Not AM but buzzardly just the same

[wa2zdy]

K2TL was over the house last weekend and I loaned him my copy of ARRL's "Vintage Radio."   He took it home and read it.  Following are his comments.  I think all will enjoy, particularly the fellows who started in ham radio in a similar fashion.

"Why did you let me bring that book home?  I'm almost sick over it!  To
most hams, it’s just a curiosity, but to me it was real life.

I got interested in radio around 1962; I was 12.  My parents did not
understand my interests and I was lucky to find old burned out
radios in the garbage from the '30's.  I would PRETEND that they
worked! I would clean them up and set them up on a box in the basement and play with them like a kid does with an imaginary friend.

I did not get a real working shortwave receiver  (God knows what it
was) until I was about 13.  It had no cabinet and most of the tubes
where either missing or shot.  I swapped then out from old TV sets I
found and managed to bring one back to life.  I could hear some foreign
broadcast and CW thumping in the speaker from NSS.  Eventually, the
receiver died and I could not fix it.  There was a tube in it called a
5U4GT that was glowing bright purple.  The speaker was buzzing loud as
heck and my mother tossed it in the garbage because it was an instrument of the devil and would burn the house down.  Of course, now we know why the receiver was buzzing, but back then I did not know a rectifier from spit.

Believe me when I tell you, I would hide under the covers with a
flashlight at night with my Lafayette and Allied catalogs.  I would
fantasize over those radios like we do today about a beautiful woman!  I could tell you what was on any page in those catalogs, verbatim.

I really wish my parents had better understood what a passion I had back then.  Today, if you see that your kid has an interest, you want to make him/her happy and do what you can for them.  My father gave me a flashlight with a flasher button on it to send morse code across the
street to a neighbor friend!  Eventually, I picked up a piece of junk Philmore CR5-ac shortwave receiver.  It had a BFO.  It was also dead above 40 meters.  It had a bandspread!..good thing because the entire 40 meter band took up about 1/8 inch on the main tuning scale.  This was my very first Novice receiver.  I worked for a whole year at the church in Fords in the rectory for $2.00 an evening answering phones and doors for the priests.  I saved up $35.00 and begged my father to take me to Plainfiled where they had a half built Lafayette Starflight 6146 rig.  It did not even have a top cabinet and most of the knobs where missing.  It actually had a manual.

I set up a station with a knife switch between the TX and RX.  I had one crystal for 40.  I had headphones that my father took off the scrap
pile where he worked .  You remember those old 2000 ohm cans?

I could not work anyone!  I had no idea how to build an antenna.  I had
no books or anyone to talk to.  The Old Bum K2XXX was a worthless
to me  as dirt.  I actually had the shield of the coax connected to the
center conductor at both ends of the antenna because I figured it was
the only way the RF could get to both sides of the antenna!  I kid you
not. 

The "coax" was some unknown junk my father again took off the scrap pile at work.  It was tan and looked like might have been 75 ohms thinking back, but it could have been open, shorted, or who knows what.
Somewhere, somehow I discovered that the shield was not to be connected
to the center conductor and I "fixed" the antenna.  Mind you, I had no
soldering iron; all connections where just twisted together by hand!
I can go on, but its making me sick to think about it.  I made some
contacts and was in a Near Death Experience over it.  You think I'm
exaggerating? 

Then I worked WB2NYK.  He knew his stuff and had real radios.  I was afraid to enter his room because to me it was a sacred and holy
place that I was not worthy to enter.  Knight Kits!  The dreams of my
nighttime, under the covers; flashlight fantasies come to life! 
My God!  Bruce set me straight. . .

That book you loaned me is very dangerous.. Be gone Satan!

It’s funny the things that pop into my head after looking through that
book.  The first radios I played with did not have speakers with
permanent magnets.  I can remember ads for radios that read "PM
speaker!"  Imagine that being a state of the art feature?  The old speakers had "voice coils" that were wound on the back of those giant 18" speakers, mounted to wood frames.  There was an octal socket at the end of a cloth covered cable that plugged into the back of the radio.  The connectors were not wired standard, so it was a crap shoot if you did not have the original speaker.  Most of the time they did not work if it was not the matching speaker. If the radio had a headphone jack, you were in business.

