OT- A trip into Yesteryear!

I can really appreciate my K3 today...and probably any modern day rig.  While at Dayton this year I got an Hammarlund HQ-110 for giggles and grins.  It was a bargain and just needed a little tender lving care.  Last night I got the 110 running and receiving pretty darn good.

Now I've been a ham since 1965 and I must say I have forgotten receiver dynamics between then (1965) and now.  The HQ-110 transported me back to an era where the best filter you had was between your ears.  Even though it has a Q-Multiplier and the Selectivity can be shaped....it is a far cry from what we have today with filters and DSP.  Listening to one frequency and hearing 3 different CW signals at different tones should brought back memories...and a great appreciation for my K3 - my K2 - and today's modern rigs.  What a huge difference.  Filtering on the K3 is fantastic and I now super-appreciate the technology.

Also the concept of "transceive" is something to be really appreciated.  As I was tuning around 40 meters last night, I realized that when I was a Novice and "rock" bound...one had to tune up and down the band to hear someone calling you.  I might have been on 7133, but I was working another station at 7105.

Ah, technology.  It is Grand!  It sure is nice to see the tubes light up and the case get warm.

Back to your regular scheduled program....

73
Lee - K0WA

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[Darwin, Keith]

Ah, yes.  I had a Drake 2B a couple of years ago.  What a wonderful receiver - great smooth tone.  Mine was in very good condition and was working quite well, but as good as it was, it was a far cry from the K2 for filtering.

On strong CW signals, the 2B was quite nice to use.  Turn RF gain down, engage the Q-multiplier and you have some very sweet sounding armchair copy.  But if the signal was weak or the band was crowded, it wasn't nearly so pleasant.

After my trip down memory lane, I sold the 2B.

- Keith N1AS -
- K3 711 -

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Lee Buller

The HQ-110 transported me back to an era where the best filter you had was between your ears.  Even though it has a Q-Multiplier and the Selectivity can be shaped....it is a far cry from what we have today with filters and DSP.
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[AC7AC]

CONTENTS DELETED

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[w7aqk]

I marvel at the attraction some of this old gear seems to
still have on folks.  Nonetheless, I've seen some excellent
restoration jobs, and I suppose there was a great deal of
satisfaction in doing it.  I'm not immune to nostalgia
attacks either.  This happens most frequently when I see old
BC-348's on swap tables.  That was my first receiver, and it
got me a lot of 80 meter CW contacts.  Well, that is, until
we moved to Albuquerque, NM.  It was there that I learned
the hard way about some of the design imperfections in stuff
like this.  BC-348's have an oddball I.F. freq--I think it
is 915 khz.  In Albuquerque there happened to be a pop music
station (KQUE, later KQEO) at 920 khz!  Suddenly I had a
very good one station broadcast band receiver!  I fiddled
with various filtering arrangements, but nothing really
seemed to get rid of the problem entirely.

This led to my next educational experience.  That was the
"time payment" plan!  The local electronics store (even
Albuquerque had a "ham" store in 1956) had a brand new RME
4350A which sold for $249.  With my dad as cosigner, I
borrowed the money to buy it, and for the next 18 months I
was clipping payment coupons.  It was a big step up though,
with full ham band coverage up to 10 meters (the BC-348
stopped at 18 mhz), and seemingly luxurious bandspread.  It
was a huge acquisition though, cost-wise, if you convert
that to today's dollars.  Sacking groceries at Piggly Wiggly
only paid 87 cents an hour, and I had to join the union (and
pay dues) in order to get that!  Since I was only 14, and in
high school, I couldn't work very many hours anyway.  Later
I got a job at a neighborhood bowling alley, working on
automatic pin-spotters, at a whopping $1/hour.  I was in fat
city with that job.  I got 15 to 20 hours a week of work,
almost all on weekends, so I was pretty "flush" money wise.
Since I was car-less, I didn't have to spend money on gas
and repairs.  Unfortunately, being car-less, also meant I
was girlfriend-less, for the most part.  If you didn't have
a car, you were pretty far down the social ladder!  So, I
took up bowling!

Dave W7AQK


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <[hidden email]>
To: "'Elecraft Reflector'" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 8:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT- A trip into Yesteryear!

