On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:55:21 -0400, Dave wrote:

Jon Teske wrote:

SNIPPED

Of course the Ranger was advertised as a 75 watt radio, but virtually
every transmitter was rated by input back then (plate voltage times
plate current, key down.) Slightly under 50% efficiency was pretty
good. I think my first transmitter, a Heath AT-1, rated at 30 watts
(or was it 25) only put out about 7 watts. We didn't even have a QRP
hobby then. I guess I was ahead of my time in 1956 as a 13 year old
Novice. Its amazing what I actually worked with that rig...and a
Hallifcrafters S-38D for a receiver. ...

SNIPPED
My first transmitter was also a Heath AT-1. I had 8 watts output on 10 meters.
Worked WAS on 10 meters with that radio and it was crystal controlled on ~28.8
Mc [AKA MHz]. That was when WAS only required 48 states :-)

If you lived in W1-land back then, getting WAS on 10 would be a real
challenge...for the close-in states. From here in MD, getting Delaware
on the higher bands is a real challenge, even with short skip. I'm a
bit far for ground wave. For me a 10 meter WAS would have been easier
as a kid for all the adjacent states to Wisconsin (I lived right on
Lake Michigan) had areas far enough removed that I could get them on
short skip or sporadic E.

I was a little older than you when I got my license. Memory is foggy, but I was
about 15 years old. My receiver was the National SW-54 [National's poor version
of the S-38D].

I don't think I ever saw an SW-54, but it was indeed their version of
the S-38 line. On ten meters the challenge woud be which of the image
frequencies you were actually on. I think the IF was at 455Kc
(Remember Kcs ???) My FCC tests were all in Kcs until I went for
Advanced and Extra about 15 years after I got the Novice and General.
I was just 14 by a few days when I took the General test and in those
days you didn't get Algebra until 9th grade. I had just finished 8th
grade when I took the test. You had to calculate a whole bunch of
formulas. I remember my 8th grade shop teacher who was my "Elmer" then
trying to tutor me in enough formula manipulation to do the test. He
must have done well for I did pass it on the first try. You also had
to memorize some schematics and draw them out by hand. The code test
was in a big echoey Civil Service exam room in the Milwaukee Federal
Court House...you could hear each character twice. I froze during the
first part of the five minute code test, then finally settled down
enough to perhaps get one clean minute. To this day I believe that a
kind-hearted FCC examiner passed me because he didn't want to see a
kid crying in the room. I was the youngest one there by a long shot. I
think he knew I really could do the required 13 WPM. Fifteen years
later, now living outside Washington DC, I went to FCC HQ there for
the test with headphones for the CW exam. I went to take the Advanced
exam, but the examiner had to give an Extra CW test first. He asked me
if I could do 20 WPM (I had an ARRL certificate for 30wpm) and I said
sure. So he told me to take the CW test, and if I passed it and the
Advance test he would give me the Extra test (for which I had not
studied at all...didn't even look in that part of the License Manual).
I passed the CW and the Advanced with no problem so I took the Extra
test cold turkey and missed it by one question. After the test was
graded, I took my license manual into the corridor of the building and
underlined the parts of the test I remembered. Thirty days later, I
got a perfect score on the Extra exam. No crying that time.

Ah! The olden days ... today, IC-756P3, IC-746, AL-80B, IC-706 MKIIg, multiple
antennas, retired [plenty of time], and rebuilding a 'nostalgia station', ca
1958-1960.

I've thought about that. I do have a Hammarlund HQ-145 here in good
physical condition, but with a likely bad tube. I did get it working
once but the power supply capactors started smoking. I've put some
new ones in. If I ever saw a decent Johnson Adventurer at the right
price, it was my 2nd transmitter as a kid, I'd get it.

Today, still rather spartan here. An IC-751A to a Butternut vertical
in the backyard and a couple of VHF handhelds and a base station.
I only use the handhelds when I go back to my Wisconsin hometown
and talk with the guys still there who were my teen ham buddies. They
were all a bit older than me. When I was licensed, I was supposedly
the youngest ham in Wisconsin. That distinction was soon eclipsed by
a nine-year old in my town who 15 years later became my brother-in-law
(we married sisters.) I mostly operate CW and have 160 DXCC
countries with this modest setup.

Jon Teske, W3JT (ex K9CAH, W3DRV and I also hold KG4TJ from
Gitmo Bay, Cuba where I operated in 1995.