K4KYV video on You Tube

[N3DRB The Derb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0KJudzjpls

Some spots are too dark, should of lit the filaments on the HF 300 rig and opened the blinds up to get more light in the room,  but it is what it is. Tnx Don for letting us film your digs. 

[W1ATR]

Nice Vid. You done good Derb.

I thought it was funny at 9:20ish where Don's talking about the LS-49 and mentions Dave up in West Shokan. (Small world.) I picked up some mod iron/react from him along with a bunch of other stuff. Enough various chokes and other goodies to almost blow out the back tires on the little truck we drove up there.

Great guy and he has this knack for locating some real hard to find things. You can pick the phone up and ask for just about anything no matter how hard it is to find and he'll call you back in a day and ask you how many do you want.

Again, nice vid.

Oh yeah, and nice shack Don.

[KX5JT]

Absolutely awesome.  Don, K4KYV is an icon of AM and one of my role models as a ham radio operator.  His signal on the bands is always clean and powerful.  I consider him to be one of my Elmers as I have no one locally to actually fit that role especially in regards to A.M.  I read his posts, articles and listen to his qso's with eagerness and I always feel very honored to be in a qso with a great A.M. personality.  His technical knowledge is legendary and his conversations in general project a very worldly, well travelled and versatile citizen of this planet.  Thanks to Derb for documenting a few minutes in such an awesome shack.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Awesome. Great Job Derb and Glo.

You have a great station there Don.

[K3ZS]

Great video Derb, I wonder if Don will ever use all those transformers.    I see that one new ham commented that he will be an AM'er after watching this.

[W1GFH]

Awesome vid. That's my idea of a "dream" station. Comfy, roomy, and strappy with lotsa character.

[N3DRB The Derb]

I think the only thing that materially changed that you can see on a first glance from my visit in 1990 is the addition of the Gates TX for 160. that thing is in top condition. i know most of those transformers haven't changed position since the last time I was there.  but thats a good thing!

It's kinda comforting, really. I hope I can go back in the fall and we can do some late night radio action like we did in 1990.
There just wasn't anyone on in the daytime on 75 or 40 this time around.

[ka3zlr]

It's always a great Joy Looking in on Don, Gooder Job Derb.

73
Jack.

[Tom WA3KLR]

Derb,

You be da Ryan Seacrest of YouTube!

[W2PHL]

Two thumbs up!

[W2XR]

Derb, that was great video!

This is real ham radio. I say this, because you can clearly see that most of Don's station is homebrew, and very little of what he uses on a day-to-day basis appears to be commercially made equipment. Speaking with Don on the air, what commercially-built gear he has, has been modified by him to better suit his unique applications and technical requirements, etc.

I only wish I had the roomy shack and real estate that Don has, along with the time to build more gear. I must admit, I have K4KYV shack envy! I would set up a heck of a lot more equipment, that is for sure.

Very impressive station.

The Gates rig is a BC-1T.

NIce video, Derb. I could have watched a lot more of this.

Thanks for sharing it with the gang.

73,

Bruce

[W1AEX]

Nice video Derb. For the first few seconds I thought you might have embedded the dueling banjos piece from "Deliverance". Don has such wonderful toys, no wonder he straps in here at all hours!

[Opcom]

That was really cool. Especially showing the tubes and the iron.

[flintstone mop]

The banjo music is perfect, great touch!

I'll agree with the "Deliverance" music. Good production Tim. The editing and the vid effects were impressive and, of course, Don's real ham radio shack.

Thanks for letting us peak at your station.

Phred

[ka3zlr]

I'd like to have an outside shack like Dons, get the heck out the basement.

73
Jack.

[W4EWH]

Don looks a lot better with a beard. I know: I wear one too.

The Southern accent threw me, though. I though everyone on AM was supposed to sound like Chuck Yeager.

W1AC

[Bill, KD0HG]

Deliverance?

OK.

Where's the still?

[K5UJ]

Just finished watching the video and I second all the comments; this is one of the few YouTube videos I enjoyed (an other one was the F2 ham making his own tubes).  Wow Don you sure got a lotta transformers    I'm going to have to come up with a CQ recording.  The way the camera panned down the tower reminded me of the opening shot in the radio station sequence of American Graffiti, the one with the Wolfman and Richard Dryfuss except that was at night but it still looked similar.

[WA3VJB]

Nice video shoot & production there Derb.
The audio in stereo gave me an even better sense of the room.

Watching Don throw his voice during that CQ was cool.

