After a seemingly long wait, a Little Tiny Envelope came in the mail 6 weeks or so later - WOW - KN6BLG - "Boston-London-Germany" - sometimes aka "Boys Like Girls" --

Can't find that old ticket, but I did find a slightly later envelope dated 9-21-53 and a later ticket showing Sept. 1953 - for the Technician class - Hey, One Step at a Time - and also showing 1-28-54 for the Much Sought After General class ticket - see photo 1 - (Every Novice Wanted to 'rid' themselves of that "N" in their Call "As Soon as Possible" then).  "Boy" - Talk About Incentive then....the FCC 'did it' masterfully.  'We' Novices even ordered QSL cards withOut the "N" printed, in Expectation of winning a better ticket 'soon'. We would temporarily (and thrift fully) just write-in a tiny "N" between the K (or W) and the 6 (the 6 in 'these parts' of the US)....

Those of course were the days of homemade 6AG7 to 6L6 crystal controlled 'toob' transmitters.  It was OK to buy a receiver, but it was basically a 'given' that you really ought to build your own transmitter.  It took a Lot of Months of newspaper deliveries to just buy the toobs, much less the transformer, iron choke, caps and resistors but I got it together, a '35 Watter' documented in an ARRL1953 QST - and it worked. Best DX was Utah (with a now-understood NVIS Near Vertical Incidence ionospheric propagation mode - as results from a from a very Low but full 1/2 wave 80m horizontal antenna).  (WOW - a Big Deal for a kid to 'project' his shaky fist even that far, then).  I well-recall the (only) crystal I had - a 'real-low' one for the old 3700-3750 80m Novice sub band - on 3702.6 kilocycles (kHz these days) - heck, those Old Hot Toob receivers would Drift in frequency almost that much then.  SSB was 'just coming in' but the darn old receivers didn't do well stability-wise - Wavery Mickey-Mouse Voices with SSB, at best.  CW was 'easy' (sort-of) if you had somewhat of a 'fist' and an 'ear'.  SSB voice - Just Too Difficult for Beginners then - even the 'old guys' had troubles with SSB then.

Then, being an Inquisitive Type who hadn't Quite electrocuted himself Yet, I actually figured out how to "series-up-aiding" the secondaries of Two 350-0-350 volt transformers, while parallel feeding the '110' vAC primaries. This, and a couple ancient 866-Juniors (Mercury Vapor) rectifier toobs and an Old White-Base 807 that a local 'old' ham gave me, that got me 700 vDC - full wave rectified - Clean 'big' power with the 807, maybe 75 Watts - "I did it with the overpowered 300 Watt soldering iron" my dad allowed me to use - his 'tern-plate' (galvanized) sheet-metal air conditioning duct sealing-class iron, 'way too powerful for light electronics, but of course I did not understand that at the time.

The station then - see photos 2a,b,c - show the usual early 50's stuff - Left-to-Right - 1/2 of a WWII USN bunkbed - my brother had the other half - an affair with crossed metal bands and little 'springs' arrayed only horizontally (nothing vertical) at the ends of the metal strips, with a 'tick' (a thin mattress about 3 inches thick) - (Well, I grew-up "sorta-straight" Despite that) - (my brother did too) - then the usual WRL World Radio Laboratories US Radio map on the wall - from the old Leo Meyerson outfit in Council Bluffs Iowa that helped many 'kids' not to mention 'Old Guys' get on the air with minor but critical 'raaadio parts'- then the 'Halliscratchers' S-53 receiver (a DOG) - then the usual QSL and SWL cards - from far away places - ("THIS IS Radio Moscow, Moscow, THE USSR"), as  used to boom-in then (as well as Their RFE [Radio Free Europe] SW Jammers against 'us').  We the US had our SW jammers too, against them, beamed into the USSR - 'radio war' - - and then in the photo, the ARRL standard logbook.  And then THAT Power Supply, the twin 350-0-350 volt seriesed transformers, the iron choke, the 866-Jr's, and the OLD 30's 0-100 engraved knobs on the transmitter. The power supply caps (I seriesed-up 350 or 400 vDC electrolytics WITHOUT 'Benefit' of voltage 'equalizing' hi R resistors across the 700 vDC) - I didn't understand that detail then yet - those caps would frequently 'go smoke' on me due to unequal voltage 'sharing' (I understood that detail only years later)...

Apologies, but photo 2c is quite bad - but shows my key screwed-into the (then) at least 50 year old Solid Walnut desk (my dad had a FIT over that) - and the 'modern' GONSET 2 meter 'Communicator', a 10 Watt or so AM voice 'rig' that I later ran in my '41 Ford - 'chasing girls' while yakking on 2m - 'Early Multitasking' -- then a Heathkit VFO, a Heathkit "VT-1" (as I recall) - a VTVM - Real Great Stuff back then.

As I said, the FCC did a Great Thing with the old Novice license.  FCC "gave" us so many Incentives - so much so as a 'poor' kid I was actually 'driven' to get a BSEE (if only to understand raaadio 'stuff'). Did that (somehow) (Only Flunked Feedback Control Systems) (and Differential Equations II) (heh heh) - then later traveled the world thereafter (Well, not Africa nor Antarctica, but pretty much everywhere else) - later still, did a 10 year stint frequently assigned to Geneva Switzerland-the ITU (International Telecommunications

Union) (Study Group 7, Space Radio).  The ITU-R develops the International Radio Regulations, a treaty-status document published periodically.  One of the best parts of working at the ITU was getting 'station privileges' at their station 4U1 ITU - worked some Real HF DX from there - also some 432/144 MHz satellite stuff from there -- see photo 3.

Here's a Little and Primitive website I 'managed' to assemble after retirement.

<<   http://www.geocities.com/dbathker1@sbcglobal.net/jayphoto2.html >>

I am also listed on QRZ.com

73

Dan Bathker