In the Beginning

In its edition of August 3, 1912, the OCEANSIDE BLADE, a weekly newspaper then published in Oceanside, California, made note of the fact that a son had been born to Mr. and Mrs. J. Frank Martin and that mother and child were doing nicely. While I have no recollection of this event, it was of great importance to me inasmuch as my birth was thus noted in the public record. This little news-item was the dawn of the beginning. Thereafter I lived and grew to manhood in a village near those two great avenues of communication and commerce: The Sea and the railroad. Both interested me deeply, even as a child.

Now let's go back to the end of the second and beginning of the third decades of this century, for it was in 1920 that I reached the eighth year of my life. It was a time when curiosity about people, places and things outside our then tiny city of Oceanside was beginning to develop within me. In pursuit of this urge to know something of what lay beyond the horizon I sought out the local depot, simply because it was the only place in the town maintaining regular contact with the outside world. In those days the Oceanside train station was a large frame building situated at what was then the foot, or western extremity, of Second Street. The building was located on the easterly side of the AT&SF railroad tracks and was painted a very deep red with the Santa Fe logo exhibited prominently on its sides in gleaming white. It was colorful. Some years later it was repainted a bilious yellow, thus losing its noble character.

This admirable edifice was built, we are told, in the eighteen-eighties. It seems that an Englishman, one Herbert Crouch, owner of large tracts of land in the area that would one day become the City of Oceanside, in 1881 granted a right-of-way to the California Southern Railroad Company along a strip of land, now known as Tremont Street. For reasons best known to itself the Railroad later decided to establish its tracks along the present route, and deeded the Tremont Street property back to Mr. Crouch in 1885. The tracks were put down and the station built. In the passage of time California Southern was swallowed up by the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe system. In the beginning the railroad line came south from San Bernardino through the Temecula Valley and Fallbrook, traversing the Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores (now Camp Pendleton) to Oceanside and thence to San Diego. This route was short lived inasmuch as floods washed away its tracks in the Temecula Valley during the winter of 1892. Despite considerable persuasive effort expended by the local citizenry to have the route re-established, it never was. Instead Oceanside and Santa Ana were connected to provide a more direct route between Los Angeles and San Diego. We are also told that Chinese labor was used exclusively in the construction of this line. History has it that the Chinese crews had little or nothing to do with fabrication of the depot, as Orientals were not deemed "suitable" to perform any skilled craft, for such was the state of prejudice and ignorance of the time. As I recall it was the late Ambrose Bierce who aptly defined prejudice as "A vagrant opinion without visible means of support." Unfortunately the fine old edifice was pulled down more than fifty years ago, to be replaced by a rather drab, characterless, colorless and totally unimaginative modern building. Now even that has disappeared. In recent years Second Street has been extended through the ancient depot site. To add insult to injury, Second Street, once the principal business street of the community, and where the Fourth of July Parades were always held, in recent years has been dubbed Mission Avenue. Is there no shame?

One normally approached the station from the direction of Second Street, gaining entrance through a cranky door, opening into a small waiting room furnished with some unyielding wooden benches, a coal burning stove, relic of the days when steam locomotives were coal burners, and numerous conveniently located spittoons, all displaying unfortunate evidence of the inability of our local gentry to find the target. This explains the then universal practice of locating the spittoon at the center of a large rubber mat. In yesteryear the brass spittoon, termed a cuspidor by the more refined, was considered the usual, indeed essential part of the amenities in public accommodations and business offices. The practice of chewing tobacco was, in those days, considered a manly virtue and its use, while not universal, was widely accepted among gentlemen. The male enthusiasm for this custom was not shared by the distaff side which, almost without exception, considered it a loathsome habit. Perhaps it was. Consider, if you will, a young man in an intimate conversation with a young lady, out on the veranda of course, all the while with a quid of chewing tobacco tucked in his cheek, and who suddenly feels the compelling necessity to, ah, expectorate. Now, how might he manage gracefully? The answer is obvious: He cannot! There was no avenue of escape, for only two options were available. He must either: (1) Swallow a mouthful of tobacco juice or (2) Get up, go over to the veranda railing and, "aaaghh", empty his mouth into the flower bed below. His first option was almost certain to make him ill while the second would not be acceptable conduct in polite circles. Aside from this disability, it has been suggested that the male mouth brimming with tobacco juice is hardly an invitation for a fervent buss, or even a mild peck. Consider the mechanics of the kiss, if you will, as it is exhibited in the movies and on the television in this recent, and surely more enlightened age. Now you will clearly understand the basis for feminine aversion to this practice. I'll not pursue the matter further for fear of offending or otherwise disquieting the gentle reader.

And so it came to pass in the early nineteen twenties that the ladies, joined by a plethora of ministers thundering condemnation and denunciation from a thousand pulpits, together with myriads of "do-gooders," gathered a sufficient power of deadly persuasion to render the use of chewing tobacco anathematic, socially and spiritually. Indeed, it seemed that the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, considered the practice venal and sinful. Also joining the anti-chewing tobacco movement were a considerable number of newspaper editors, coerced by their wives, no doubt. Spittoons, or cuspidors, became obsolescent and disappeared, only to be revived as flower pots by future generations. Sic transit gloria cuspidorus! Naturally there was resentment on the part of a few disgruntled males who gloomily espoused the proposition that when the ladies won their fight against chewing tobacco, the era of male dominance in society had come to an inglorious end. Whether or not this be true, the phenomenon might well be a subject for examination by social and political scientists, for here a securely established custom was virtually eliminated without aid of legislation to forbid it, a real but relatively unnoticed exercise of power by the hand that rocked the cradle, in close cooperation with the press, legions of the Almighty and the "do-gooders."

Enough of my philosophical speculation. Let us return to the waiting room at the depot: On its north wall there were two windows protected by grill-work, giving into an office where J. A. Tulip, the long-time station agent, his telegraphers and lesser fry, such as baggage handlers, held forth. The windows were for the convenience of folks wishing to purchase tickets or to send telegrams via Western Union. Gracing the south wall of the waiting-room was a blackboard on which the train schedules were displayed. The notations thereon were confusing to my young mind inasmuch as trains were termed either eastbound or westbound while the tracks outside plainly ran to the north and south. Actually I've not yet figured it out. Additionally there were some colorful posters tacked on the walls, all extolling the scenic virtues of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona. No doubt the purpose of this display was to induce the local folks to purchase tickets to view the natural wonders of that beautiful place. Oh yes, at the southeast corner of the edifice there were some evil smelling rest rooms, not much patronized by the respectable elements of the community.

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which, I am told, goes to none of those places, for some reason unknown to the writer, displayed its good will and appreciation to the good citizens of the tiny City of Oceanside by maintaining two small "green grass" parks, one at the southwest corner of Third and Cleveland Streets and the other on the west side of Cleveland between First and Second Streets. Perhaps they remain in place today, for I've not looked recently. However that may be, in those days they were pleasant little oases in surroundings of drab prospect, equipped with convenient benches for benefit of the weary or of those who only wished to pass a part of the day pleasantly basking in the sunshine. We were not then in the frantic, or as some say, phrenetic (check that one in your Funk and Wagnall*s) rush that has overtaken society in recent times.

Now, as you may have been told, in 1920 the radio, television, central heating, air conditioning, modern plumbing, fast food service, shopping malls, the airplane, automobile, skateboard, computer and the supermarket had not yet altered our way of life. In those days, believe it or not, the customer was "waited on" in all of the stores. We had not yet been coerced into selecting and carrying our own merchandise and then to patiently and meekly stand in line for the privilege of paying for it by cash or a carefully examined personal check, in the latter case much to the discomfiture of others trailing in the line. Then the grocer's salesman called in the morning, at the back door of course, to take the housewife's grocery order for delivery on the same afternoon. How far we have come and how much we have advanced in these intervening years! In the event the gentle reader entertains any doubt about the latter statement, he or she is urged to try phrasing it as a question.

