N8YX
01-16-2012, 05:52 PM
What's the one single piece of electronics gear which ended you up in ham radio, and what's the story behind it?
I'll go first. The tale is part shortwave, part CB and part science fiction:
At age 14 I was no stranger to electronics or radio at all...having been involved with building electrical contraptions since age 7. A slew of crystal, TRF, regen and similar receivers took shape on my workbench during that period, as did some rather unique approaches to powering them. (Solar by day; saltwater/foil batteries by night - all crafted out of whatever junk I could scrounge at the time).
Nor was I a stranger to AMBCB DX. The previous Christmas saw a nice Fisher stereo system given to me, and (courtesy of a sensitive tuner) I immediately became hooked on DXing the AM band...often staying up into the wee hours of the morning to snag a new one. Eventually the realization that the outfit required a better antenna dawned on me. One day I removed the top, identified the loopstick coil antenna...connected a random-length wire to one of the leads and powered the set on. Of course, I immediately came to the conclusion that I broke the thing..."tick, tick, tick" was emanating from the speakers! Then the station identified itself:
WWV, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Hmph. And there was more to be heard...lots more. Naturally, these newly discovered frequency ranges required a better receiver to adequately pull signals in - so the search commenced. About that time I got hold of an old CB walkie-talkie which could receive the entire 23ch allocation at once. The audio from this contraption was fed to the Fisher's Aux Input jack - and the resulting intercepts further fed my desire to own a proper receiver.
Radio Shack kindly sent my family a catalog. In it was something called a DX-160. One glance and I knew it was the rig for me.
5191
The following Christmas, a package with the -160 in it ALMOST made it under the tree. I say "almost" as I saw the box being taken out of the car and hustled into the house as I was walking up the driveway from school. Negotiations commenced. A week later I had the unit set up at the operating table. The incessant drone of WWV and CHU practically drove my mother nuts, a fact which she would eagerly relate to anyone discussing my radio hobby!
Meanwhile, back in school: One of my sophomore-year classes was Science Fiction Lit. Our teacher must have thought I didn't take her or her class very seriously as I didn't get very high marks...but that black-covered textbook full of stories was positively enthralling. A deep appreciation for the likes of Philip K. Dick, Spider Robinson, Vonnegut and Clarke was given me. It was in one of those stories - "The Forgotten Enemy" - that I began to learn of the Kennelly-Heaviside Layer, the fact that people in the tropics broadcast on shortwave - and that I might be able to hear them.
Of course, a better antenna was needed...that took another few months. Early spring will always be etched into my mind as the beginning of antenna season; much in the way of experimentation was performed in search of the perfect aerial. I learned lots about directionality, capture area, cross section vs frequency...but I didn't know it at the time: I just knew what worked and what didn't. Many a DX station was logged with that receiver; the SW bands seemed absolutely jammed with signals during those days. Perhaps it was due to images in the IF? Possible, though I didn't know any different at the time. All I knew was that a plethora of signals were available for the listening.
That is, if I could only find them twice. Slide-rule dials and drifty local oscillators aren't your friends, regardless of how pretty the rig happens to be.
The following year I gained entrance into my district's electronics program and in doing so became my own worst enemy. Upon mastery of electrical and RF engineering concepts, the 'mystery' behind electronics began to melt away...leaving the cold, hard facts of what works vs. what doesn't.
The DX-160 lost a lot of its luster as a result. But it had one more act to play:
Our teacher was a radio amateur. He volunteered to help anyone interested in obtaining a license to study...after hours...in the classroom. Several students took him up on the offer. He could teach theory, rules and regulations - but the code practice was left to us.
What a chore. GRE equipped the radio with a 4KHz-wide ceramic filter that was adequate for AM reception, tolerable for SSB and absolutely useless for CW.
I had enough electronics theory under my belt at the time that I could design and construct an audio peak filter, which was connected to the -160 and put to use monitoring the 80 and 40M Novice bands. One hand on the BFO Pitch/Bandspread control to compensate for drift, another grasping the pencil which was used to write down copy. Warming the receiver up for several hours didn't seem to help matters much - if at all. Somehow I managed to acquire the proficiency needed to pass the 5WPM Element 1.
The DX-160 hung around the shack for a little longer as the companion to a rockbound 40M CW transmitter I half-built, half-bartered for. During one of the period's many equipment trades the Realistic went out the door and to another amateur's home, its job done.
Whenever the area is blessed with a slightly warm and humid late winter/early spring day (such as the one we're experiencing at the moment) I think of the time spent using the receiver and wonder if it's still alive and well somewhere, captivating another newcomer to the radio hobby.