You could get electrocuted by a frayed cloth speaker cable!  I got my
butt knocked on the floor often enough by a voice coil cable !  I had no idea what all that was about.  It’s amazing I'm alive.

You got me started, so you will have to suffer through more.

Its 1964.  NYK says come on over to his house.  I ride my bike up
Woodland Ave to the top of the hill.  My heart is pounding.  He has a
45 foot tower and a 2 element cubical quad on top of it.  On his roof is a Hy-Gain 14AVQ with radials strung out over they yard.  Real
turnbuckles at the ends of the radials tied off at the fence!
My vision begins to cloud over and I am losing touch with reality.  I
somehow get to the front door.  I say hi to his mother . . .

Things have become surreal.  I go towards his room/shack and am frozen
in my steps.  There, actually in front of my eyes, is a T150 and an
R100.  A Vibroplex paddle.  A Heathkit signal generator.  The walls of
the entire room completely covered with QSL cards.  He has a
MICROPHONE on his desk!  I somehow manage to step forward.  These are
not the radios of my deepest most darkest fantasies.. No AT-1 or
Explore the Air receiver...no, they are the Knight Kits Twins!  I have seen the face of God.

It gets better.  I discover he has - are your ready for this? - a
Dow-Key 115 volt ac coaxial relay.  How could such a thing be true?  His receiver goes into mute when he goes to transmit, automatically!  This is sorcery indeed.  He has something called an "SWR bridge", also made by Knight.  He explains it to me.   I have reached Nirvana.

Later that day, I suffer from guilt.  Like the first time you (insert your sin of choice here.)  "My God, what have I done?  Forgive me!  I had no right to be in the presence of such might and glory.  I will go to church and confession.  I am bad.  Bruce is not even Catholic. That explains it.  He is evil and his radios are typical of the decadent Protestants and their sinful ways.  I will discuss this with Father Brzozowski.  Maybe he will absolve me.

You think you know about the "Old Days?”  Your experience is a quantum
leap from mine.  All this is 100% true, I swear it!"

[K1MVP]

K2TL was over the house last weekend and I loaned him my copy of ARRL's "Vintage Radio."   He took it home and read it.  Following are his comments.  I think all will enjoy, particularly the fellows who started in ham radio in a similar fashion.

"Why did you let me bring that book home?  I'm almost sick over it!  To
most hams, it’s just a curiosity, but to me it was real life.

I got interested in radio around 1962; I was 12.  My parents did not
understand my interests and I was lucky to find old burned out
radios in the garbage from the '30's.  I would PRETEND that they
worked! I would clean them up and set them up on a box in the basement and play with them like a kid does with an imaginary friend.

I did not get a real working shortwave receiver  (God knows what it
was) until I was about 13.  It had no cabinet and most of the tubes
where either missing or shot.  I swapped then out from old TV sets I
found and managed to bring one back to life.  I could hear some foreign
broadcast and CW thumping in the speaker from NSS.  Eventually, the
receiver died and I could not fix it.  There was a tube in it called a
5U4GT that was glowing bright purple.  The speaker was buzzing loud as
heck and my mother tossed it in the garbage because it was an instrument of the devil and would burn the house down.  Of course, now we know why the receiver was buzzing, but back then I did not know a rectifier from spit.

Believe me when I tell you, I would hide under the covers with a
flashlight at night with my Lafayette and Allied catalogs.  I would
fantasize over those radios like we do today about a beautiful woman!  I could tell you what was on any page in those catalogs, verbatim.