At any rate, the day*s major event might have been a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce or, perhaps, of the Ladies Aid Society. In those days the only diversion the knee-pants set was afforded consisted in a regular Saturday afternoon matinee at the Elysium Theater. Here Tom Mix, W. S. Hart and other heroes of the silent screen were shown in stirring westerns wherein the U. S. Cavalry usually rode to the rescue of innocents (always) caught up in the clutches of the Indians, who were almost universally cast as the "bad guys." If perchance the Indians weren't saddled with this unpleasant preferment, then the villains, singular or plural were easily identified by the color of the hat or hats worn, usually black. Should the hat fail to completely and positively identify the malefactors, then the color of the horses ridden by them was usually black. Then there were the slap-stick comedies, usually one or two reels in length starring Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chase, Ben Turpin, Harold Lloyd and others whose names I have long since forgotten. These sterling examples of the cinematographic art were shown with piano accompaniment by the late Walter Bauer, a German immigrant who had settled in Oceanside many years before and who was otherwise employed as janitor by the local elementary school. Supplementing his meager income by moonlighting at the Elysium Theater, Walter sat at the piano without musical score before him, playing whatever seemed appropriate (to him) for the progression of scenes displayed on the silver screen above him. Indeed, this was early day mood music - heady stuff for us small and unruly boys crowded into the first row of seats, occupied with the sloppy consumption of penny-awful hard candy and nickel jaw-breakers we had acquired from the candy counter in Hostetter's Bakery, situated two doors from the theater. Next door was I. B. Cary's grocery store

However entertaining the Elysium Theater may have been to us youngsters; it was available only on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. As one of the alternatives, during our long summer vacations, the depot provided an almost constant form of diversion. To be seen and to be speculated over were the travelers of all shapes, conditions and sizes, together with other onlookers and the gossips. Then there was the group of elderly gentlemen, four or five of them, habitually perched on a bench outside in plain view of the tracks who, when an approaching train sounded its whistle, in unison extracted their huge "turnip style" pocket watches, intently timed its arrival and then compared their findings with the scheduled arrival time. A debate invariably followed over which one of them had accurately recorded the arrival time together with a lively and frequently acrimonious dispute concerning the quality and accuracy of their several timepieces. Brand names of Elgin, Hamilton, Waltham and others were flung about in either laudatory or pejorative terms, depending on whose watch the speaker was talking about. This was always good for at least an hour or two. It was unfortunate that the form and content of this debate had been reduced to a stylized format at some earlier time, for after listening to a few sessions of it we could prognosticate with almost absolute accuracy which one of the several participants would speak at a given time and almost precisely what would be said - one of my early lessons on the predictability of human behavior.

Occasionally one would see Will Spencer, the owner, editor, publisher and principal reporter of our weekly newspaper, the OCEANSIDE BLADE, in hot pursuit of a rare news item, for there was never much going on in those days. Then there were the old soldiers, veterans of the War between the States, otherwise and perhaps improperly called the Civil War, who came to sit in the sunshine on the convenient park benches provided so kindly by AT&SF, discussing the battles of Chickamauga, "Chicamaugy" they said, Bull Run or Manassas, Antietam or Sharpsburg, depending on which side they'd been, and other long forgotten military engagements; of how the Second Iowa (pronounced "Ioway") Volunteers or J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry corps did thus or so at such and such a place. Actually they always called the latter "Gin'l" Stuart. Although the stories had been repeated countless times over, we youngsters remained spellbound by them, for the old soldiers were talking about portentous events that had taken place some sixty years before. The horror, pain, suffering, degradation, privation and insanity of that frightful conflict had long since been forgotten. Only the excitement and adventure of it all remained to be told and retold by old men reliving the days of their youths while basking in the warm summer sun. Old age is said to be the time to dream of things as they should have been, but never were. This much I have learned by experience. Whenever I recall this part of my childhood, the fact that World War II occurred almost sixty years ago is somewhat sobering.

To put the whole of this scene in proper perspective the reader must realize the train depot was at the center of life in that and many similar small communities, for the railroad was the sole reliable means of moving people and general freight quickly. Automobiles were only then becoming truly utilitarian and intercity truck transport was still in its infancy. Motor Transit Company had not yet expanded to become Greyhound Lines and air travel was but a dream. It was a different world in which life moved at a deliberate and leisurely pace. In retrospect it was a very agreeable era if we remember only the pleasant parts of it. In any event a return to it is a fortunate impossibility, for antibiotics had not yet been discovered. Thus many of my young friends perished as the result of infections and childhood diseases. Additionally the influence of the late Queen Victoria had not yet fully abated and society in general was afflicted with an unyielding code of moral respectability barely distinguishable from rigor mortis.

In my young and impressionable mind the depot was the place where mysterious telegraph sounders set up their eternal "clickety-clack" and men wearing green eye shades and black sleeve guards solemnly attended their operation. All this excited my interest a great deal more than did the "hand-crank" telephone we had at home, for the telegraph seemed to connect with almost everywhere while our telephone seldom brought us anything but local calls. Indeed whenever a newsworthy event or calamity occurred, a crier was sent out from the depot to announce it. For instance, I recall word of the armistice at the end of World War I being called out by someone walking down the middle of the street (this was 1918) shouting out the good news for all to hear. So also the result of the legendary bout between the Champion Jess Willard and Challenger Jack Dempsey, a year or so later. This sort of thing was, I suppose, merely a continuation of the function of the town crier, carried on with somewhat less formality than in former times. It was my association of the telegraph with far-away places and events that led me to learn the American Morse code at the age of ten, or thereabouts. In this I was assisted by listening, while at the depot, for apprentice telegraphers sending to each other on unused circuits. It was their practice to tap out the word HAM on an idle circuit in order to attract the attention of other learners. As a matter of fact this was rather like our Ham use of CQ. Before long I was busily fashioning telegraph sounders out of door hinges and Ford spark coil primaries. Then wires were strung and a neighborhood telegraph line appeared, but it was difficult to interest my playmates in it, for learning manual telegraphy seems to require a unique and specialized dedication. So you see it was, in reality, no more than a small boy's curiosity about far-away things, events and places that sparked my interest in communicating and in the means for accomplishing it.

We might well pause and reflect on the telegraph, as Morse wire lines endured for more than a hundred years. In that unsophisticated system, and here I take the liberty of using an oversimplified example, the operator on the receiving end listened to a sounder, a mechanism possessing only one moving part, while on the sending end the operator had a hand key, in which there was but one moving part. In each instance the complex quantity of the entire circuit was the operator. Compare this with present day digital systems capable of sending and receiving written material and data at a rate of several hundred words or more per minute. Here the poor human operator is only an incidental and relatively unimportant link in the entirety of it. This seems to leave us with several avenues of philosophical speculation: Has there, over the years, been a corresponding increase in the validity and intelligence of text material or data forwarded? Or are we speaking more and more about less and less? Indeed, is the text material of sufficient importance to warrant transmission by any means other than the Post, an institution our first-class stamps now subsidize for the benefit of the political, advertising and merchandising industries? As a matter of fact one Bill McKibben recently authored a book entitled THE AGE OF MISSING INFORMATION from which I offer the following quote: "Our society is moving steadily from natural sources of information toward electronic ones, from the mountain and the field toward the television; this great transition is very nearly complete. And so we need to understand the two extremes. One is the target of our drift. The other an anchor that might tug us gently back, a source of information that once spoke clearly to us and now hardly even whispers." I leave the philosophical problem to you, kind reader. And now on the horizon we see the demise of the International Morse code that accompanies the cessation of a requirement for merchant ships to maintain a watch for distress signals on 500 KHz. Thus we find ourselves in the twilight of manual telegraphy.

Returning to the matter under discussion, it seems by this time in my life other forces were tugging at my destiny. My older brother, Walter, had joined the Navy in 1918 to become a radioman. On his discharge from the service in 1922 he "liberated" a sufficient number of bits and pieces to build a receiver. I remember it well: A regenerative detector with two stages of audio amplification boasting a vario-coupler with tapped primary and secondary windings, together with several rheostats and a very large variable condenser, three vacuum tubes and a couple of audio transformers all mounted on and behind a tremendous black bakelite panel. It was impressive! When this device became operational I learned about the radio or International Code.

Discovery of Amateur Radio came in 1922. My family then lived at the southwest corner of Topeka and Hill Streets in Oceanside. Our close neighbor, Oscar Gabriel, 6BNV, was the town's only radio Amateur at the time. He lived at the southeast corner of the same intersection. One day, with the help of his fellow Boy Scouts, he erected an impressively tall pair of antenna masts. Soon one of the classic antennas of the day appeared. It was an impressive affair! There were spreaders supporting five or six parallel wires, all carefully insulated from the mast structure. His mother's clothesline served admirably as the counterpoise. At the time he had a transmitter consisting of a spark transformer, rotary gap, a condenser and a pair of helical inductances called an oscillation transformer. The raucous noise this monster generated could be heard for a couple of blocks without benefit of receiver. Being only ten years old at the time I could do no more than witness the progression of events as they took place. On a couple of occasions Oscar unbent and let me listen to 6XAD, the Catalina radiotelephone circuit. Naturally I was thrilled. If by any chance QST for August 1922 is available to you, by all means look at page 10 where a photograph of 6XAD - 6ZV is displayed. The phone transmitter to which I listened is shown at the right of the picture, I believe.

