“Ham” Radio, in Ridgewood
“Now, listen my Children, and you shall hear
Of when Ne’er a Cell phone was raised to an ear
If you wanted
Your words to project
It was the land-line,
Or an epistle,
Upon which to carefully reflect.”
--C.S., with apologies to Longfellow
Actually, there was one other method that a few of us knew about. It was called
Amateur Radio. Those of us who were licensed to do this, could project their
voice and signal all over the country, and world. The transmitter equipment
needed to do so was often home built from a “Heathkit”. If you couldn’t afford
the relatively safe Heath Power Pack, then the parts needed to construct an
(extremely dangerous) 1000 volt supply that allowed the development of the 200
watt signal needed to keep your set competitive, could be liberated from an older,
nonfunctional obsolete television set.
This in turn could often be had for the asking from a TV Repair shop, such as
Terhune’s, located north of Ridgewood. Technical advice, general mentoring, and license proctoring was provided by my wonderful Electronics Teacher at RHS, Mr. John Keeley. He helped me
send away to the FCC to get the license forms, and he gently administered the
Government test, and within a few weeks I was duly licensed as Amateur Radio Station WN2.
There were many hundreds of these stations scattered through Ridgewood and
the surrounding towns. The most elaborate ones could be identified by these
huge Yagi “Beam” antennas, suspended over residential roofs, much to the
detriment of neighborly relations, local television reception, and the property
value of adjacent real estate parcels.
I had nothing like this. A Heathkit HW-101 transceiver in Kit Form, cost $259.
A Saturday of work at The Ridgewood Auto Wash yielded $20, with the “tips”
exactly counterbalancing the “Social Security”, an unanticipated deduction which
I was inaccurately told would be returned to me at the time of my Retirement.
Accoringly, exactly 14 weeks later I had my transceiver soldered and assembled,
and it worked very well after I designed and constructed the potentially death-
dealing 1000 volt supply mentioned above. My antenna was a simple wire
precisely tuned to 7.100 megahertz, it was slung between two oak trees outside
of my bedroom window. A smaller, 21.200 megahertz wire was suspended from
the eaves of our house.
Using this simple setup, I “worked” stations routinely all over America.
Whatever educational value I gained from doing this was at least partially
negated by the knowledge that the best time to communicate with Europe with
my little Heathkit was at about 10:00 a.m., Eastern Time. Thus, a “stomachache
health emergency” had to be declared, when openings to Europe were expected,
if I was to participate. My Gastrointestinal health during mr RHS years, was
actually a lot better than my parents knew.
The most wonderful thing of all about this hobby was, the knowledge that when
you pressed your Morse Code Key, your signal, through the obscure action-
at – a-distance of Electromagnetic waves, was inducing discernable electrical
information in every metallic object in the Eastern United States, and Beyond.
This was a wonderful mystery, that you could affect the world, in this way.
I still have the Heathkit HW-101 Transceiver that I built as a Sophomore at RHS,
and I still use it. But, it is hard to find a younger person on the air. A cell phone
call is also at least Semi-Amateur Radio, though few see fit to dwell on the
miraculous things that are occurring, when you put that tiny device to your ear.
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