I only wish a strapper like EKV might have answered instead of hearing them g-d slopbuckets, but hey.

[W1UJR]

Very nice job Derb, and the music was a nice touch!

Chances are I'll never make it down to Woodlawn, so your video was the next best thing to being there!
What the cassette tapes were to radio in the 70-80, the CD in 90s, so is the video recoding on YouTube now.
This is will be a great way to preserve and document the amateur service from an historical angle.

Don, your shack is as amazing as your strapping signal, and the HF-300 big rig was a work of art, ah, to be able to go to the radio store and just buy parts for that over the counter, those were the days!


-Bruce

[W8VG]

Now I know why Don always comes strapping in this way -- on 75 and 40!

Nice station!

[Bill, KD0HG]

Deliverance?

OK.

Where's the still?

This is really funny. Dueling Banjos from the Deliverance movie was by Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt. The reason I had mentioned the Banjo music before was because my mothers mother (my grandmother) maiden name was Scruggs. Earl Scruggs was her cousin and he's still alive today. Earl was originally from North Carolina, but the rest of the family lived in Tennessee and some eventually moved to Kentucky.

The banjo music was a perfect fit for Derb's video, at least for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8

Deliverance?

OK.

Where's the still?

This is really funny. Dueling Banjos from the Deliverance movie was by Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt. The reason I had mentioned the Banjo music before was because my mothers mother (my grandmother) maiden name was Scruggs. Earl Scruggs was her cousin and he's still alive today. Earl was originally from North Carolina, but the rest of the family lived in Tennessee and some eventually moved to Kentucky.

The banjo music was a perfect fit for Derb's video, at least for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8

[/quote]


Small world re: Flatt and Scruggs!

Actually, I'm a big time Bluegrass, Blues, Western and Gospel music fan but I can't stand modern country music.

Earl Scruggs was prolly the first person to popularize the 5-string banjo, I think it was in the late 1940s on WSM's Grand Old Opry. It was with Bill Monroe. The rest is history.

[w1vtp]

Derb

Thanks a lot.  That was a great clip.  I wish more of this stuff was on the web.  Think of it guys.  A great repository of the AM greats on UTUBE

Al

[N3DRB The Derb]

I hope I can make some more trips to big strappers in the northeast and document them.

It wasn't until I saw video of myself operating FD in 1994 that I realized that what today seems mundane and not that important takes on a new significance with the passing of father time.

If I could, the next video would be with Ashtabula Bill. His station ( and he himself) needs to be recorded.

Also love to do Tron.

thanks everyone for your comments. At some point I'll head back down to Dons and make a technically better vid - and a more formal interview with Don.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Earl Scruggs was prolly the first person to popularize the 5-string banjo, I think it was in the late 1940s on WSM's Grand Old Opry. It was with Bill Monroe. The rest is history.

Actually, others popularized the 5-string banjo during the ragtime jazz era, decades earlier. He more probably re-popularized in the 40s after the banjo had been overshadowed or supplanted by the piano and guitar.

His biggest legacy is that of the three finger, "roll"-based  style that is now synonymous with Bluegrass music and often called Scruggs Style. Most banjo music prior was either plectrum or two-finger based or flailing as they called it. Others began with three finger picking prior to Scruggs, including some other musicians in the North Carolina area, most notably Snuffy Jenkins who taught Scruggs. But Scruggs put it all together, made it smooth and flowing and was able to play popular jazz and fiddle tunes of the time with seeming ease.

The biggest innovation in banjo styles since was the introduction of the melodic/chromatic style by Bill Keith in the early 60's. Interestingly, he also played with Bill Monroe and blew people away with note-for-note renditions of Sailor's Hornpipe and other fiddle tunes. The modern day extension of this style is the way out jazz, rock based stuff played by Bela Fleck.

BTW, Scruggs did not play the Dueling Banjos in Deliverance. (Flatt and Scruggs were famous for Foggy Mountain Breakdown - an original by Scruggs - featured in the movie Bonnie and Clyde.) Rather, it was Eric Weisberg on banjo and Steve Mandell on guitar. The song is an adaptation of the song called Feudin' Banjos written by Arthur Smith. It was popularized by a recording made by Smith on a four-string banjo playing plectrum style and Don Reno on a five-string playing three-finger style. Interestingly, Reno was one of those early experimenters with the three-finger style concurrent, or maybe even before Scruggs. He had an oppurtunity to play with Monroe before Scruggs did. If he had, who knows, more people would probably know his name and the three-finger style might be called Reno Style instead.