Sometime later I discovered that Oscar Gabriel was not the first radio amateur in Oceanside. Thus far my research has failed to reveal who was first in the town to take up the hobby, but the OCEANSIDE BLADE, in its issue of June 26, 1909 notes that a local lad, one Clifford Jones, was then employed as a wireless operator aboard ship on a run between New York and Santo Domingo. There is no other information available about Mr. Jones. Probably he was a telegrapher who had taken up wireless instead of wire line operating. Then there is an article in the same newspaper appearing on March 16, 1917, reporting an announcement by government officials to the effect that "all operators of amateur wireless outfits in southern California are forbidden to copy any messages about ship movements or government business of any nature, and in the event of hostilities, which is daily expected, all such operators must take down their aerials." The item reported there were three wireless "plants" in operation in Oceanside, giving the names of Francis Mebach and Harold Bray, and mentioning a station at the local High School. We do know that the late Lynn Birchley was an active radio amateur in Oceanside at some time prior to the First World War. My research has not revealed his call letters, but it is probable he used the 6LB configuration. In those days, we are told, the Department of Commerce issued call letters at their local offices with the licensee's initials following the district numeral when it was possible to do so, as in the case of my old friend Fred Pierce, 6FP. Actually the whole procedure was rather informal for there were few problems. Many amateurs did not bother to secure licenses. According to his sister, May Lockyer, Lynn was often in communication with ships at sea, other radio amateurs and in particular with Major Lawrence Motte, who had a wireless station at Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, in the second and third decades of this century and who was licensed as 6XAD-6ZV after the first World War. In the early days there was often communication between Amateurs and stations in the commercial and government service. Unfortunately Lynn Birchley passed away in 1968, long before I entertained the idea of writing this manuscript. What has been written about him here comes entirely from the recollections of his sister, May Lockyer, of Bob Kolb, who was a friend of the family, and of Dr. Oscar Gabriel, a fellow Ham. All of these informants have passed away.

Oscar Gabriel mentioned other radio amateurs in the area who were very active in the early twenties. Among them were Leigh Young, 6BQX, later K6OAR, of Encinitas, Bob Bollinger, 6AKF, of Cardiff, Bill Pechstein, 6BHU, of San Marcos, the Gray brothers, 6MZ, of Del Mar, O. M. Wilson, 6JE, in Escondido and Stan Estes, 6CYI, of Solana Beach. QST for April 1922, at page 45 reports the appointment of John F. Gray, 6MZ, of Del Mar as Assistant Division Manager for the Pacific Division, ARRL.

Bob Bollinger calls my attention to the fact that a five watt CW transmitter appeared at 6BNV sometime in 1923 or 1924. He says it was owned jointly by Oscar Gabriel and another Ham whose name he no longer remembers. I don't know who it was, but one would logically suspect it was Lynn Birchley. However, Bob's recollection does bring to my mind a dim picture of this device. There were four tube sockets wired for four five watt tubes in parallel mounted somewhere behind a varnished wooden panel. I don't recall that more than two of those sockets were ever occupied by vacuum tubes, not surprising as transmitting tubes were not plentiful in those days. Oscar was able to work the Hawaiian Islands with this transmitter using the 200 meter band. In those days tube sockets could be purchased in strips of as many as four in line. See the FIRCO advertisement in QST for October 1921.

The mention above of the Catalina Island telephone reminds me of another private radio circuit existing in those days. It was operated by Boulevard Express, an intercity trucking company. Originally, I am told, interoffice correspondence between Los Angeles and San Diego was handled by radiotelegraph, using spark equipment, and in the mid twenties the spark was replaced with a radiotelephone. A frequency near 3 MHz was used for the latter. Wayne Prather, W6GWY, one of the several surviving old-timers in San Diego, told me of an experience he had when hired as a temporary relief operator at this station back in the spark era. It seems he was given a stack of traffic to clear to the Los Angeles office. At about the time he began moving it NPL, the Naval radio station out on Chollas Heights, started up some sort of broadcast to the fleet with its 200 KW arc transmitter, the output frequency of which was in the VLF (very low frequency) region. It seems no provision had been made in the design of this brute to suppress harmonics and other spurious output. The result was that other radio services in the area were out of luck while NPL was on the air. Wayne said it took him hours to clear the hook. It is rumored that of the 200 KW the NPL arc radiated, only about half appeared at the output frequency. The rest was spurious garbage spread more or less evenly throughout the spectrum.

As an historical aside, the old arc transmitters were in fact continuous wave devices. In common with the general practice of the day they did not have a "tank circuit" to determine the operating frequency. The arc was struck in an atmosphere of hydro-carbon gas, in an intense electro-magnetic field, between water-cooled electrodes to which a potential of several hundred volts of direct current was applied. In short, an ionized path was generated by the arc, providing the negative resistance required to allow oscillation to occur at a frequency dictated by the dimension and tuning of the associated antenna- ground system. On the other hand spark transmitters were usually powered by alternating current, since the high operating voltages required to power the spark-gap dictated the use of a high voltage transformer. This spark-gap was the source of the negative resistance required for oscillation to occur. For lower powered applications interrupted direct current was applied to the primary of the spark transformer - the venerable Model T Ford spark coil is an example. Thus the emission of the spark transmitter powered by the commercial power mains was pulsed (to put it simply) at the rate of 120 times per second, or at whatever rate the available A-C supply provided, and it was damped. I know it is difficult for the modern generation to accept the idea that the arc and spark transmitters were oscillating devices, largely because they did not utilize vacuum tubes or transistors as the generators. If this bothers you, then consider the fact that motor driven alternators produced the power for many low frequency stations. The output of these devices was alternating current, usually between 10 and 15 kilohertz, which was multiplied to the operating frequency.

The spark transmitter could conveniently be keyed in the primary of the spark transformer, but the most feasible method for keying the arc transmitter was to use the frequency shift method, as keying a carefully adjusted arc was a practical impossibility. There were other keying methods widely used in arc transmitter technology, including the "back shunt" method, but here is not the place to go into a description of them. In the case of NPL the resonant frequency of the antenna system was governed by a massive water-cooled variometer. But let's not linger over theory of operation of the ancient arc and spark transmitters, for they were doomed to extinction more than sixty years ago. Should anyone be sufficiently curious I will be happy to share whatever meager information I have on the subject of their care, feeding and theory of operation. Admittedly my treatment of the subject here is totally inadequate. QST of March 1992 has an article on spark transmitters. You will find it at page 29. If you read the article you'll rejoice over the fact that the good old days have passed, never to return!

In the early days the problem faced by Wayne Prather was very common in San Diego, for that monster arc transmitter was a hazard to communications generally. For example, see QST for May 1924 at page IX of the Traffic Department supplement, following page 48. Fortunately for all, the broadcasting industry grew and after a sufficiency of listener complaints was accumulated, the Navy replaced the old arc with a transmitter of more modern design. This same issue of QST reported that the late Ray Jacobs, 6KC, later W6KD, had not yet succumbed to the slowly accelerating rush to CW and was still using his spark gear, termed "an old rock crusher," in the Pacific Division report. Perhaps Ray had a sentimental attachment to it, for I understand he wound the spark transformer by hand, all ten thousand turns of it! Probably Ray held the record for the most years of continuous activity on the ham bands in the San Diego area.

Robert M. (Bob) Bollinger, now a resident of Tujunga, was a very active radio amateur (6AKF) in Cardiff during the immediate post World War I era. He tells me his interest in radio was largely generated by publications then available to him. His first receiver consisted of a Murdock loose coupler, crystal detector and a pair of headphones, Baldwins probably. The transmitter consisted of a Model T Ford spark coil, fixed spark gap, helix and condenser. As there was no commercial electric power available in Cardiff at the time, a 6 volt storage battery was the transmitting power source. With this gear he was successful in working other amateurs the area. His best DX, he said, was Long Beach. Bob goes on to tell me that in 1921 he and Stan Estes rode to San Diego in a model T Ford driven by Stan's father, where they took the test for their amateur operator and station licenses. Later, when commercial power became available, Bob acquired a one kilowatt spark transformer. He fashioned a condenser out of five by seven inch glass photo plates, with sheet brass plates sandwiched in between, and submerged the unit in castor oil. Then he fabricated a rotary spark gap and built an inductive coupler (oscillation transformer) in helix form with number eight copper wire mounted on wooden cross members. This very impressive transmitter fed an "L" type antenna that was later replaced by a "fan" array. The fan consisted of two wires fanned out to a width of 20 feet at the far end. It was about 80 feet in length and 60 feet high, supported by Eucalyptus poles. Bob tells me his receiver then was a loose coupler with a vacuum tube detector. An audio amplifier was added later on. Bob says he worked across the country with this gear. In common with many other amateurs, Bob*s career was enhanced by his exposure to Ham Radio. Attending UCLA and USC he subsequently graduated as an electrical engineer and was thereafter employed in that capacity by the Department of Water and Power of the City of Los Angeles until his retirement, quite a few years ago.

