good old equipment

[N6GFS]

well, my equipment review..the year was about 1967, my first novice license at age 13...my first receiver.. Hallicrafter Sky buddy.... Heathkit DX60 transmitter..
didn't have a microphone..so i used the element from an old telephone...then up to a few arc 5 receivers with dynamotors.., a dx100 was a nice step up.

Over the next few years of high school, when i had extra money and wanted more radio equpment, i would usually go up to J.J. Glass in Los Angeles on the bus system and buy a piece of old navy or army gear., and lug it back home on the bus...
$25.00 back in the mid sixties went a looooooonnnng way.
antennas all over the top of our house consisting of inverted v's and dipoles for every band....my father was an electrical contractor, so i had access to all the #12 and #14 thhn that i wanted..

Good old rigs..

MY FIRST RADIO WAS A K.W. ATLANTA, WHICH MY FATHER BOUGHT ME, WISHED I HAD KEPT IT, DIDNT NEED A LINEAR WITH ITS OUTPUT OF 350 WATTS. 2X6LQ6

JIM G4REK

[WA4JKW]

My first station was a HW-16 and HG-10 which I still own and use from time to time. Lately the modern rigs...IC-781, and FT-990 have taken the back burner to my Collins equipment and the FT-901DM with FV-901 and FL-2100B. I like the old boatanchors as I get older and have also found that Collins seems to get through the pileups better than the new rigs....something about the audio is what I keep hearing.
Still a late night on CW with the HW-16 is a pleasure. I suggest we all get back to the first rig and see what it's like again.

[N4HEK]

My first rig (back in 1977) was a Heathkit HR-1680 (I did it myself and caught mono from never sleeping, couldn't stop soldering) and a good ol' DX-100. Nice and big and chirpy! Maybe it was the Sunspot cycle, but I worked half-way to DXCC as a novice using that big clunker. And now they sell for over $100 on eBay (I trashed mine when I got a solid state rig in the '80s).
You are right, if we all went back to our old rigs I think we'd remember the real thrill of being a newbie (sort of like young love vs. 25 yrs of marriage). Oops, I'm not suggesting anything here http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif