The AM Forum

I ran into a photo of my earliest shack I can remember.... those were the days.  The early shack is from 1960 and I made a lot of contacts using that old Hallicrafters S-38.  I can't remember if it was an A,B or which....  If you look close you can see a Vibroplex I had but mostly I used the J-38 which I still prefer and use today.

The evolution portion is the second picture just recently taken after the Missus threw me out of the upstairs bedroom!  Now I am banished to the barn... but I do have electric heat and when the Gates is up it is REAL warm in that room...  I am working on a chimney above the Gates to exit some heat out of the shack.  To the left is a National NC-303 I restored and a Hallicrafters HT-37 also restored and a great AM rig.


I loaned the Vibroplex to another ham in the 60's and never got it back. The rest of the station went the way of who knows where as I went to college and dropped the hobby for some years....


73, Tom


Now it is back with a vengeance....

Nice to have photo's of the first shack Tom Must be pleasant memories to look back. I only can remember, but unfortunately I don't have pictures. That was in the years 60, I am licenced in 1963 in the Netherlands and had homebrew VHF stuff at two meters and 23 cM and a set WS19. I wish to have pics of that time.... :-\

I bet we can each remember having a shack where one duplex outlet was enough.

Tom and Nico,

What did you use for the top of your respective operating desks, and about how many inches is the desk above the floor?  I'm currently building a new shack and will need to build a bench.

My Novice shack had one dual outlet but that was enough.

73,
Brad K4RT

Hi Brad
The table top is 85 cM above the floor. I used an extremely hard kind of wood used here in Costa Rica to make floors in trucks. It is called here 'Corteza" You can't even drive a nail in it. It is colored with a kind of ink, impregnated so you don't loose the color when scratching. Underneath is a metal tubing frame to make it very rigid.

Yes, pleasant memories...  I think those memories is often reinforced as my Elmer (W7JIP) who gave me the novice code and question test way back then is still alive and lives less than 40 miles away.  After involving me in ham radio we became good friends. 

I remember he  had a tall tower by his garage a few blocks from my home and it intrigued me enough to always ride my bicycle past his place to see if the garage door was open.  One afternoon it was and he was sitting in there in front of a TV monitor transmitting a black and white photo to another ham in Alaska.  Wow, I thought.  He invited me to watch and I was hooked!


73, Tom

I had an S-38 way back when, broad as a barn door and deaf as a post! I can't hardly beleive you made a lot of contacts with it. I remember listening to the AM gang on 3885 in the early 70's on it, Tim WA1HLR, Chuck WA1EKV (now K1KW), and a bunch of others whom I no longer remember their calls. Living 20 or so miles away probably helped, too. I was WA1MJW in those days. Had an S-38 and a DX-40  ;D