On Wed, 7 Jul 2004 20:35:05 UTC, (Michael
Black) wrote:

And he's had more time after the fact to write about it than he did
to talk about it before incentive licensing came into being.

While it's been some time since I've gone through them, I read and reread
back issues of 73. I don't recall any mention of Japan in the sixties.

Indeed, Japan seemed to be a non-entity at the time. They were starting
to make inroads, likely a lot of the accessories were increasingly "made
in Japan", but as you already mentioned, they were often sold with
a US name on it. "Made in Japan" still seemed to be a fairly derogative
term, denoting sloppy design and/or workmanship.

When did Incentive Licensing take effect? I thought I took the
advanced about 1965 but maybe not. Maybe it was later.

I "thought" Wayne Green in the early 60's predictied the collapse
of the U.S. electronics industry, which was invincible at that time.
Given the outcome, and not to take anything away from Ten Tec and
Elecraft, Drake if they're still in business, but the U.S.
Electronics industry, at least in the HF RF side, has died off.

I was in high school in the early 1960's. While the Japanese made
a few small in-roads in consumer electronics, the U.S. owned Ham
Radio. The U.S. stuff was QUALITY.

I still remember the excitement of the HRO-500, the SBE-33, and
seeing the pictures of the FPM-200 in the magazines.

The proprietor of the local radio shop said that the S-Lines and
KWM-2s were going to Vietnam so a lot of guys were going for Drake,
"the DX-er's like Drake."

Recently, I've heard two stories from that era, one is that at the
end of the war, they stacked up KWM-2's and R-390As, and ran tanks
over them.

The other story is that there are cache's in Vietnam with
KWM-2s wrapped in plastic and buried.

I don't know if either story is true.

I have a nice collection of boat anchors and hope to restore them to
their glory, to be used, not to sit on the shelf, as "shelf queens".


I don't have a lot of time to work on the radios. I'm trying to
earn enough money to retire some time.

I got my novice license at 15 and passed the general at 16. Two
other guys and I took the bus down the the FCC because none of us
had a driver's license. We all passed. I still remember the
snippits of the code, it was a ship talking to the harbor. One
minute solid out of five, 13 consecutive words. That was the rule.
I don't get this new style exam.

Someone help me remember. Didn't the FCC give out Techs as a
consolation prize if you only got five words in sequence? I'm
trying to figure out how John ended up with an FCC credit Tech.

Or was it, if you failed the 13, they gave you a shot at a 5 WPM
tape and then let you take the general written. Or did people show
up and ask to take the Tech?

I remember before I took the novice, I was pretty confident that I
could pass the general theory and mentioned the possibility of
taking the Tech and not the novice. John was adament about
getting the novice first, for the HF code practice.

I gotta say that those were my best ham radio years. This was in
Hawai'i and you could work inter island easy on 40 all day.
Saturday, I'd fire up my DX-60 and call CQ de WH6FHN. It was great.
There were lots of novices but every other station was a general or
extra who slowed way down to give the novice some practice.

I had a crystal dead in the middle of the novice band, 7175.
Several others had the same crystal and we'd work zero beat.

I used my 40 meter dipole on 15 meters and began working DX, JA's
mostly but a few ZL's and VK's too. Not to shabby for a novice with
a straight key and a DX-60.

Heathkit should have named it the DX-75 and added, power can be
increased to 90 watts when you pass the General. It sounds odd now
but I remember wondering if a novice could use the 90 watt DX-60.

In 1963, I sold my DX-60 for $40 to put toward an HT-37. At the
time, I didn't think much of it. 40 years later, I bought a
"doesn't work" DX-60 on eBay for $70. It's on the floor of my
workroom. When I get it going, it'll be my novice station.

My SX-101A is still in Hawai'i cluttering up my mom's house but I
have the next best thing. A fellow GAVE me an excellent SX-100 with
an outboard digital display. I can use it with the DX-60. It even
has the same wide skirt IF filter sound of the SX-101A and the Notch
Filter to fiddle with.

What fun. Forget that cell fone junk. I'll ease into geezerhood
with 1960's radio's. I got a 100 foot coil of stranded copper wire
and some RG-8X. 66 for a 40 meter dipole, 33 for a 20 meter dipole.
I also have a TH3jr tucked behind the woodpile.

de ah6gi/4