It was my privilege to become acquainted with Stan. I had the opportunity to visit his hamshack on several occasions in the late twenties and early thirties. He was a very capable technician, once making a copy of the National SW-3 receiver so perfect that one couldn't tell the difference between it and the one made by the National Company. He offered to sell it to me for $15.00. Unfortunately I didn't have the purchase price in my pocket. In the mid-thirties he built a beautiful little phone transmitter, one subsequently acquired by Bill Jago, W6NWI, now K7MO and Clint Call, W6OFT. Clint is now a silent key. Never enjoying robust health, Stan passed away sometime in the late thirties.

In 1924 Oscar Gabriel, 6BNV, went off to USC where he attended the dental school, graduating in 1930. His radio station was dismantled, leaving Oceanside without any amateur radio activity whatever. However by this time I was considered sufficiently mature to turn on and tune my brother's radio receiver. At the time it was equipped with the Western Electric type VT-1 vacuum tubes he had earlier "liberated" from the Navy. With them, two stages of audio were only enough to drive the headset to a little more than comfortable level. By 1926 the price of UX 201-A tubes had fallen from six to two dollars per copy, so out of my meager savings six dollars was accumulated to purchase three of them. Now I could use a horn type loudspeaker. My father, although then reasonably well-off, did not believe in lavishing money on his children and, believe me, he didn't!

At this point someone will be sure to ask about the differences between the VT-1 and the 201-A. Well, they were both triodes, but here the similarity ended. The VT-1 had a tungsten filament characterized by very low emission. The 201-A's filament was made out of thoriated tungsten. Hence its emission was remarkably greater, the reason its performance was rewardingly livelier. There was another very important difference. The filament of the VT-1 drew one ampere at five volts, while the 201-A required only .25 ampere. This makes a very remarkable difference when a battery is used to supply the filaments. By the way, speaking of filaments, the only method of controlling the audio output of those ancient receivers was to vary the filament voltage of an audio stage by the expedient of adjusting the associated rheostat in the filament circuit. Lower voltage - lower emission - lower audio!

Speaking of the battery as a filament supply, a six volt lead-acid storage battery was commonly used for this purpose. However there were other sources. Some of you, not many to be sure, may recall the old gravity cell or "crowfoot" battery, widely used to power manual telegraph circuits in former times. These were popular in the early and mid-twenties as a source of power to light the filaments of vacuum tubes. While they were quite large and certainly not portable, they did produced 1.1 volts per cell and had the capacity of about 800 ampere hours at a discharge rate of half an ampere or so. Five of them were sufficient to provide filament power to a small vacuum tube receiver for about a year of the then normal usage, for in the early days of the radio broadcasting service, the hours of programming were irregular. Some stations would sign on from noon until 3 PM and then return to the air at 5 PM and remain on until perhaps ten in the evening. Hours of operation quickly increased with an increase of revenue from advertising, for the hucksters were quick to understand the value of the new medium.

It seems to me it was in 1925 or 1926 that my young friend and school-mate Bob Kolb and I discovered our mutual interest in radio. Recently he had come by a bonanza of parts given him by his uncle, Harry Brodie, an old telegrapher, who had been interested in radio during the early twenties, when it was called wireless. Immediately on gaining the loot Bob set to work building a radio receiver. His efforts were rewarded with a clever little device built in a wooden chalk box. As I recall, it was a single circuit tuner using a 201-A as a regenerative detector. Probably this was no more than a Hartley oscillator circuit with regeneration controlled by a very careful adjustment of the filament rheostat. Frankly I don't recall just how he managed this. Proud of his accomplishment, Bob fell asleep almost every night with the earphones on his head. To avert disaster, should he become restless in his sleep, his good little mother always saw to it that the earphones were detached before she retired for the night. Unfortunately Bob left us a few years ago and is now among my memories - ave atque vale, old friend.

Now while Bob was outstripping me in building projects, I was busily listening to the 600 meter band endeavoring to copy KOK and KSE, both of which were coastal stations for ship radio traffic in the Los Angeles area. There was a third commercial station there, but I no longer remember its call letters. All of them are silent now. There were several coastwise steamers, including the SS HARVARD and SS YALE, that were actively transporting passengers in those days, and considerable message traffic was generated by them. The elapsed time of their transit between San Diego and Los Angeles was four or five hours, and from Los Angeles to San Francisco was overnight. They carried a lot of passengers in the era before the automobile drove them out of business. And in those days the Navy maintained a radiocompass station at Imperial Beach, and NPL, out on Chollas Heights was still sending traffic to the fleet using manual telegraphy, and ships were sending their "M-O" signal to obtain radiocompass bearings from shoreside radiocompass stations. This is all history now.

By this time, 1925 or 1926, I had gathered a sufficient quantity of parts to build a short-wave receiver, and what a beauty it was! A part we called a vario-coupler was rescued from someone's cast off trash. It consisted of a short length of bakelite tubing, perhaps four inches in diameter, into which a smaller piece of tubing was inserted and fitted on a shaft so that it could be rotated. The antenna and grid coils were wound on the larger tubing while the plate or tickler coil was wound on the rotating member. The purpose of the tickler coil was to control regeneration. The coil form was rewound with fewer turns of wire. A guardian angel must have been watching over me for I put on the right number of turns the first time. Even the polarity of the tickler coil was correct, thus avoiding Murphy's Law: One requiring that all windings be hooked up backward for the initial trial. Despite fierce hand capacity and instability the device worked, and signals were heard. I found the 40 meter amateur band easily, for it was then seven to eight MHz. The world of Amateur Radio was now at my doorstep! And it was along about this time that I encountered my first real active Ham in the person of Dick Shanks, 6BZE, who then worked the radio parts counter in Whitney's Department Store in downtown San Diego, my only source of radio parts when I could afford them. By way of explanation about radio parts in a department store, home construction of radio receivers was, for a time, a popular pastime engaged in by many members of the public. The mass production of broadcast receivers at lower and lower prices put a stop to this practice in a few years.

A short time after building the crude receiver an article in one of the popular magazines of the day led me to an inkling of why it was that receivers received and transmitters transmitted. Studying it, but not nearly well enough, I took the amateur license examination late in the year 1927, flunking miserably. The kindly inspector, Mr. Bernard H. Linden of the then Federal Radio Commission, assured me my luck would be better the next time, patted me on the head and sent me on my way. I recall that Harold Hasenbeck, 6DNS, was present. He asked for and was granted permission to copy the 20 WPM code test given applicants for commercial licenses. You may recall that Harold was the first California amateur to work the east coast on the old five meter band prior to World War II. I've not heard of him in years.

After this debacle, my quest for knowledge was pursued with grim determination in order to acquire sufficient expertise to get me past the examination and to be able to copy the International code faultlessly. I spent several months copying press broadcasts (don't try to find them now) and more particularly in memorizing the full text of my study guide. All of this paid off handsomely. Appearing for examination in August 1928 I passed with flying colors. Among the group also passing on that fateful occasion were Horton C. Kessler, W6EPZ, then a resident of Coronado, and Howard B. Bard, W6EOS, who lived in San Diego at the time. Kessler is a silent key. I've not heard of Howard Bard in years, although a relatively recent call book lists him as a resident of Chula Vista. The mail brought my license in October, 1928. The call assigned to me was W6EOM.

