National Public Radio gives Ham Radio a Positive Plug

[Bill, KD0HG]

URL for the show coming soon, unless some else posts it sooner.

NPR interviewed spokesperson from ARRL regarding why a growing number of 'wackos' and nerds are getting ham licenses, and off the internet, and why we still use 'obsolete' technology like CW. A couple of CW tracks were played at around 20 WPM. And some talk about what I call ".34-10-4" on 2M FM.

It was q good show at ~5:15 PM today on Denver NPR news, "All Things Considered" on the drive home.

More later.

[WA3VJB]

Thanks a lot Bill, keep me in suspense.

Why ARE more wackos and nerds getting HAM licenses ?
Did they ever answer the question ?

If the spokesperson was Allen Pitts I can guess the answer.

NPR interviewed spokesperson from ARRL regarding why a growing number of 'wackos' and nerds are getting ham licenses,

[k4kyv]

Let the wackos and nerds have their HAM  licences.  I'll continue to enjoy ham radio.

Here is the  link to the ATC article.

Interestingly, the photo on the ATC web page shows a real homebrew amateur radio station from 1939, not a ricebox station full of plastic radios or a shack-on-a-belt.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125586086

[W1GFH]

Kool photo. I think that's a homebrew ribbon mic at upper left.

[W2XR]

Per the text summary of this NPR broadcast, as posted on their website:

"Ham radio will never have the sex appeal of the iPhone, but it does have a certain nerd appeal, says Allen Weiner, an analyst at the technology research firm Gartner."

I wonder if this is the same Allen Weiner of WBCQ fame? If so, what is Gartner, and what do they do?

73,

Bruce

[Ian VK3KRI]

Per the text summary of this NPR broadcast, as posted on their website:

"Ham radio will never have the sex appeal of the iPhone, but it does have a certain nerd appeal, says Allen Weiner, an analyst at the technology research firm Gartner."

I wonder if this is the same Allen Weiner of WBCQ fame? If so, what is Gartner, and what do they do?

73,

Bruce

Gartner does research on technology their don't understand and sell  reports to boards of Corporations so they can then justifiy the inept decisions they make  while running down the value of the company prior to them leaving via golden parachute.

Hmm. I sense some residual hostility here....

Also I believe the WBCQ guy is  Allan   

[k4kyv]

Kool photo. I think that's a homebrew ribbon mic at upper left.

And notice the other ring-mounted mic in the middle of the picture, just above the globe.  Looks like it could be a repurposed telephone mouthpiece.  (Remember when you could unscrew the mouthpiece on a pay phone and steal the carbon mic?)

I wonder if that was a UK station.  Notice most of the QSL cards have a "G" prefix on the call sign.  And since the photo dates to 1939, you have to wonder if the man in the photo survived WW2.

[N0WEK]

Great picture!

You can tell how much things have changed, note the cigarette in the guy's hand and that Jr. is standing nose to nose with the high voltage.

Nice to know that I wasn't the only one "borrowing" carbon mics from the phone company!

[ka3zlr]

So your the guy that did that you crumb butt..

When I was hauling Cigarettes out of Richmond Va. Don before I went to
work at Estes Express the deal was to call in every Two Hours and report
in condition and time and that really used to piss me off tryen to find a
phone close to the highway get off try find a place to park an run to the
phone to find out some Jaaaggoff stole the mouth piece or ear piece or both
usually it was Both.  

In the early morning hours over night that was major pain man it's funny now.  

73
Jack.

[W1GFH]

Jr. is standing nose to nose with the high voltage.

Love the upside down PS transformers on the bench with contacts exposed.

you have to wonder if the man in the photo survived WW2.

I wonder if that KID made it thru childhood alive!

[Bill, KD0HG]

Paul, IIRC, the ARRL spokesperson was a YL, I don't remember the name.

I'm a-remembering when pay phones used 'ground start' to get dial tone. If you were short of change all you needed was a straightened paper clip or pin at the end of a clip lead attached to the metal phone booth, stick the grounded paper clip into one of the mouthpiece holes, touch the metal case of the mic element and voila! You made your local call.

Of course, only a real nerd would not have any change but still carrying a piece of wire..

[WA3VJB]

P.S. to Bill --

You went way too elaborate on the payphone thing.
Didn't you carry a portable open reel with recorded bell sounds so the operator would know you dropped coin ?

That was the way to hack your way through a 10 cent phone call.

Paul, IIRC, the ARRL spokesperson was a YL, I don't remember the name.

I'm a-remembering when pay phones used 'ground start' to get dial tone. If you were short of change all you needed was a straightened paper clip or pin at the end of a clip lead attached to the metal phone booth, stick the grounded paper clip into one of the mouthpiece holes, touch the metal case of the mic element and voila! You made your local call.

Of course, only a real nerd would not have any change but still carrying a piece of wire..

[Bill, KD0HG]

P.S. to Bill --

You went way too elaborate on the payphone thing.
Didn't you carry a portable open reel with recorded bell sounds so the operator would know you dropped coin ?

That was the way to hack your way through a 10 cent phone call.

Yes, but the statute of limitations has long since run out.  

I haven't used a pay phone for many years, I would assume they don't use ground start any more.