>I still enjoy a regenerative receiver. Even with a trf
>stage to avoid
> radiating QRM, it's an amazingly small handful of parts,
> but one that
> provides astounding performance with practice and a tender
> touch. What a
> delight to pull in signals clean and crisp!
>
> QRM can be unpleasant, but it isn't always so. Like
> listening to people
> chatter in a crowded room, a little practice pulls out
> what we want to hear.
> That's been so since the very early days when even the
> selectivity of a
> simple regenerative detector was something unimaginable.
>
> Author Thomas Randall described it like this in his novel
> "The Nymph and the
> Lamp": "When you put on the phones it was as if your inner
> self stepped out
> of the bored and weary flesh... you were part of another
> world, the real,
> the actual living world of men and ships and ports...
> Whistling, growling,
> squealing, moaning, here were the voices of men transmuted
> through their
> finger tips, issuing in dots and dashes... flinging what
> they had to say
> across the enormous spaces... At night when the darkness
> increased their
> range by three, four or five times the uproar was
> terrific, the sound of a
> vast swamp on a spring night filled with vociferous
> frogs..."
>
> Hopefully our rigs today don't "whistle, growl, squeal"
> etc., like the spark
> transmitters of old, but there's something lost in the
> sterile, impeccable
> signals we expect today, all too often with
> machine-perfect keying that robs
> our signals of their last vestige of personal identity.
>
> Ron AC7AC
>
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> http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
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[Grant Youngman]

On Jun 5, 2009, at 12:10 PM, David Yarnes wrote:

> I marvel at the attraction some of this old gear seems to
> still have on folks.
> <snip> ...  It was there that I learned
> the hard way about some of the design imperfections in stuff
> like this.

it's not about design perfection, of course.  I've been restoring and  
using old gear since the early 1990's.  There's something about firing  
up a Globe King 500, or CE 100V and SX-115 with clacking TR relays  
that is a totally different experience than running a computerized  
desk full of the latest and greatest.  Maybe it just has to be in the  
blood :-)

On the other hand, sometimes a Drake 1-A has much more  
"listenable" (and don't ask me to define that) SSB audio than the K3.  
In the trenches, of course, the 1-A folds, but that isn't the point  
anyway :-)

Grant/NQ5T
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[Bill Steffey NY9H]

>  There's something about firing
>up a Globe King 500, or CE 100V and SX-115 with clacking TR relays

as I prepare to sell a SK friend's stuff I ran up his  Sx101A / CE 200V...
worked a few guys...  warms up the room FAST...& NOISY....
Is that what they mean firing up ?????


got some good audio reports before mentioning the setup....

Bill

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[AC7AC]

CONTENTS DELETED

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[John Gibson]

I was intrigued by Ron D'Eau Claire's reference to "The Nymph and the Lamp," so I
did a little digging. The book is available used at modest prices from several
sellers, but you also can download a collection of exerpted passages at

http://www.qsl.net/n1ea/Raddall_All_Exerpts.pdf

73,
John, no8v
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[Gary Bartlett VE1RGB]

Even in the year 2009, it is not difficult to experience the imagery created
by Raddall  in this book by strolling around downtown Halifax.  And if one
has ever had the great good fortune of spending time on Sable Island, it is
positively eerie.  

You' all need to come visit us up here.  Plan to attend the Maritime DX
Forum where we will have such guests as Doug KR2Q, Martti OH2BH, Joe W1JT,
George N4GRN, and most recently added to the list, Murray VE7HA.  The
Maritime Contest Club is co-hosting this event.

Contact Scott Wood, [hidden email]  (or me) for details.

73,
        Gary, VE1RGB (with apologies to Wayne and
Eric for hijacking the reflector -- I couldn't resist)



-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John H Gibson
Sent: June 6, 2009 10:42 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] OT- "Nymph & Lamp" book

I was intrigued by Ron D'Eau Claire's reference to "The Nymph and the Lamp,"
so I
did a little digging. The book is available used at modest prices from
several
sellers, but you also can download a collection of exerpted passages at

http://www.qsl.net/n1ea/Raddall_All_Exerpts.pdf

73,
John, no8v
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