In the interim between examination and issuance of the license my time was spent in building a transmitter. A fairly recent (then) issue of QST carried a construction article describing a low powered transmitter for 160 meters, consisting of a pair of 201-A tubes in a back-to-back self rectifying circuit. I put it together, mounting all parts on a wooden bread- board. Actually it was a Hartley oscillator with the grids in parallel and the plates in push-pull, each plate connected, through an RF choke, to an output terminal of the high voltage transformer, a modest 300 volts, and the center tap of which was grounded. This was a full wave self rectifying transmitter, meaning that under key-down conditions it turned itself on and off at the rate of 120 times per second. It turned out that no amateur radio activity was then found on 160 meters. Taking some turns off of the tank coil, I managed to make the little transmitter work on 80 meters. There at 8:10 PM, PST, on October 17, 1928, I had my first QSO with 6BQ, George Sears, of La Jolla, who was then the San Diego Section Communications Manager for ARRL. He reported my AC signal was R2. In those days there were two components in the signal report: first the tone - AC, RAC, DC or PDC, and second the readability ranging from R1 to R9. An AC tone report meant raw AC, RAC meant rectified AC, DC meant a smooth note with a slight AC ripple while PDC was like Caesar's wife - above reproach. The report I received was indicative of a miserably sounding weak signal; one that was barely legal. Nevertheless I was off and running! I hasten to explain that in 1928 one could legally use raw AC as the plate supply. The signal product of a half-wave oscillator-transmitter was a 60 cycle cw note, while the full wave had a bit, but not much more refined 120 cycle note, Of course the Hams were inventive and a few of the fraternity acquired surplus motor driven 500 cycle alternators for their plate supplies. The signal such installations produced with them as a source of power was distinctive and really beautiful to copy, but with its sidebands took up a lot of space, a matter not considered particularly critical in those days. Fortunately the rule was changed a year or two thereafter, and AC plate supplies were banned for amateur use.

You ask about my receiver? Well, in the late twenties the receiver in a Ham station was usually "home-brewed" consisting of an autodyne (regenerative) detector followed by one or two stages of audio amplification. The detector was apt to be the three circuit Reinartz design having antenna, grid and plate coils, all wound on one coil form, usually the base of a defunct vacuum tube. These were our first homebrewed "plug-in" coils. There were various means of controlling regeneration, which was the critical phase in the operation of such a receiver, for the greatest degree of sensitivity occurred when the detector had barely broken into oscillation. Of course its operation was very unstable in this condition. Should the wind swing the antenna, the receiver would respond by snapping in and out of oscillation at an alarming rate. The only cure was to increase the feedback, a remedy that also reduced the receiver's sensitivity. Now, if the receiving antenna was resonant it would "load" the receiver, requiring the operator to "ride" the regeneration control as he tuned across the band. When oscillating the receiver was also a very low-powered transmitter.

Regarding the instability of those old receivers, appearance of the UX 222 tetrode vacuum tube in the late twenties did much to correct the situation. This tube was generally used as an untuned RF amplifier, supplying little gain but adding considerable stability to those rudimentary devices, effectively isolating the oscillating detector from the antenna. The screen grid served to minimize the tube's interelectrode capacitance. Hence the RF stage was stable without the requirement of neutralization, and radiation from the oscillating detector was largely eliminated. We learned also that a sheet of tinfoil pasted behind the panel and then grounded would defeat that old demon, hand capacity. The A+ B- binding post served as the grounding terminal. A lot of us were not using metallic chassis and panel construction at that time.

As noted before, in those days the filament voltage for receivers was usually derived from a 6 volt lead-acid storage battery. Most vacuum tubes for receiving service were rated for a five volt filament, so a rheostat was used to protect them from filament burn-out. This wasn't entirely effective, for every old-timer has, surely at one time or another accidentally applied the full "B" battery voltage to the filaments of his receiver. The result of this misapplication was devastating, and to the youngster who had invested his hard-earned cash in an expensive vacuum tube it was almost tragic!

Then, the headphones were normally inserted in series between the plate of the audio amplifier tube and B plus, usually 90 volts, but sometimes 135. Well, occasionally the headphone cord became frayed or the metal case of the earphones shorted to a winding, in which event operating became downright uncomfortable. Because keying relays were seldom used, usually one side of the key was hotter than the hubs of Hades. As it was fashionable to install the high voltage power supply, replete with chemical rectifier, under the operating table where one's feet might well become entangled with it, amateur radio was an avocation dangerous to one*s health. It's surprising that so many of us survived to tell the story!

It must have been in late 1928 or early 1929 when the late Rev. Dr. Percy Hickman, Vicar (now called Rector) of the local Episcopal Church, stepped into my hamshack to view the operation, about which he had heard in one way or another, as Vicars do. How he escaped instant electrocution in my awful den of horrors, I'll never know. After asking a few questions and looking around, he volunteered a remark that I ridiculed (to myself) at the time, but one I have thought about increasingly in recent years. "Young man," he said, "There*s no limit to what you can do with your wireless. You will even talk to the stars one day!" Well, I've seen moon-bounce communication and have done a lot of communicating via satellites. We've all seen amateur radio contacts with orbiting shuttle-craft. There is also communication with far ranging space craft, so it turned out that the Reverend Dr. Hickman was not far off the mark after all. He knew something I didn't. Unquestionably his circle of friends and associates was considerably wiser, better informed and more influential than mine.

It didn't take long to learn that my 120 cycle CW note was not considered state-of-the-art, even in 1928. Several of the more knowledgeable chaps advised me that one should aspire to a pure DC note. Because filter capacitors, the things we used to call condensers, were pretty expensive (for me) in those days I failed to reach this exalted state. Instead I settled for the RAC (rectified AC) note. In short this meant a rough CW signal, but not so rough as raw AC. It was a question of degree, not of kind. Anyway, I built a "slop jar" rectifier consisting of mason jars filled with borax solution, into which lead and aluminum electrodes were fitted. The rule was that there must be one jar for every 40 volts of alternating current supplied to the rectifier system. However, I ended up with eight jars for a 400 volt supply. There should have been ten of them, but twelve would have been required for a symmetrical bridge layout. My one and only one microfarad condenser was hung across the output of the rectifier. Now, because a self rectifying transmitter was no longer required, I converted the little transmitter into a push- pull tuned plate-tuned grid affair. Presumptively the note was better. At least I received RAC reports.

Doubtlessly the reader has observed that thus far my discussion has been almost entirely in terms of radiotelegraphy. In those days, 1928 and 1929, there was some phone activity to be found between 3500 and 3550 KHz, as well as some in the 160 meter band, but we rank beginners usually didn't participate in it, probably because most of us didn't understand it. At least I didn't. A few years later the 75 and 20 meter phone bands were set up and gradually 'phone operation became very popular. The top band, 160 meters, later became re-popularized and was almost entirely occupied by 'phone operators, but I digress, for suddenly it was 1929, a time of travail for most hams, as the 20 and 40 meter bands had been slashed deeply by new regulations, effective on January first of that year. We lost 700 KHz of the 40 meter band and 1600 KHz out of 20 meters. Most of us didn't have adequate frequency measuring gear. There were a few crystal oscillators around, but not many.

We survived this travail despite many predictions to the contrary by the usual prophets of doom. In doing so we took a great many chances. For instance the best method I had for determining the frequency of my transmitter was to listen for the broad AC "rumble" heard in the receiver. Let me tell you about this: In those days we usually keyed our Hartley (or whatever) oscillators in the negative HV lead at the filament center tap. Because the filament transformer usually had no center tap, it was standard practice to hang two Christmas tree lights in series across the filament leads, calling the junction between the two of them the center tap. These lights, by the way, served as indicators of plate loading in the event a milliammeter for plate current indication was not available, as their degree of brightness under key-down conditions was an indication of plate current. If the plate turned red one would or should know that the loading was too heavy. Usually the filament leads were also by-passed to ground. It was said that with the filaments and high voltage turned on there was a little leakage, causing the oscillator-transmitter to try to function. This was said to be the "AC rumble" of which I spoke. At this late date no claim of accuracy is made either for the theory of this manifestation or of its ability to measure the frequency of the transmitter. Suffice it to say I used this method for a year or two, during which time no citations were received. It was either by blind luck or an almost inexcusable lack of efficiency on the part of the monitoring services of the old Federal Radio Commission that I survived unscathed.

In locating the Ham bands we were aided, in part, by the presence of "marker" stations near the band edges. The only one I now recall is WIZ, an RCA station given to sending the letter V followed by its identification 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year at, I think, 6970 KHz. We were told RCA kept such stations on the air continuously in order to discourage foreigners from landing on "their" frequency. This practice was somewhat reduced by several international treaties and agreements that followed. At any rate, by placing the "rumble" a bit up frequency from WIZ, one, it was fervently hoped, would be somewhere within the 7 MHz band. There were other "marker" stations, but their call letters have long since been forgotten. Let me assure you that I did indeed have an absorption wave- meter, the thing we usually employed to measure frequency at the time. Using it to measure the frequency of the unstable transmitters and receivers of the day was usually an exercise in frustration. There were designs available for a shielded monitor, but for some reason I wasn't moved to build one. No doubt I would have had I been cited for off-frequency operation.