"BONG" "DING"

Yes, I DID own a portable reel recorder back then. Didn't have capstan drive, the reels themselves drove the tape, sometime even near the correct speed. Still have a tape of Roy Orbinson that I made on it at a concert- LOL.

One Q for you, Paul. Since they stopped making the stuff, is there any value to new 10" pancakes of 3M and BASF mastering tape? I've got both 1/4" and 1/2" flavors that I salted away years ago when I heard that 3M was ceasing production.

[WA3VJB]

There have been a few attempted tape production runs stateside, including a relocated facility for Quantegy (nee Ampex).

There seems to be more available in Europe, where some radio news outlets still use the UHER, the Otari and the odd Nagra for field and studio production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9TiK3ttdeo

These folks import and market the stuff for the reel-heads.

http://usrecordingmedia-store.stores.yahoo.net/1oprereta1.html

I'd love to consider buying your vintage stuff, unless it's from the vintage where tape shedding "sticky syndrome" was happening. You're probably aware of it. The binder chemistry would fail and the tape would stutter across the heads and tape guides building up an awful goo and usually stalling the transport after a while.

I lost track of how many brand new reels of Scotch and Ampex I cut off the hub with a razor blade right into the trash can. Saved the reels of course.

[k4kyv]

Great picture!

You can tell how much things have changed, note the cigarette in the guy's hand and that Jr. is standing nose to nose with the high voltage.

Weren't ALL hams chain smokers back then, especially in Europe?  And they always wore a white shirt and tie while on the air... look at the photos in any pre WW2 ham radio magazine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUE04hpwQ1Q

[flintstone mop]

Kool photo. I think that's a homebrew ribbon mic at upper left.

And notice the other ring-mounted mic in the middle of the picture, just above the globe.  Looks like it could be a repurposed telephone mouthpiece.  (Remember when you could unscrew the mouthpiece on a pay phone and steal the carbon mic?)

Don I thought you were going to say "remove the mouthpiece and short the contacts together to make a free fone call. That's what we did. 

Yup it would get a dial tone and away you go with a freebie..
Fred

[K5UJ]

I remember when I was new, the indoor hamfests were in clouds of tobacco smoke.  Every ham had a cigarette, cigar or pipe going.   The average ham in my memory (for northern Illinois) was a short tubby guy with stubby fingers and a chewed up cigar that was about 2 inches diameter. 

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Too bad NPR didn't use this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqn9b3bZSuY&feature=related

[W3RSW]

way kuhl steve,
and i CAN type.

loved it.!

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

"..and use all the latest TimTron technology. Then I apply all the principles of Tom Vu Kung Fu to make it sound really sweet."   

[WD8BIL]

"150% Positive peaks, guarenteed!"

Yea-yellow!

[N4LTA]

Used to steal the whole handset from a Pay booth. Sneak under the house and run a pair of wires to my bedroom and hook them to a female inline 1/4 " phone jack. Put a phone plug on the handset. You could dial by tapping the phone jack and plug (not all the way locked in) and counting the "taps".

A secret bedroom phone. Always worried the phone company could tell and get me or my father locked up. Real sneaky lawbreaking (we thought so anyway)

Pat
N4LTA

[k4kyv]

My homebrew phone extension was slightly more sophisticated.  I used a J-38 telegraph key in series with the mic and headphone.  I dialed a number by counting dits.

Later, I scored a real telephone.  Disconnected the bell, because ringing current was the way the phone company checked the number of extensions  in the house.  Back then the phone co. owned all the equipment, and you could only rent it.  They charged a hefty monthly fee for every extension, and routinely busted bootleg ones (so they said - I never heard of it happening to anyone I ever knew).  I knew a lot of people with "illegal" extensions.  It wasn't too hard to find phones at flea markets for a couple of bucks.  People would move out of houses and apartments and not bother to notify the phone co. or take the phone with them. Those phones were pickin's for the taking.

[N0WEK]

Paul, IIRC, the ARRL spokesperson was a YL, I don't remember the name.

I'm a-remembering when pay phones used 'ground start' to get dial tone. If you were short of change all you needed was a straightened paper clip or pin at the end of a clip lead attached to the metal phone booth, stick the grounded paper clip into one of the mouthpiece holes, touch the metal case of the mic element and voila! You made your local call.

Of course, only a real nerd would not have any change but still carrying a piece of wire..

In my Jr High about 1960 we used a pin through the handset cord and grounded that. After the phone company changed the cord a couple of times they just installed one of those armored ones.

I lived out in the country with an 8 party line. I built a little box that held a couple of phone jacks, a small plate/filament transformer, a switch and a capacitor. It had #1 an "off" position, #2 a monitor position that fed the primary of the transformer through the cap, which didn't trip the dial tone, so I could monitor the 8 party line through the 125 volt secondary and #3 a talk position that left out the cap and tripped the dial tone, I could talk through a small amp fed into the 6.3 volt winding. I've still got the thing around here somewhere, it'd probably make a fair phone patch.

[W3RSW]

Another neat thing I used to do was remove the carbon mike leaving just the spring loaded contacts showing.

Put the mouthpiece back on and watch my sister screaming to be heard on the other end.  The open brass contact leaves would respond to a loud voice without the mike.

My big mistake was showing here the trick one day.

Still have a wall mounted junker here complete with magneto. Gas co. used them at 'remote' meter and pipeline junction locations.