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

I can only hope that someone recorded that banquet talk. Of course most
of Shepherd's stuff was that entertaining. That voice we hearing
narrating "A Christmas Story" is his.

He and Jack Fulmer W4HAV (later W4YF) opened a Volkswagen dealership way
too soon after the war.

Yeah,Yanks were nowhere near accepting sub-compacts in that timeframe.
Nor were they very anxious to do biz with the Huns.

People weren't quite ready for the car. The
place was on the Kentucky shore opposite Cincinnati, where Jean was
working at WLW.

I'm fairly familiar with that area, been in and out of the airport any
number of times on biz in Cincinnati and in KY. Where is WLW vs. the
airport?

USAir provided me with another of their "adventure flights" going in
one afternoon. Unbelievable summer downpour, incoming flights were
kept circling. Maybe 45 minutes after the left seat announced that we
were going to be on hold "for a few minutes" he announced that we "had
a fuel problem" and that he was on final ready or not. Splash. Looked
at first like he landed in the river. That was the afternoon the
Weather Service measured three inches of rain in one hour at the
Cincinnati airport.

A nice bit of nostalgia! Most of the catalog houses had at least some
ham gear. It is interesting to note that famed industrial designer
Raymond Loewy designed the S-40 cabinetry.

Note that Sears, Hallicrafters and Loewy were all based in Chicago.

He is the fellow who brought
us the '47 Studebaker Starlight Coupe and '53 Starliner Coupe, the '61
Avanti,
the S-1 steam locomotive (Pennsylvania RR), that sharp-looking fifties
Coca-Cola dispenser that we'd see in diners and drug stores, and all
sorts of products from pencil sharpeners to refrigerators.

Whew. You hit some more buttons with this one. I like the T1 better
than the S1. But the K4 is the ultimate classic PRR power.

http://prrsteam.pennsyrr.com/prrt1.html

Raymond Loewy, Dad and me . . .

Dad . . at sixtysomething he decided he'd had enough "family cars" and
announced that he was gonna buy a Corvette. Only over Mom's dead body
he was gonna buy a Corvette. Back to the drawing board. "OK, I'll buy
a Studebaker GT Hawk". 1963. Mom didn't bark as much at that one so he
ordered the Hawk. But with a twist. He also bought a monster Packard
V8 engine with two four-barrel pots. The Hawk and the engine arrived
at the Stude dealer and Dad delivered 'em to the Three Js speed shop
in Wilmington DE. Mom being unaware of what was going on of course.
They did some engine, exhaust system and suspension mods then
shoehorned the engine into the Hawk. "The rest is history . . " The
thing ate Corvettes for breakfast . . It still exists in a barn near
Coatesville.

Loewy was one of my idols when I was a kid. I had some talent along
those lines and was bound and determined to go to the Chicago School
of Design and study under him. Going into 9th grade Dad told me I had
to decide what I was going to do with my life and tossed the Sunday
Inquirer help wanted classified ads section at me. No ads for artists.
No ads for industrial designers. No ads for illustrators. Four pages
of ads for engineers. End of.

And the gene lives on. I have a young niece who recently graduated
from the Pratt Institute industrial design program. She's
unbelievable. Two weeks into her first summer student internship she
came up with a compartment latch for some Volkswagen bus which her
employer's ID group had been wrestling with for months. They faxed her
sketch to VW, a VW functionary called back immediately and told 'em
"Yeah, that's it, run with it!" They slapped patent papers on it and
put it into production.

I bought an S-40A from W7LR a few years back.

Still have it?

The design is still
stunning.

I'm not sure if I was ever aware of Loewy's role in the S-40 or not.
But I am now. It's definitely a "coherent" design. That was his trick,
integrate form and function. Not much of a rcvr though.

W4JBP willed me his 1937 Hallicrafters Sky Challenger years back.

.. . . there's a gooder . . . get it yet?

He
bought it new from Steinberg's appliance store on Vine Street in
Cincinnati. Steinberg's sold ham gear through the end of 1968

That surprising, that was pretty late in the game. We didn't have any
appliance stores selling ham gear that I know of but a lot of the
electronics parts distributors which catered to the radio & TV service
and industrial sectors had "ham corners". The last of those also
closed in the 1968 timeframe. I have an HRO a half hour from here in
tax-free DE, makes life a lot easier. Except I'm still stuck with
Radio Slack for parts locally.

K8CFT, who administered my Novice exam, had a Globe King 500-C in his
shack. I've always wanted one but they are bloody expensive these days.

Boat anchors are going for insane prices. N2EY recently told me about
an unbuilt still-in-the-box Heath AT-1 which sold for $5,100 for God's
sake. Ya can buy a complete pristine meatball S-Line including a 30L1
amp with $5,100 and have a *pile* of change left over. Or an Orion and
most of a Centurion amp.

Cass is Hugh Cassidy WA6AUD. His "West Coast DX Bulletin" was tops.
Cass had a flair for writing and brought us the Old Timer living on top
of the hill; the local QRPer, full of questions (often rhetorical) for
the Old Timer; Red-Eyed Louie, always doing the dawn patrol looking for
rare DX and the Palos Verdes Sundancers. There are numerous other
characters. When Cass retired, his mailing list went to the fellows at
Madison Electronics in Texas. Bill Kennamer K5FUV edited their "QRZ DX"
for a number of years before going to the DXCC desk in Newington to
replace Don Search.

If/when I ever make it your place you'll have to let read some of 'em.
These days there's no point to publications like DX bulletins, it's
all out on the web in almost real time. But the websites are no where
near as much fun to read.

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

I subscribed to the "Yellow Sheets" as well and had Alton's "Ham
Equipment Buyer's Guide" volumes too.

Never heard of that one either. I musta led a sheltered life.

Dave K8MN

w3rv