In order to prepare the amateur radio fraternity to live with the new regulations, the pages of QST in 1928 were filled with articles dealing with the construction of transmitters using high "C" tank circuits featuring plate coils wound with heavy copper tubing and higher capacity in the associated capacitor. Additionally there were articles describing MOPA (master oscillator-power amplifier) transmitters, one of which employed an aluminum kitchen kettle as a shield for the master oscillator. A crude but very effective solution of a problem, characteristic of the ingenuity of the Hams of those days.

At this juncture some may be a bit confused about the old call letter configurations. Prior to August 1, 1928, or thereabouts, all amateur calls assigned by the Federal Radio Commission and/or Department of Commerce, predecessors to the present Federal Communications Commission, had no letter prefixes whatever, the district numeral being the first character in the call. However, when DX exchanges became common in the amateur bands, an unofficial accommodation was worked out to minimize confusion. The U. S. amateurs first adopted the prefix "U" which was later changed to "NU", while the Australians took "A," and so forth. Actually this system didn't supply a prefix. Rather it was first used as an intermediate, working out like this: suppose 6HM (U.S) were to call Australian 2AB. He would send 2AB 2AB 2AB A NU 6HM 6HM 6HM K, using the new intermediate rather than the familiar DE. Beginning on or about August 1, 1928 the Federal Radio Commission started issuing new calls with the W prefix, in accordance with a formula worked out at the International Radio Conference of 1927 in which a majority of the nations of the world participated. Some didn't take part in formulating the agreement, but most accepted its provisions. Then on January 1, 1929 the Commission ordered that the W prefix be added to the calls of all amateur stations within the continental limits of the United States and the K prefix, with sometimes another letter, as in KZ5 for the Panama Canal Zone, for those licensed to operate in U. S. possessions.

To carry on with my story, it was in late 1928 or early 1929 that another amateur appeared in Oceanside in the person of Fred Pierce, W6FP. He was assigned to Oceanside as line superintendent for the San Diego Consolidated Gas and Electric Company, as it was then called. Shortly thereafter, in 1929, Bud Davis, who had a radio sales and repair shop in Oceanside, was licensed. His call was W6AEP. As I recall it, Fred built a rather interesting transmitter consisting of a pair of 210 tubes, paralleled, in a tuned plate-tuned grid circuit. The parts were installed in an oak table phonograph cabinet. The tubes, coils and variable condensers (capacitors to you youngsters) were all mounted on the top, where the turntable and the pickup arm had been. The power supply was installed below in the space meant for the wind-up motor, where there were one plate and two filament transformers, a smoothing choke, a pair of 2 mfd. filter condensers (capacitors, son) and a pair of UX 281 half-wave rectifier tubes. This supply was capable of delivering 750 volts DC and was the first high voltage power supply using thermionic (vacuum tube) rectifiers I'd ever seen. Bud, having no transmitting gear at the time, bought it on the spot.

In 1932, when the depression was worsening, Bud moved to Hollywood ultimately finding employment in the motion picture studios as a sound technician; this despite the fact he was deaf as the proverbial post. It was painful to hold a conversation with him, for one had to shout to be understood. Despite this disability he was an accomplished pianist. Considering the fact he'd never had a lesson in his life and was not able to read a note of music, one must reach the inescapable conclusion that he was a man with an extraordinary talent and gift. In order to keep body, soul and family together while establishing himself in Hollywood, he played the piano in many of the then popular cocktail lounges of the town. Thus he came to know a few of the great, a number of the near-great and legions of the not-so-great in the motion picture industry.

In 1930 I fell into a pattern of regular contacts with Harold Ulmer, W6EPM, who then lived in Alhambra. My unreliable memory tells me that Harold's father, who was employed by the Post Office Department, had applied for a transfer to Oceanside in order that he might live near some property he had theretofore homesteaded in the Moosa (or was it Gopher?) canyon region. The transfer was affected and Harold appeared to add to our burgeoning Ham population. The impact of his arrival was considerable inasmuch as he had an intimate knowledge of the construction, care and feeding of vacuum tubes. He was, and is, very generous in sharing his expertise. Although now an inactive Ham, Harold continues in the electronics business today, having a manufacturing plant in Oceanside.

It was at about this time my continuing power supply problem was solved. Up until the late twenties most radios (I'm speaking of broadcast receivers, son) were battery powered. Among the batteries available to the public were small lead-acid "B" cells in 50 volt banks. Actually 24 lead-acid cells when connected in series would produce approximately 50.4 volts DC when fully charged These would deliver as much as one ampere to a load for a time (I've long since forgotten their ampere/hour ratings) and therefore were highly desirable as plate voltage sources for low-powered transmitters and sources of bias voltage for high powered rigs. As some of you will recall, "B" battery eliminators operating from commercial power mains first became available in the twenties and thereafter totally AC powered receivers appeared in the late twenties, relegating the old storage "B" battery to the fate of the dinosaur. I came by twelve of these beauties for the price of carting them off. They made a wonderful plate supply. I charged them 100 volts at a time using a rectifier and a small light bulb in series with the 110 volt AC line. With the battery plate supply I received PDC reports, as one would expect. There was a double pole single throw knife switch, mounted on a porcelain base, used for the plate voltage controller. On one occasion the thing was accidentally shorted. The fat arc developing across the switch blades was a thing of beauty, if not a joy forever. Allow me to now confess that the arc was frequently struck to impress visitors. You ask me, why didn't the fuses blow? My reply is that we didn't worry very much about safety in those remote times. While one might shudder at the thought of such reckless disregard for the rudimentary rules of safety, I thankfully take comfort in the fact of my survival. By the way, one extinguished the flaming arc by merely blowing it out!

There was a considerable advantage secured in using a bank of two, three or more of these batteries as the source of biasing voltage for the very hard driven class C amplifiers of the day, inasmuch as the hefty grid current developed in the final amplifier tube was a charging current. Consequently there was never any drain on the battery except, of course, for internal leakage. About the only attention the batteries ever needed when employed as a source for bias voltage was an occasional check of the electrolyte level. I add this observation for the benefit of generations of amateurs who have had no experience with those hard driven class C amplifiers. In the old days the practice was for Hams to run their amplifiers at a grid bias voltage of several times the tube's specified cut-off figure. In so doing plate current would flow over only the peak portion of the positive drive current cycle. Naturally much more driving power was needed, This, of course, made for greatly enhanced efficiency in the amplifier's operation, a figure said to approach 85 percent in some cases. Because the signal emitted from such a device was heavily laden with harmonics, hard driven heavily biased class "C" RF amplifiers are not much used today, if at all. Final amplifier tubes employing tantalum plates were highly prized then because of their ability to absorb gas when operated at high temperatures. The result was that the plates of tubes such as the Eimac 250 TH would often turn white hot when the key was held down for a few seconds. Because the VHF and UHF segments of the spectrum were not much used in those days, we could get away with those harmonic producing devices. Television and FM broadcasting changed all of that, and for the better, I suspect.

In 1929, for the princely sum of $7.50, I acquired a type 210 triode vacuum tube, the rated plate dissipation of which was seven and one half watts. At the time it was the generally accepted "work-horse" for low powered amateur transmitters. A tuned plate-tuned grid oscillator was fabricated and put to work with the battery plate supply. A UX-222 tetrode was added to the receiver as an untuned RF stage. This combination lasted until mid 1930 when a "master oscillator" (VFO to you late comers) was included in the transmitter and the 210 was modified to become a class "C" power amplifier. After learning how to neutralize the amplifier, I discovered the modified rig was a winner. If the amplifier wasn't loaded down too heavily, I received PDCX reports regularly. This meant my signal was pure dc with crystal stability. Perhaps it wasn't that good, for we had already begun the practice of bargaining for signal reports at that early date.

It was in 1930 that I became personally acquainted with Ralph Culbertson, W6CHV. We had chatted with each other occasionally on CW and it was by this means that we arranged a visit. Driving from Oceanside to Escondido I met him at B and C Electric Company, where he was then employed. From there we went to his residence, situated on a hill west of the city. There I saw his Ham station - one of the classics of the day. His transmitter was a Hartley oscillator powered by a 203-A, a tube called a "fifty watter" in those remote days, inasmuch as its plate dissipation was allegedly 50 watts. The receiver was the standard of the day - an autodyne detector followed by two stages of audio, powered by batteries. The power supply for the transmitter was situated under the operating table, of course, and consisted of a pole transformer, chemical rectifier, a very large smoothing choke and a couple of very large filter capacitors. Additionally he had a cute little monitoring device - a completely shielded receiver with the A and B batteries enclosed within the shielding. With the monitor he could hear his transmitter, how it sounded when fully loaded, and additionally, could spot where he was in the band, for the monitor*s oscillating detector could be heard faintly in the station receiver. His antenna was a 40 meter end-fed zepp.

