  If things really get tuff, I can go to the selective sideband mode and that as a last resort works well.  But for the real boat anchors downstairs I prefer to keep everything vintage not like the somewhat hybrid station upstairs.

Now to Mr. N3IBX,
Thanks for your very nice comments.  I don't know what to say after hearing comment like that from you!!  All I can say is thank you. 

You will have to come down for a visit when I get it temporarily set up in the family room.  I am sure this project will push out the kitchen rebuild but Martha insists that I get the museum project done first.  She knows that has been a real passion with me for over 20 years.   

I think I am in good shape for spares if they become necessary but I promise I will talk to you if I should need anything and you know very well you are welcome to anything I can help you with. 

Yes we obviously had a fantastic Christmas.  Christmas is not about material things but I have to  tell you this put our Christmas over the top!  The biggest thing was the total surprise of the gift.  Martha wanted parts for her old Chevy truck that she is restoring so LMC Trucks and Joe have become best of friends!  I went through her big roller tool box and found some tools that she was missing so I was able to fill in those blank tools for her.  The truck stuff was not so much a surprise but the tools were. 

Life is good!

Joe, W3GMS           

Joe
What a wonderful XMAS gift!  Can't wait to hear it on the air.
My very best to you and Martha for a Happy, Healthy, Peaceful and Prosperous 2010.
Steve WA2DTW

Many thanks Steve and our family extends best wishes to you and your family as well.  Yes, I look forward to working you with the new xmas present rig!
Joe, W3GMS 

Apologies for being a bit late in responding, been spending less time online and more time on other things.

Wanted to add, Joe, that the Viking KW also includes the original Low Pass filter and brackets for mounting on the back, so the 'all Johnson' station gets a bit more complete. And dense.

Would suggest bringing the truck instead of the Jeep, as getting it loaded into an enclosed vehicle with limited head room would be very challenging. My brother and I loaded it into the back of a Ford pickup when I got it in 1994 using only an appliance dolly/hand truck. It was handy being able to stand up in the bed to position it for travel along with getting it up into the back.

And with no intention of stealing any of the excitement, I must say that sending this amp to Joe's 'Living Museum' collection surpasses my best hopes for finding it a good home. Having personally known the original owner who purchased the amp new in 1957 and feeling sure I'd never get rid of it, the decision to do so did not come easily, and I was in no rush to shove it out the door. With money not being the issue, it became more a case of finding it a proper home. The new owner couldn't have been better!

Now the radio world will get to hear it on the air again for the first time in at least 15 years. Letting go seemed so difficult, but now it seems fantastic and definitely for the best. If only I'd known sooner that you'd been looking for one of these beasts, Joe.

Remind me when you're here to tell you a funny story involving Roger K1MBX and your amp.