"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote in message link.net...
"Brian Kelly" wrote in message
om...



Believe it. The top gun rcvrs in those days with even half decent
selectivity were built by Collins and cost 7-8 weeks worth of an
average engineer's entire paychecks. Today much better rcvrs are
available for 10-12 *days* worth of his/her paychecks. Radio kids had
it really miserable, it took me a whole summer to earn enough money to
buy a monumental crapper S-40B rcvr from Sears. Seven QSOs at a time?
No problem! Had the same selectivity characteristics as one of today's
$10-20 throwaway pocket AM/FM broadcast rcvrs. Maybe worse. Ya could
hear a dozen or so stations when the band was really cooking, half
were real signals and the other half were images & intermod products.
Then came the drift . . "Golden Days" my ass . . !



w3rv

But, I'll bet, if you think about it.....it made you a better operator. It
was a SKILL you HAD TO LEARN in order to StAY ON THE AIR? Think about it.

There's an element of truth in that I guess but there are much younger
ops out there today who are real hotshots and who didn't go thru the
masochistic nonsense us OFs had to put up with.

The biggest benefit I got out of participating in that scene was to
pointedly drive home my need to acquire an education which I could
leverage into a higher than average income. So that I could eventually
afford Collins gear. Which is exactly what I did. Incentives in ham
radio did *not* start with Incentive Licensing in 1968 . . .


Dan/W4NTI

w3rv