Even then Ralph was interested in pursuing DX, for he had a collection of QSL cards that was impressive, including one from Moscow, a rarity in those days. By the way, when I last talked with him, not a long time before he left us behind, he showed me his log book from the early thirties, and sure enough, we were able to find log notations of our contacts. Also he had a photograph of the station set-up described above. It seems that he saved everything from his early days in amateur radio. Let us hope that some individual or group was able to take possession of his memorabilia, for it deserved preservation.

Thus far you have been told little or nothing about the operating practices and procedures that were followed in the late twenties and early thirties. In the day of the self excited oscillator-transmitter one usually considered himself lucky if he could establish his transmitter frequency within plus or minus ten or twenty KHz of where he wanted to be. So, if one elected to call CQ he would listen for replies starting at his nearest band edge and thereafter tune the receiver either upwards or downwards, at the band edge indicated. When looking for DX, the shrewd ham located himself as close to the band edge as possible, calculating that the DX station would begin to search for an answer to his CQ at that spot. In those days most of us who were interested in DX would arise at about 4 o'clock in the morning and listen on forty meters for Japan, China, the Malay Peninsula, as well as for Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. At that time there was a lot of Ham activity in China, particularly in the Shantung Peninsula, where numerous missionaries kept the forty meter band well occupied. South America was relatively easy to reach. Twenty meters was the place to look for Europe. South Africa could occasionally be heard in the evenings and early mornings on forty meters, if one listened closely. It should be mentioned that I was not much interested in DX in those days, so I'm certain a knowledgeable old timer, Dick Shanks, for instance, could give you a more exhaustive and accurate report on this subject.

In the fall season of 1931 I betook myself off to UCLA, which stay lasted only one school year inasmuch as depression related problems cut my cash flow seriously. In the fall term of 1932 I enrolled at San Diego State, there to attend classes from time to time as my financial fortunes dictated. While there I became acquainted with Bernie Bernardini, who then had a dance band, one appearing to have an edge in performing for sorority dances. Perhaps Bernie*s youthfully importunate blandishments intrigued the girls. I don't know, but suspicion so. Anyway I was given a job playing trumpet in his organization. The group was known, only among its members, as "Muzz Bernardini and his Woptonigans." Because of Bernie's generous and forgiving nature I managed to retain a position for a year or two as one of his side men. Thus it was possible for me to keep body and soul together while attending classes. Bernie was a fellow Ham with the call of W6IZW, if I remember correctly. It seems to me that he spent considerable time on 160 meter phone in those days. As a matter of fact, some of his evening sessions on 160 became known among the local denizens of that band as the "Bernardini Hour".

The depression years, in one way or another, produced a great many Radio Amateurs, for numerous intelligent folks fell upon hard times in those evil days. In order to keep themselves occupied, some of the more intelligent took up Amateur Radio as a hobby and thereafter managed to secure employment in the expanding electronics industry as the result of what they'd learned from it. Radio listening was the evening project in most homes, while the radio "soap operas" kept a legion of housewives entertained during the day. Evening programs such as Amos and Andy, Lum and Abner, Fibber Magee and Molly, One Man's family, the Fred Allen and Jack Benny shows became staples in Everyman's life. The only problem Amateurs suffered from this mushrooming development was called BCI, or broadcast interference. Compared with the difficulties we encountered with TVI at a later date, the disability was relatively simple in its cure.

During those periods when I was not going to school, I managed to acquire a state-of-the-art transmitter consisting of a type '47 crystal oscillator, 210 buffer and a 211 final. This line-up was complicated by the fact each of the vacuum tubes utilized in it required a different filament voltage. This must have been in 1933 or 1934, when such a device was considered a medium powered rig. It wouldn't be that nowadays, as the input power never exceeded 250 watts when it was fully loaded. Under optimum conditions the output power would run 150 watts or so, if I didn't hold the key down too long. By way of explanation, in those days we usually kept our final amplifier tube in plain view in order not to melt down the plate of the poor thing. We were slow to realize that a doubling of the output power will make a small difference at the other chap's receiver. Hence, squeezing out that last watt did little other than to inflate our confidence. Actually there was no means of measuring the power out other than loading into light bulbs of known wattage, so the effort was really nothing more than a guess. At about the same time I managed to acquire a Hammarlund Comet Pro superheterodyne receiver, considered the standard of excellence in its day. With this arrangement I became interested slightly more in DX, managing to make my transmitter operate on ten and twenty meters. Unfortunately the logs and QSLL cards have long since disappeared. School work and other demands on my time prevented me from doing much with amateur radio in the middle and latter part of the thirties.

It should be noted here that with the advent of cheap crystals and multi-element vacuum tubes the Amateur bands became quite different from what they had been in the twenties. First, with crystal control one knew, confidently, where he was transmitting frequency wise, provided that one of the stages following the crystal oscillator in his transmitter was not unstable. If one had a lot of crystals he could move around a chosen band readily. As the bands were harmonically related, one could easily multiply the operating frequency to another band. The development of class "B" modulators made it possible for the 'phone man to run his station more efficiently, as prior to the early thirties practically all Amateur 'phone work was done with the Heising, or class A modulation system, which was notable for its inefficiency. The new modulator design ended all that, inasmuch as sufficient modulator power could be gained with smaller and less expensive vacuum tubes operating at lower plate voltages, and this resulted in the popularization of AM 'phone activity. But then we saw that go the way of all flesh in mid- century with the advent of the single sideband-suppressed carrier system we find in vogue today. If my recollection is correct, it seems that the single sideband-suppressed carrier mode was first suggested in the early thirties, and I wondered about it at the time, asking myself why use two sidebands when they both say the same thing? Additionally, if the carrier may be inserted locally and the modulation applied at a very low level, why pay tribute to the utility company for all the juice used to support the then conventional phone transmitter which, operating at the legal limit of one kilowatt, required about 500 watts of audio power to sustain one hundred percent modulation? But in those days I was a CW addict, and remain so until today.

The thirties produced a great many changes in the field of Amateur Radio aside from those noted above. Perhaps the greatest of these was in the appearance of commercially manufactured Ham equipment. Art Collins produced a very nice little transmitter early on - an artifact now much sought after by collectors of antique gear. National manufactured the SW-3 and FB-7 receivers while Hammarlund, Breting and Hallicrafters made competing models. Numerous transmitter kits were offered and one or two manufacturers introduced transmitters. It became the practice of Hams to buy their receivers and to build their transmitters, for the ready availability of vacuum tubes and parts made it much easier to put together a high powered rig. By high powered I mean a transmitter capable of operating at a final amplifier power input of one kilowatt. Eitel-McCullough produced transmitting tubes with tantalum plates, an element capable of absorbing gas while operating at high temperatures. Thus they would not go "soft" if mistreated. It is rumored, spuriously no doubt, that there were some who exceeded the magic number of one kilowatt input to the final amplifier, for who would commit such a dastardly act? And it was in the thirties that the VFO came into its day. At first these devices seemed to universally suffer from drift and instability. The CW gang sought to key them in order to accomplish break-in operation, meeting with varying degrees of success, mostly poor. A construction article or two appeared in QST, and perhaps another magazine, showing how to build a heterodyne type VFO, a device that would cure most of the VFO problems encountered with break-in CW, but we hams were slow to take up the idea. And to add further to the accomplishments of that fateful decade, the rotary beam made its appearance! My old friend, Harold Ulmer, W6EPM, built one of them, later writing an article about his project which appeared in the pages of QST.

Next, came World War II. It soon developed that the local Draft Board had me in its sights and to avoid its clutches I dodged the draft by joining the Naval Reserve. My reasoning was that in the Naval Service one could usually keep clean and the quarters and food are normally better. As the result the Navy ill-advisedly commissioned me an Ensign in 1942. Thereafter I was ordered to the Naval Training Center at Harvard University where I expected to be converted from civilian status into an officer and a gentleman, more likely a civilian in uniform - a "Ninety Day Wonder." To my surprise this was not the progression of events, for after about thirty days of squads east and west as well as measured doses of the Watch Officer's Guide, I was ordered to the Naval Research Laboratory at Anacostia, D. C., there to learn all about Radar and Radio Countermeasures. I believe that subject is now called Electronic Warfare. And so it came to pass that I became a Thirty Day Wonder! After schooling at NRL for a few months I was sent back to Cambridge for some more training in radar systems at MIT, and from thence to San Francisco for transportation to Commander, 7th Fleet.