I really wish my parents had better understood what a passion I had back then.  Today, if you see that your kid has an interest, you want to make him/her happy and do what you can for them.  My father gave me a flashlight with a flasher button on it to send morse code across the
street to a neighbor friend!  Eventually, I picked up a piece of junk Philmore CR5-ac shortwave receiver.  It had a BFO.  It was also dead above 40 meters.  It had a bandspread!..good thing because the entire 40 meter band took up about 1/8 inch on the main tuning scale.  This was my very first Novice receiver.  I worked for a whole year at the church in Fords in the rectory for $2.00 an evening answering phones and doors for the priests.  I saved up $35.00 and begged my father to take me to Plainfiled where they had a half built Lafayette Starflight 6146 rig.  It did not even have a top cabinet and most of the knobs where missing.  It actually had a manual.

I set up a station with a knife switch between the TX and RX.  I had one crystal for 40.  I had headphones that my father took off the scrap
pile where he worked .  You remember those old 2000 ohm cans?

I could not work anyone!  I had no idea how to build an antenna.  I had
no books or anyone to talk to.  The Old Bum K2XXX was a worthless
to me  as dirt.  I actually had the shield of the coax connected to the
center conductor at both ends of the antenna because I figured it was
the only way the RF could get to both sides of the antenna!  I kid you
not. 

The "coax" was some unknown junk my father again took off the scrap pile at work.  It was tan and looked like might have been 75 ohms thinking back, but it could have been open, shorted, or who knows what.
Somewhere, somehow I discovered that the shield was not to be connected
to the center conductor and I "fixed" the antenna.  Mind you, I had no
soldering iron; all connections where just twisted together by hand!
I can go on, but its making me sick to think about it.  I made some
contacts and was in a Near Death Experience over it.  You think I'm
exaggerating? 

Then I worked WB2NYK.  He knew his stuff and had real radios.  I was afraid to enter his room because to me it was a sacred and holy
place that I was not worthy to enter.  Knight Kits!  The dreams of my
nighttime, under the covers; flashlight fantasies come to life! 
My God!  Bruce set me straight. . .

That book you loaned me is very dangerous.. Be gone Satan!

It’s funny the things that pop into my head after looking through that
book.  The first radios I played with did not have speakers with
permanent magnets.  I can remember ads for radios that read "PM
speaker!"  Imagine that being a state of the art feature?  The old speakers had "voice coils" that were wound on the back of those giant 18" speakers, mounted to wood frames.  There was an octal socket at the end of a cloth covered cable that plugged into the back of the radio.  The connectors were not wired standard, so it was a crap shoot if you did not have the original speaker.  Most of the time they did not work if it was not the matching speaker. If the radio had a headphone jack, you were in business.

You could get electrocuted by a frayed cloth speaker cable!  I got my
butt knocked on the floor often enough by a voice coil cable !  I had no idea what all that was about.  It’s amazing I'm alive.

You got me started, so you will have to suffer through more.

Its 1964.  NYK says come on over to his house.  I ride my bike up
Woodland Ave to the top of the hill.  My heart is pounding.  He has a
45 foot tower and a 2 element cubical quad on top of it.  On his roof is a Hy-Gain 14AVQ with radials strung out over they yard.  Real
turnbuckles at the ends of the radials tied off at the fence!
My vision begins to cloud over and I am losing touch with reality.  I
somehow get to the front door.  I say hi to his mother . . .

Things have become surreal.  I go towards his room/shack and am frozen
in my steps.  There, actually in front of my eyes, is a T150 and an
R100.  A Vibroplex paddle.  A Heathkit signal generator.  The walls of
the entire room completely covered with QSL cards.  He has a
MICROPHONE on his desk!  I somehow manage to step forward.  These are
not the radios of my deepest most darkest fantasies.. No AT-1 or
Explore the Air receiver...no, they are the Knight Kits Twins!  I have seen the face of God.

It gets better.  I discover he has - are your ready for this? - a
Dow-Key 115 volt ac coaxial relay.  How could such a thing be true?  His receiver goes into mute when he goes to transmit, automatically!  This is sorcery indeed.  He has something called an "SWR bridge", also made by Knight.  He explains it to me.   I have reached Nirvana.

