continuing the discussion...

I got interested in ham radio about 1960. I built an R-55 and a
DX-60. At the advice of a fellow, John, who was really, really
interested in ham radio but could not pass 13WPM at the FCC, I got
my novice station together and working before I took the novice
exam. Sound advice from him, "You only have one chance in your
life to get your code speed up, the only way to do that is on the
air. Have your station ready to go, the minute the license comes."

John was stuck with a useless Technician license. This was in Hawai'i

where if you could not get on 15, 20, and 40, there's no point to
Ham radio.

I got my Novice in 1963. I was on the air with the DX-60 and an
SX-101A. I could not get the R-55 working well enough to use as a
40 meter CW receiver, forget 15. It just didn't work above about 10
mHz.

My recollection was that the license exams were hard then.
I passed the general with a few months to spare.

About 1964, the years are blurring together, incentive licensing
degraded my general and I took the Advanced. I still did not have
the 20 WPM for the Extra.

I lost track of John. He was rebuilding a Superpro, experimenting
with UHF because with a tech, in Hawai'i, the only way to get out
was Moonbounce.

I find it odd beyond words that John's 1960'ish Technician license,
schematic diagrams, hand calculations of series and parallel
circuits, 5 WPM sending and receiving with 1 minute of solid copy at
the FCC, no question pool, is arguably a more difficult exam than
the current Extra.

I operated a lot between 1963 and 1970 and then tapered off until a
couple years ago. I did get to two Daytons around 1980.

In the 1960's radios were very expensive. A DX-60 kit was about
$70. I paid $200 for the used SX-101A. I clearly remember
carrying it in the front door. At that time, all the old-line
manufacturers were still going strong. The HQ-215 solid state
Hamarlund had come out and folks were waiting for a solid state
Drake.

Collins prices were climbing fast.

Someone mentioned RIT. It's important if you're working
transceiver to transceiver. It's much less important if you're
using a transceiver and working an HT-37/SX-101A. The station with
the HT-37 won't re-zero when he retunes his receiver.

Also boatanchor receivers like SX-101A's had BFO pitch controls so,
again, it wasn't obvious that a transceiver needed RIT until
transceivers became common.

The 1960's were the transition from the big heavy radios to the
relatively smaller Collins S-Line profile.

From this vantage point, there were dozens of U.S. manufacturers in
the Ham Radio market in the 1960's.

Looking at the historic record, there is a layer of Iridium in the
strata about 1970 and after that, the radio firms died off. It was
parts, retail outlets, the entire sector collapsed. Again from
today, 2004, it looks instantaneous although it took years.

Unfortunately, I dropped out of Ham radio to work on S/360 OS/MVT
and then MVS systems so I didn't have the first hand experience of
seeing the dieoff.

In the late 1970's, I did a brief turn as the rep to the Foundation
for Amateur Radio, paid for an AMSAT life membership, but just
didn't have time to operate and didn't buy the magazines.

In the 1970's, I bought a VVF accu-keyer kit. I wish those were
still available, the nice big SSI TTL parts and the good circuit
boards. I built it in an LMB box.

I saw folk running around with their Drake TR-22's. Seemed that
everyone had one. I ended up with a Wilson WE-800. Whatever
happened to Wilson???

de ah6gi/4

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