I'll go first. The tale is part shortwave, part CB and part science fiction:
At age 14 I was no stranger to electronics or radio at all...having been involved with building electrical contraptions since age 7. A slew of crystal, TRF, regen and similar receivers took shape on my workbench during that period, as did some rather unique approaches to powering them. (Solar by day; saltwater/foil batteries by night - all crafted out of whatever junk I could scrounge at the time).
Nor was I a stranger to AMBCB DX. The previous Christmas saw a nice Fisher stereo system given to me, and (courtesy of a sensitive tuner) I immediately became hooked on DXing the AM band...often staying up into the wee hours of the morning to snag a new one. Eventually the realization that the outfit required a better antenna dawned on me. One day I removed the top, identified the loopstick coil antenna...connected a random-length wire to one of the leads and powered the set on. Of course, I immediately came to the conclusion that I broke the thing..."tick, tick, tick" was emanating from the speakers! Then the station identified itself:
WWV, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Hmph. And there was more to be heard...lots more. Naturally, these newly discovered frequency ranges required a better receiver to adequately pull signals in - so the search commenced. About that time I got hold of an old CB walkie-talkie which could receive the entire 23ch allocation at once. The audio from this contraption was fed to the Fisher's Aux Input jack - and the resulting intercepts further fed my desire to own a proper receiver.
Radio Shack kindly sent my family a catalog. In it was something called a DX-160. One glance and I knew it was the rig for me.
5191
The following Christmas, a package with the -160 in it ALMOST made it under the tree. I say "almost" as I saw the box being taken out of the car and hustled into the house as I was walking up the driveway from school. Negotiations commenced. A week later I had the unit set up at the operating table. The incessant drone of WWV and CHU practically drove my mother nuts, a fact which she would eagerly relate to anyone discussing my radio hobby!
Meanwhile, back in school: One of my sophomore-year classes was Science Fiction Lit. Our teacher must have thought I didn't take her or her class very seriously as I didn't get very high marks...but that black-covered textbook full of stories was positively enthralling. A deep appreciation for the likes of Philip K. Dick, Spider Robinson, Vonnegut and Clarke was given me. It was in one of those stories - "The Forgotten Enemy" - that I began to learn of the Kennelly-Heaviside Layer, the fact that people in the tropics broadcast on shortwave - and that I might be able to hear them.
Of course, a better antenna was needed...that took another few months. Early spring will always be etched into my mind as the beginning of antenna season; much in the way of experimentation was performed in search of the perfect aerial. I learned lots about directionality, capture area, cross section vs frequency...but I didn't know it at the time: I just knew what worked and what didn't. Many a DX station was logged with that receiver; the SW bands seemed absolutely jammed with signals during those days. Perhaps it was due to images in the IF? Possible, though I didn't know any different at the time. All I knew was that a plethora of signals were available for the listening.
That is, if I could only find them twice. Slide-rule dials and drifty local oscillators aren't your friends, regardless of how pretty the rig happens to be.
The following year I gained entrance into my district's electronics program and in doing so became my own worst enemy. Upon mastery of electrical and RF engineering concepts, the 'mystery' behind electronics began to melt away...leaving the cold, hard facts of what works vs. what doesn't.
The DX-160 lost a lot of its luster as a result. But it had one more act to play:
Our teacher was a radio amateur. He volunteered to help anyone interested in obtaining a license to study...after hours...in the classroom. Several students took him up on the offer. He could teach theory, rules and regulations - but the code practice was left to us.
What a chore. GRE equipped the radio with a 4KHz-wide ceramic filter that was adequate for AM reception, tolerable for SSB and absolutely useless for CW.
I had enough electronics theory under my belt at the time that I could design and construct an audio peak filter, which was connected to the -160 and put to use monitoring the 80 and 40M Novice bands. One hand on the BFO Pitch/Bandspread control to compensate for drift, another grasping the pencil which was used to write down copy. Warming the receiver up for several hours didn't seem to help matters much - if at all. Somehow I managed to acquire the proficiency needed to pass the 5WPM Element 1.
The DX-160 hung around the shack for a little longer as the companion to a rockbound 40M CW transmitter I half-built, half-bartered for. During one of the period's many equipment trades the Realistic went out the door and to another amateur's home, its job done.
Whenever the area is blessed with a slightly warm and humid late winter/early spring day (such as the one we're experiencing at the moment) I think of the time spent using the receiver and wonder if it's still alive and well somewhere, captivating another newcomer to the radio hobby.