What I really dreamed of was that I'd have a proper workbench with a good set of basic tools and test gear, and would build my station from scratch. For a Novice station, a band-imaging 80/40 receiver with converter for 15 meters, and a simple 6AG7/807 MOPA for transmitting. Plus a pile of crystals. 73 de Jim, N2EY
Both of us were. We took our Novice tests together. I became WD4PJT and Dad was WD4PJU. Great memories of that day! Dad, Gene Sr. and my bird dog Duke are my Avatar picture.
Collins S-Line. After all those years I recently acquired a KWM-2 and matching 30L-1 amp. Close enough! Now to get it all working properly.
Sounds like most were novices eons ago. I was a novice in 1984. I really wanted the TS 830, which was on its way out and really wanted a radio in the kenwood 900 line up. That was for millionaires at the time.
My dream rig was a Signal One. My rig was a DX40 with three crystals for 80 and three crystals for 15. I later bought one crystal for 40 for a Novice net with the Foothills ARC in Greensburg PA. Receiver was an Allied A2516.
Yes! For many years, s typical FT-243 Novice crystal was $2.95 from the well-known suppliers. Not a lot of money today but when you adjust for inflation it was serious cash. Worse, the old Novice subbands were not harmonically related, so each crystal could only be used on one band. My first VFO, a Heathkit VF-1, was $20 - the price of about 7 FT-243s, but much more useful. Back then there were discount crystal suppliers that charged less than $2.95, but they didn't advertise much, so many of us newcomers didn't know about them until too late. In the 1970s there was a "crystal bank" for the exchange of Novice crystals, but it didn't last because Novices were allowed to use VFO soon after. Imagine if such a "bank" had existed from the start! 73 de Jim, N2EY
That would be about $30 today. The alternative was to buy out-of-band WW2 surplus crystals for about 50 cents each and re-grind them to the desired frequency. It was time consuming and usually a few crystals were ruined during the learning process. Modern ham band crystals can be bought for as little as $2.50, but they're not in FT-243 holders. Unfortunately, some vacuum tube oscillators will destroy them in a matter of seconds.
I (fell for a scam?) sent my last Novice crystal (unused/unneeded for about 50 years) to a "ham" who @ QRZ said he couldn't afford one for a homebrew radio. I gladly wanted to help out, but that was the last I heard from him; no further posts her @ QRZ; not even a "thank you" via QRZ or e-mail, and obviously no offer to even reimburse for the postage. Not a LOT of money, for the postage, but a "thanks" would have been appreciated. (And certainly appropriate; I know if I get something, I want to at least reimburse for postage or what ever is involved.) But of course, when one is "down on their luck" and can't afford a crystal, it's obvious an e-mail thank you or post @ QRZ doing the same is FAR too expensive.
Amendment with odd history: For some reason lost to attorneys, Vibroplex allowed its patents in-force on its Lightning Bug model to lapse by the WW II era. Thus Lionel, Bunnell and other essentially-identical clones as war-production J-36s fabricated on this pattern were not licensed and Lionel freely kept all the profits. Contrary to fairly common assumption, J-36 was not tag specific to the "Lightning Bug " pattern. All semi-automatic keys ('Bugs') during the War period were inexplicably designated J-36 irrespective of pattern. Many resembled modified Vibroplex "Original" and others were fairly unique. Brooklyn Metal Stamping Products, McElroy Company, Bunnell. Vibroplex did produce a bunch of their own J-36 Lightning Bugs, some utilized commercial-off-the shelf with Vibroplex civilian data-plates and others with military "J-36" nomenclature tags. The unique guarantee of military utilization is an Army Signal Corps inspector's acceptance stamp in a fairly unique off-orange color with typical form "SCxxxxxx" or a Navy acceptance stamp with light-color square with anchor-device , both usually located on the underside. But lack of the acceptance stamp doen't mean it never saw war service. 73