Later that day, I suffer from guilt.  Like the first time you (insert your sin of choice here.)  "My God, what have I done?  Forgive me!  I had no right to be in the presence of such might and glory.  I will go to church and confession.  I am bad.  Bruce is not even Catholic. That explains it.  He is evil and his radios are typical of the decadent Protestants and their sinful ways.  I will discuss this with Father Brzozowski.  Maybe he will absolve me.

You think you know about the "Old Days?”  Your experience is a quantum
leap from mine.  All this is 100% true, I swear it!"

Hi Chris,
Yep,--sure brought back similar memories, for me back in the mid 50`s as a 14 year
old kid.
Looks like you "earned" your ticket and equipment the old fashion "hard way",
in getting on CW and starting with real basic equipment.

Not like the "instant" and "one day" ham licenses we have today in 2006, and the
"ginmmie" mentality and "I have a right mentality" for a ham ticket that the ARRL
promotes to get the numbers up.

Looks like you  had it "harder" than me in some respects,--I also started with
a "meager" set-up,--a used Heathkit AR-2 receiver, and a homebrew 6V6 forty
meter CW transmitter built from an issue of "pop-tronics" back in 1956 as I recall.

I finally did get my novice ticket,--from reading books,--both Popular Electronics
and a few(very few) QST articles,--but mostly pop-tronics as they had great articles
back then for beginners to learn from, and great beginners projects,i.e-- basic
novice rigs, both transmitters and regenerative receivers, etc, etc.

In 1958,--the "bug" really "cemented" when my pastor(a Catholic priest)W1VMC ,
came to our church, and set-up a ham shack in a basement, and talk about
"impressed"--He had a Globe King,--and an HRO-60 set-up for 75 meter AM.
The net result, was that I finally did go for my novice ticket in 1959, given to me
by him.

After 3 or 4 months as a novice on 40 meter CW,--he loaned me a BC-342(from MARS) and
man,--I thought I was in the "big time" with that receiver.
After I got my general,--I used that receiver and a Harvey Wells TBS-50 on
AM and "I was off to the races".--then got me an HQ-110, and Viking II,--a DX100
and had a "ball" on AM, both on 10 and 15 meters.

Yep, CW was "buzzardly", and it STILL is IMO, in today`s day and age.

                                          73, Rene, K1MVP
 
P.S, for anybody who does not know what "MARS" is, or was,--it was the
      "Military Affiliate Radio System", --not the planet MARS,--just in case someone
       does not know.--am not even sure if it still exists nowadays. 
             

[WA3VJB]

Great post, Chris, and it really shows the difference between the depth of impression radio brought to people back then versus today.

I'm lucky -- I still have my "novice" transmitter, the Collins 32V2, and the ARRL has never been pleased that my form of incentive licensing was to get my Advanced to I could talk to the AMers on 3885Kc.

Alas, I did get rid of my novice receiver, the Realistic DX-150

[The Slab Bacon]

BOY, TALK ABOUT HITTING CLOSE TO HOME! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
That almost sounds like me as well! When I was a young kid we didnt have any money to indulge my interests in radios. I used to walk through the neighborhood on trash nite looking for old radios that people threw out. I also had my Lafayette and Allied catalogs by my bedside as well ( this is really bringing back memories) I had little or no support from my parents, i guess because theu couldnt afford it. They didnt try to discourage me, they just wouldnt (couldnt afford to) support me. I was in the 4th or 5th grade when I finally talked them into getting me a Lafayette "Explore Air" 3 tube regen shortwave receiver kit for a Christmas present. They all knew that I couldnt assemble it and have it work, but they bought it to passify me and shut me up! Ha Ha on them, they liked to have dropped the proverbial klinker in their drawers when they heard it play!!!!!!!! It was my pride and joy for many years to come. I STILL HAVE IT TO THIS DAY AND IT STILL WORKS!!!!
        I always wanted to become a ham, but could never find another one locally to find out how. I finally found my "Elmer" when I was 32, oddly enough I am almost old enough to be HIS father. He has gone on to become one of my closest and best friends and now comes to me for radio advice. Go Figger!!

                                                                                  The Slab Bacon

[W1RKW]

I have seen many of these stories on the board and they're all awesome. It would be a cool thing to create book of ham radio short stories and have it published.   Anyone want to collaborate and contribute on something like this and make it happen? It would make a great promotion of the hobby.

[wa2zdy]

I agree, I'd love to read such a collection of stories all in one place.

I must clarify though, that is NOT my writing.  That is what K2TL wrote to  me after he borrowed my Vintage Radio book.  Those are the recollections of him.  My own are not nearly as dramatic though my beginnings were along the same lines.  I just had an easier time of it I think.  But I too started out doing battle with Radio Moscow on the 40m Novice band with junk for a rig.  The SX140 was no match for the conditions, yet I made contacts and had a great time anyway.

I'd love to hear more early stories.

[AMroo]

  Yer right on, this subject is worthy of its own forum.
After building hundreds of crystal sets, my first on air contact was with the fire brigade.
In those days they were just above the B.C. band I used a retuned transistor radio and a two transistor modulator/Hartley osc. They told me I needed some thing called a license.
The next was on 160M with Australia’s most famous AMer VK3AML, who also told me I needed to get a license.
I got one a few years later.
Both were experiences that moved me to tears

[N2YK]

I came across this post quite by accident.  I WAS WB2NYK and knew Jim (K2TL, ex-WB2TLA) long ago.  I haven't heard from Jim for many years but remember him well.  What he didn't mention were his tree climbing experiences.  I think Jim's yard was half copper.  He was continually scraping sap off his hands from the evergreens. It was amazing that the antennas worked at all.  He had a soldering iron at the end of a 100 foot extension that almost melted the wire as he tried to solder the center support 40 feet in the air.

Its interesting to see the differnt perspective Jim had from my experience.  I did own the Heathkit T-150 and R-100.  I liked the receiver, but the transmitter AM mode drove me crazy - grid modulation with "controlled carrier" modulation weren't a match for the people using Viking Valiants and other plate modulation rigs.  That was what led me to CW :-)  That and the RF burns I used to get on the lip from the microphone.  It helped drive home a concrete understanding of VSWR...

The quad in the back yard was another interesting story.  I got some bamboo poles to use as spreaders, did my best to calculate the angles for the "spider" and asked my father if he could help getting the spider welded.  The spider was built like a tank and is probably intact somewhere today, 43 years later, but unfortunately, the angles that my father got someone at work to weld weren't what they were supposed to be.  The 45 degree angles made it look nice and symmetrical, but didn't help the front to back ratio.  But what did I know, I was a 14 year old kid who was happy to have anything up in the air!

I now teach at a the same university I attended a few years later and see a dozens of future electrical engineers each year.  Unfortunately, few of them have the hands-on experience that we all got.  There is nothing like a 2500 volt shock from the DC supply of a final amplifier to help understand bleeder circuits and RC time constants :-)

K2TL was over the house last weekend and I loaned him my copy of ARRL's "Vintage Radio."   He took it home and read it.  Following are his comments.  I think all will enjoy, particularly the fellows who started in ham radio in a similar fashion.

"Why did you let me bring that book home?  I'm almost sick over it!  To
most hams, it’s just a curiosity, but to me it was real life.

I got interested in radio around 1962; I was 12.  My parents did not
understand my interests and I was lucky to find old burned out
radios in the garbage from the '30's.  I would PRETEND that they
worked! I would clean them up and set them up on a box in the basement and play with them like a kid does with an imaginary friend.

