Dave Heil wrote in message ...
Brian Kelly wrote:

Dave Heil wrote in message ...
Brian Kelly wrote:

Young Don Newell was the crucifer one Sunday at St. Andrew's Episcopal
Church in Oak Hill. After the processional and after my father had
begun the service, Don fished a tiny crystal radio from his cassock,
stuffed the earphone into his ear and attached a wire with an alligator
clip to the cross. As the service ended, my dad whispered to him, "I'd
like a word after church".

Yeah, I'll bet there was a "word or two"!

You brought back a lot of hilarious memories of "electronerd
educations" gone awry David. Gawd we had fun . . !

The best I've ever heard was deliverd at the Dayton banquet one year by
Jean Shepherd.

I'd love to read it if his talk has been archived somewhere. I'll bet
that if some Shepherd-type individual went out and compiled tales
about all the goofy stunts and missteps kid hams got into back when in
a book it would sell.

Well, in my case it was a one-time Christmas deal--the one BIG present
and that was second-hand from Allied's big, used equipment list. The
receiver I saved for was also from the same list.

I wonder if there are any Allied employees left from the days when
they were in the ham biz.

More newspaper
deliveries, an after-school job at the local hobby shop several days
each week and the writing of a sports column for the local newspaper
provided coaxial cable and connectors, a key, antenna wire and the
like.

My first store-bought rcvr was a new Hallicrafters S-40B. Which I
bought from Sears & Roebuck believe it or not. At the time Sears sold
the S-38, the S-40, and a couple higher-end Hallicrafters rcvrs. I
think one of 'em was the SX-71. The S-40 catalog price was $119.95.
But I had an aunt who lived in Chicago and worked for Sears so I was
able to get her employee's 10% discount. A whole twelve bucks. I was
as interested in SWLing as much as I was into becoming a Novice so I
spent more time chasing SW BC "rare ones" than I did tuning the W1AW
code practice sessions. Eventually though, maybe a year after I got
the rcvr I had 7.5 wpm down cold and was close to 10 wpm so I trundled
off downtown, took the test and put the S-40 to the real task.

Some of that money was also spent on a big U.S. call area map and
some (sorry, no choice of color) QSL cards from WRL.

Now yer really rubbing it in . . . The Globe King, the King of the
Hill . . ! I understand that Leo is now 93 and is still at it at.

...and ran the W3KT outgoing QSL forwarding service for a number of
years.

I forgot all about that, tnx.

I used Jesse's outgoing card forwarding service in the days preceeding
the ARRL's outgoing bureau.

I knew it existed but I wasn't active in that timeframe.

Speaking of QSL card handling Joe Arcure W3HNK is in this
neighborhood, I gotta look him up.

Joe used to be a regular at the DX hospitality suites at Dayton. I
haven't seen him in a number of years.

He recently retired from Sun Oil and has tapered back from his former
volume of QSL work. I haven't done an eyball with him for probably 40
years. It's time to dig him up for a lunch.

All of this nostalgia has me fired up to grab my collection of the West
Coast DX Bulletin to re-read some of Cass's gems.

I subscribed to one or another of the dx bulletins but I forget which
one it was. I don't remember a "Cass". I had a big asset in the dx
spots game, I was geographically right in the middle of the FRC 2m
"spots network". I left the rcvr on 24/7, when I heard it light up I
knew there was a goodie lurking somewhere, got into the shack pronto,
fired up and joined the throng on the freq. Some of the poor dx
stations we jumped all over probably wondered what hit 'em.

Then there was the Ham Trader yellow sheets . . I moved a *lotta* gear
in and out with those.


Dave K8MN

w3rv