...
...That must have been fun, Nate, walking in wearing your uniform, and paying no attention to the guard. His thoughts were probably very interesting.
...Building a short-wave radio...
...I am going to date myself, again. In grammar school a couple friends and I got interested in HAM radio. I didn't have any money, and my parents managed my fathers salary very well, but there was very little for indulgences. I would buy a catalogue from Allied Radio and lust over the electronics. I would show certain items to my parents, and comment how much I could learn from them. I especially wanted a short-wave radio, so I could listen to broadcasts from all over the World. I was surprised, and delighted, when one Christmas, I opened my present, and there was a radio...the 'STAR ROAMER'...the one that I REALLY WANTED!!!! One thing, though, it was a kit, with about 250 parts....
...But, I had a BLAST building it!!!
My father didn't trust me to be alone with a soldering iron, and he wanted to double check to make sure that I put the correct resistor or capacitor in the right place, and correctly soldered wires. So I would build it as he watched, and he only let me work on it an hour a night, so I wouldn't get tired. I learned to read the ratings on the capacitors, and the colored stripes on the resistors, in order to make sure that I had the right one before I tied the wires to the contact points, and then soldered it. I got it all put together, and plugged in the seven 'vacuum tubes'...(Look those up, you youngsters)...and turned it on. It lit up, but no sound came out.
I was devastated, my father and I had no idea of what to do. My mother called her brother, who was an 'electrician' for the Air Force, (I am pretty sure that he was a spy, he was always being sent to Pakistan for a few months, and he refused to tell me what he did), and he came by. He briefly looked it over, and flipped a switch on the back, and IT WORKED!!!!
...I spent hours listening most nights. Reception was better at night, and it was interesting. I was really excited when I found 'The Voice of America'.
...I took a HUGE risk when I setup a wire antenna. I couldn't afford a metal one, and my parents didn't want another antenna on the roof. So, I climbed up on the roof, with a roll of copper wire and some items in my pockets. We didn't have a ladder, so I climbed up onto the wooden fence that butted up against the house, grabbed onto the rain gutter, and then swung my legs up onto the gutter. So, for a moment, I was horizontal to the ground, and the fence was below the middle of my body. If the gutter had given way, I would have landed on the fence on my right side, and would have fractured ribs and Heaven only knows what else before I landed on the ground. I secured the wire to the chimney, threw the roll of wire onto the ground, and then, JUMPED OFF THE ROOF. I finished by climbing up the sycamore tree in the front yard, and secured the other end of the copper wire high up in the tree, so I had a wire antenna about 60 feet long. My parents certainly noticed the antenna, but they never asked me how it got there. Since I was walking around, and had no broken bones, they didn't choose to make an issue of it.
...(Shows that young children, even those with a smattering of intelligence, do the STUPIDIST THINGS. It is a wonder that the species still exists)
...I REALLY wanted to get a transmitter, but there was no money for such things. Also, back then, at the Novice Level of HAM radio, you had to communicate in Morse Code for most frequencies that you were allowed to use. I got to be able to transcribe Morse Code at the Novice level, but was astounded when I would listen to HAMs communicating at the Amateur Extra level...it was so fast. An experienced HAM told me that at that level, the brain doesn't hear dots and dashes, it hears letters, numbers, and words.
...I listened to a lot of interesting things. I also located the frequencies that CB (Citizen Band) radios operated on, and they spoke of things. A few times a year, there would be an International Field Day, and HAMs all over the World would get on at the same time. I bought a log, and would document the call signs and information on the HAMs I located.
...That was an interesting and fun time in my life.