I did not get a real working shortwave receiver  (God knows what it
was) until I was about 13.  It had no cabinet and most of the tubes
where either missing or shot.  I swapped then out from old TV sets I
found and managed to bring one back to life.  I could hear some foreign
broadcast and CW thumping in the speaker from NSS.  Eventually, the
receiver died and I could not fix it.  There was a tube in it called a
5U4GT that was glowing bright purple.  The speaker was buzzing loud as
heck and my mother tossed it in the garbage because it was an instrument of the devil and would burn the house down.  Of course, now we know why the receiver was buzzing, but back then I did not know a rectifier from spit.

Believe me when I tell you, I would hide under the covers with a
flashlight at night with my Lafayette and Allied catalogs.  I would
fantasize over those radios like we do today about a beautiful woman!  I could tell you what was on any page in those catalogs, verbatim.

I really wish my parents had better understood what a passion I had back then.  Today, if you see that your kid has an interest, you want to make him/her happy and do what you can for them.  My father gave me a flashlight with a flasher button on it to send morse code across the
street to a neighbor friend!  Eventually, I picked up a piece of junk Philmore CR5-ac shortwave receiver.  It had a BFO.  It was also dead above 40 meters.  It had a bandspread!..good thing because the entire 40 meter band took up about 1/8 inch on the main tuning scale.  This was my very first Novice receiver.  I worked for a whole year at the church in Fords in the rectory for $2.00 an evening answering phones and doors for the priests.  I saved up $35.00 and begged my father to take me to Plainfiled where they had a half built Lafayette Starflight 6146 rig.  It did not even have a top cabinet and most of the knobs where missing.  It actually had a manual.

I set up a station with a knife switch between the TX and RX.  I had one crystal for 40.  I had headphones that my father took off the scrap
pile where he worked .  You remember those old 2000 ohm cans?

I could not work anyone!  I had no idea how to build an antenna.  I had
no books or anyone to talk to.  The Old Bum K2XXX was a worthless
to me  as dirt.  I actually had the shield of the coax connected to the
center conductor at both ends of the antenna because I figured it was
the only way the RF could get to both sides of the antenna!  I kid you
not. 

The "coax" was some unknown junk my father again took off the scrap pile at work.  It was tan and looked like might have been 75 ohms thinking back, but it could have been open, shorted, or who knows what.
Somewhere, somehow I discovered that the shield was not to be connected
to the center conductor and I "fixed" the antenna.  Mind you, I had no
soldering iron; all connections where just twisted together by hand!
I can go on, but its making me sick to think about it.  I made some
contacts and was in a Near Death Experience over it.  You think I'm
exaggerating? 

Then I worked WB2NYK.  He knew his stuff and had real radios.  I was afraid to enter his room because to me it was a sacred and holy
place that I was not worthy to enter.  Knight Kits!  The dreams of my
nighttime, under the covers; flashlight fantasies come to life! 
My God!  Bruce set me straight. . .

That book you loaned me is very dangerous.. Be gone Satan!

It’s funny the things that pop into my head after looking through that
book.  The first radios I played with did not have speakers with
permanent magnets.  I can remember ads for radios that read "PM
speaker!"  Imagine that being a state of the art feature?  The old speakers had "voice coils" that were wound on the back of those giant 18" speakers, mounted to wood frames.  There was an octal socket at the end of a cloth covered cable that plugged into the back of the radio.  The connectors were not wired standard, so it was a crap shoot if you did not have the original speaker.  Most of the time they did not work if it was not the matching speaker. If the radio had a headphone jack, you were in business.

You could get electrocuted by a frayed cloth speaker cable!  I got my
butt knocked on the floor often enough by a voice coil cable !  I had no idea what all that was about.  It’s amazing I'm alive.

You got me started, so you will have to suffer through more.

Its 1964.  NYK says come on over to his house.  I ride my bike up
Woodland Ave to the top of the hill.  My heart is pounding.  He has a
45 foot tower and a 2 element cubical quad on top of it.  On his roof is a Hy-Gain 14AVQ with radials strung out over they yard.  Real
turnbuckles at the ends of the radials tied off at the fence!
My vision begins to cloud over and I am losing touch with reality.  I
somehow get to the front door.  I say hi to his mother . . .

