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From maj.com

I have been a ham radio operator for 25+ years, with callsign WD4MEI. Prior to that, I was CB operator KEY2783 (and still am SSB57N), and have been a shortwave listener since I was 11, with 73 countries confirmed by QSL cards. Almost all of my equipment I have aquired used over the years at hamfest flea markets and rebuilt. There are goodies in the shack for HF, VHF, and UHF Code and voice, RTTY, packet, slow and fast scan TV, plus shortwave listening, FAX and WEFAX receive. I also have headset units for my helmets so I can pack a handi-talkie on the motorcycles. Not shown here are several vintage tube-type shortwave receivers, including Zenith Trans-Oceanic portables and several models of Hallicrafters. I keep a Sangean 803A on the nightstand for late-night listening sessions when I have Terminal Insomnia.

If you have an interest in radio communications, it is surprisingly easy to earn a ham license. These days, the entry-level license, the Technician class, requires no Morse code, only a 55 question written test, and excellent study guides are available. This license gives you FULL priveleges above 50 mHz, including the popular 2-meter band.

Talk about your internet, talk about your cellphones, but there is no equal to good old radio. No wires, no DSL, no cellsite; just you, a few watts of RF, and a cable to a piece of metal outside. You can talk to people all over the world, or even a bunch of them at the same time. You can discuss things with people who not only don't have internet access, but may have never seen a PC. You can talk to astronauts as the Space Shuttle passes overhead. Out on the road, your cellphone cannot always get you directions, but a 2-Meter rig almost always can. You can't pound a keyboard in a chat room with a dozen other folks while you drive to work, and you can't sit at home on a winter night with your cellphone and call "CQ", just looking for someone in a faraway country to answer. Ain't nothing like it...

Here is some of the crappy old radio stuff I have around here. These are the curiosities, some of the weirdest stuff. They are all in regular use. Enjoy.

The ol' tube boatanchor;  a Heathkit HW-101,  often called the  "Hot Water 101", because it came as a kit, and a bunch of aspiring builders got into Hot Water trying to get these things put together. This covers 80-10 meters, and is tube type throughout. 14 tubes, good ol' reliable 6146 finals, and about 90 watts key-down on a good day. It drifts a bit, depending on ambient temperature, humidity, and apparently the mood of the radio deities on a given day, and it's best to let it warm up about a half-hour before operating. Great rig, though. It came at a fairly reasonable cost, ya had to build it, and it usually worked well. There are still thousands of these ol' shack heaters in regular service.

The SBE 34. It's a hybrid rig; solid-state receiver, and solid-state in the transmitter except for the finals, which are tubes. It's SSB phone only, and covers the phone portions of 80-15 meters. Odd coverage, and no CW, but still a fine rig for phone users. Runs on 120VAC or 12VDC, and produces about 50 watts full-bore.

This is a Gonset "lunchbox" 6-meter tube rig, with a home-made transmit VFO on the side. I keep this one around mostly because it still works. There's not much to use it for these days; it is AM only, and while AM is still legal in some parts of the band, there are about three of us that still try to use it, and we generally have to call each other on the telephone to arrange a contact...

You have to reach WAYYYY back to remember this one - This is a Drake TR-22 2meter FM rig. This is from the early days of 2M FM repeaters. It is a six-channel rig, and the six channels were configured by buying a pair of crystals for each desired channel - one transmit and one receive. It is about the size of a small cigar box, and weighs about 4 pounds with it's 10 AA cell nicad batteries. It has a connector for a portable antenna, and connectors on the back for an external antenna and 12VDC in, and was offered with an optional quick-in mobile bracket, so it could be used mobile and portable. Of course, when used mobile, that external antenna had better be damn good, because power output is only about 1.5 watts...

This is Kenwood's version of the above, and came a couple of years later. It's a little fancier, and has 12 channels, and is swithchable for lo/hi power, about 400mw and 2.5w, so the coverage is a little better. This one also came with a quick-in mobile bracket, and I in fact used it as a mobile for a few years, inline with a little 10 watt amp under the seat. These days, this one and the Drake both have modern NiMH batteries and commercial-grade crystals, and are plugging away.

This is an early 2meter mobile rig, the Genave GTX-10s. Again, the "channels" cost you two crystals each. This one is selectable for 2 watts or 10 watts output, but the transmit signal is so "dirty" that it sometimes limits the use of the hi power feature - in the Corsica, keying up on hi power turns on the Check Engine light, and causes the turn signals to stop blinking. In it's day, though, it was the Bee's Knees...

The above 2meter rigs are seriously outdated, but work well, so I may as well use them. Because of interference from commercial services, more and more repeaters are using sub-audible tone access, so I am planning to add tone boards to these, to keep them in operation for a while longer. It's really kinda fun to use these things, especially the portables, out in public. The younger hams are amazed by them, and the older guys get all nostalgic...

Any of you old guys remember these? This is an aftermarket microphone with built-in telephone touch-tone pad. In the pre-cellphone days, clubs would often (still do, in many places) equip a repeater with a telephone line, which could be tone-activated by users with standard telephone touch-tones, and allow mobile or portable users to make local telephone calls. This was, and still is, called AutoPatch (automated telephone patch). Of course, since ham radio is a hobby service, the service could not be used to make business calls, but emergency calls were OK, and a lot of fires, wrecks, etc, etc, were called in by hams using the AutoPatch. Personal calls were also the order of the day; guys calling the non-ham wife at home to ask if they needed to pick up anything on the way home, reminding the teenager to feed the cat, etc were common. Cool...

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