Things have become surreal.  I go towards his room/shack and am frozen
in my steps.  There, actually in front of my eyes, is a T150 and an
R100.  A Vibroplex paddle.  A Heathkit signal generator.  The walls of
the entire room completely covered with QSL cards.  He has a
MICROPHONE on his desk!  I somehow manage to step forward.  These are
not the radios of my deepest most darkest fantasies.. No AT-1 or
Explore the Air receiver...no, they are the Knight Kits Twins!  I have seen the face of God.

It gets better.  I discover he has - are your ready for this? - a
Dow-Key 115 volt ac coaxial relay.  How could such a thing be true?  His receiver goes into mute when he goes to transmit, automatically!  This is sorcery indeed.  He has something called an "SWR bridge", also made by Knight.  He explains it to me.   I have reached Nirvana.

Later that day, I suffer from guilt.  Like the first time you (insert your sin of choice here.)  "My God, what have I done?  Forgive me!  I had no right to be in the presence of such might and glory.  I will go to church and confession.  I am bad.  Bruce is not even Catholic. That explains it.  He is evil and his radios are typical of the decadent Protestants and their sinful ways.  I will discuss this with Father Brzozowski.  Maybe he will absolve me.

You think you know about the "Old Days?”  Your experience is a quantum
leap from mine.  All this is 100% true, I swear it!"

[n2bc]

Hmmm... Wonder if this is one of those "small world" deals.   The initial post mentions K2TL riding up Wooldland Ave to visit YK - and you are both in NJ.  I lived on Woodland Ave in RiverEdge, NJ in the early 60's and would ride my bike up to the top of the hill to gaze at a bunch of antennas... 

Before RiverEdge, we lived in Closter, NJ and I would look out my bedroom window at this monstrous structure in the distance.  I didn't know it then, but I was looking at Armstrong's tower in Alpine NJ.

We moved from NJ to the Buffalo, NY suburbs where I met up with WA2VOL (now AA6P), his grandfather K2EE (SK), and after getting my license, W2OY (SK).  Quite a lot of fun having W2OY and his BC-610 chase me with my DX-35 and VOL with a DX-60 around the bands.  We WERE the schoolbus riders that OY would complain about - and now I'm sure we deserved it. 

On the electrocution thought....  many zaps using a pencil to draw RF arcs off the plate cap of an 807 rig - who could afford a meter?  But the first really good one was when I was playing with a borrowed scope trying to look at the envelope of an Apache.  Grounds? Who needs grounds.  I had the scope hung on the modulated B+ and didn't realize the chassis of the scope was just a little above ground.  Grabbed the D-104, keyed up, and tried to adjust the scope trace - OUCH!

Fun stuff!   Happy Holidays to all.    73, Bill  N2BC   (ex-WB2LUR and many others)

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Well, I got into the radio thing about 10 years later, but in a similar way. Started by being exposed to 2-way radio our Explorer Scout post used for SAR work, a Metrotek Colt 23 with toooobs. Went home and rummaged through our attic (seemed like we had one of everything in the attic). Found an old Philco floor model radio, mising two tubes: a 6F6G and 7C6, numbers forever burned into my mind. Eventually found a smaller Philco table radio up there too, with the tubes I needed. Didn't feel bad robbing them because it had only the BC band and it went bzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Popped out the two tubes, placed them into the console model (I recall the 6F6 plugged into the top of a transformer), and plugged it in. No tube tester or anything else, just looked for glow. It worked! Was a nifty old model with the pushbuttons and 3 or 4 bands. Listened all over the world, to SW stations, military stations, ships at sea, AMers, and CW. Listened for hours, into late night/early morning.

I was hooked! The rest is history. Still have all of the above radios, including the old Metrotek from the Explorer Scout post. They were going to trash it when we dissolved the group. This is when my packrat tendencies started, too.