Following thirty days of luxurious (?) cruising aboard a Liberty Ship, the SS Simon Bolivar, I was introduced to our remotely related cousins at Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. There, as fate would have it, I was assigned to GHQ, Southwest Pacific Area. So here I was, in the Army! Well, General MacArthur (more than likely a remote subaltern) assigned me to a confused international and interservice group called Section 22, composed of civilians and service men and women from the several Allies involved in the war effort. The duty of Section 22, as I understood it, was to devise ways and means of destroying the usefulness of the enemy radar systems. I might say parenthetically that we knew he had one, for I had seen an air search radar produced by the Japanese exhibited at NRL's facility out on Chesapeake Bay. It was very crude device and, like lots of enemy equipment, actually worked surprisingly well. It had been captured in the Solomon Islands at some earlier date.

The biggest problem facing the administration of Section 22 was in devising ways and means to keep its numerous personnel busy, or at least to produce a suitable paper trail to justify the large number of people assigned thereto. The commanding officer was an ambitious Royal Australian Naval Reserve Commander who deemed that the importance of his command was to be judged by the number of personnel involved in it. To make a long story short, after a beautiful month of inaction at Brisbane I was sent, together with one technician, a radar search receiver and pulse analyzer, to a PT Boat squadron in New Guinea waters, there to look for enemy radar installations. We found only one between Cape Gloucester and Madang and, after using up some three months on this assignment, were returned to the safe haven of Brisbane. On this venture I came very close to becoming a casualty, certainly not from enemy action, but in an instance when a bored B-24 pilot made a bombing run on my PT boat at an inopportune time when we were about a quarter mile off the enemy held beach at Madang, New Guinea. I am very happy to report we successfully avoided his salvo of bombs, and doubtlessly provided considerable amusement to the enemy troops ashore. No matter how well you see to it that intelligence reports are properly routed and distributed, there's always somebody down the line who doesn*t get the word! (Out of a misplaced sense of delicacy, I do not here include the colorful epithets the crew used to describe the unfortunate incident!) By the way, the PT Boats carried radar (the SO something, if I remember) as well as the very rugged and competent Collins TCS transmitter and receiver combination. To keep anything working for very long on those rough-riding craft was an accomplishment.

Thereafter I spent some more heavenly months in Brisbane, my very light duty consisting in supervising (read watching) the installation of radar search receivers on submarines. Then came an opening out at the submarine base at Perth, Western Australia. Unfortunately the job went to another chap, for that was a much desired spot. Shortly after that disappointment I was ordered to Sydney to join the USS Nashville, a light cruiser. While aboard this ship I installed a radar search receiver, pulse analyzer and some radar jamming gear. Also I was aboard for the Morotai and Leyte operations, on which the Nashville was flagship. Again we were the flagship on the Mindoro operation when we took an enemy Kamakaze aircraft on the port side amidships. This occurred when we were at the juncture of the Mindanao and Sulu seas. The ship was seriously damaged, and as the result of the unfortunate event it was ordered to return to Leyte Gulf, where we unloaded the casualties which were frightful in number, and awaited orders. It was a certainty that the enemy found this "suicide mission" profitable for he put a major warship out of commission at the cost of one aircraft together with its pilot, obviously a brave man filled with grim determination.

Hoping we would be left aboard on the ship's return to the States for repairs, my dream was dashed when I happened to read a shoreside blinker message ordering me and my crew ashore at Leyte, there to report to good old section 22. That was a blow, but fortunately I was then ordered back to Brisbane, which by this time had become a back-water port, and from whence I came home in May of 1945. It was rough to get out of Australia in the latter days of the war, for few transports or other ships seemed to call there anymore. My crew was sent home, but the transportation officer told a group of us who were ready to go home that he simply had no quarters available on homeward bound ships for commissioned officers. Tiring of this seemingly permanent bind several of us, under the sponsorship of a Navy Commander agreed to a passage home with the troops. While it seemed as if it took and act of Congress to get approval for this plan, we finally got the go-ahead. When a partially loaded transport coming from Colombo, Ceylon, put in at Brisbane, we got aboard and were homeward bound. Installed in a tier of bunks in troops' quarters - yes, they tolerated us - we all managed very well for the two weeks it took to take us back to San Pedro, where an Army band welcomed us by valiantly playing Auld Lang Syne from the dock. From this bundle of experience I learned a few things: First, the war wasn't won because of my efforts, and secondly, the best a service man can hope to gain from a war is to come out of it with a whole skin, and lastly General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur, who, with his numerous staff, was aboard USS Nashville for the Morotai and Leyte operations, was even then madly running for President of the United States. His press secretary, a Colonel Lehrbas, was busily singing the General's praises to all who would listen, or who couldn't escape tactfully. And the good General, in his evening strolls around the deck, would stop at the gun-tubs to give autographs to the crew members. Oh, there were other things that occurred, such as the battle of Surigao Strait, Kamikazes and Halsey's blunder, over which I'd have considered going over the side had I known why we left Leyte Gulf at flank speed early one morning, but I'll not go into that one.

Perhaps the reader might think I'm being unfair to General MacArthur who, unquestionably, was a remarkable man. In all fairness, his refusal to release the battleships used in the pre-invasion bombardment of enemy installations on Leyte turned out to be an act of wisdom, whether or not he intended it that way, particularly when the enemy task force appeared at Surigao Strait early on in the Philippine operation. Thus it was fortunate for the allied cause that he had his way in the dispute over the disposition of those ships.

On returning Stateside, after some 30 days of leave and reunion with my family, and learning to drive on the right hand side of the street again, I reported to Naval Research Laboratory and from thence to the Navy PG School at Annapolis, and from there to the Naval Training Center, Communications, at Harvard University, where the students were Communications Officers from the fleet, for the most part reserves. The school's mission was to educate these folks in elementary Electronics and I was supposed to instruct them in the arcane subject of Radar Countermeasures. Happily for me, and perhaps for my students, the war ended and I was cast loose into the maw of civilian society where indeed I belonged. My military career was not a particularly happy one, but as long as it is a part of the narrative, I thought it better to bore the gentle reader with it at this time. On the bright side it awakened me to something of what the future held for the electronics industry. For instance, with what we had learned from the development of radar systems it was easy to envisage the coming of television as a popular vehicle for public information and entertainment. And I was privileged to see my first computer in the basement of the physics building at Harvard University. It was a block long device in relay racks requiring a special cooling system to carry away the heat generated by multitudinous vacuum tubes. It wouldn't compare to a modern lap-top job!

However, the war years were considered by me to be almost a waste of time, for I contributed so little to the outcome, and inasmuch as they kept me from entering the practice of law until 1946. Now to continue with the purpose of this tome, which, after all, is about my experiences with Ham Radio, soon after returning home I purchased a Hammarlund HQ-129X receiver and an old Navy GO-9 transmitter was found in a surplus store. Of course the low frequency part of it was of no use, as was the power supply, but it was an easy job to adapt a power supply fashioned out of surplus bits and pieces. It was a fine piece of gear, but its high frequency coverage was limited. A few years later I happened to see one of the little Johnson Ranger transmitters displayed at Western Radio in San Diego. It intrigued me so much that I bought it on the spot, and being thus weakened I purchased an HRO-60 receiver. Being equipped with "modern" gear, I gave the venerable old GO-9 that had served me well to a struggling young Ham. Well, wanting to get into the stream of things, I built my first big amplifier around an 833-A triode. It worked great, although it was all my poor little Ranger could do to drive it adequately. Further, the problem of neutralizing the amplifier when operating above 14 MHz was always challenging. The 833-A seemed not to care much for the higher frequency Ham bands.

It was along about this time that the specter of SSB was starting to emerge. While not being much interested in 'phone work, I noticed that these SSB rigs made excellent CW transmitters, this because of the heterodyne VFO mentioned earlier herein. So I purchased a Central Electronics 20-A exciter and a bulky linear made by Gonsett. It had four 807s in it, operating at a plate voltage of 800. Its plate tank circuit was interesting and the thing worked like a charm. Then a 20 meter beam and its associated tower were acquired. A product detector and a full lattice crystal filter were added to the HRO- 60 and I was in business, this time on 'phone. Well, I can remember hanging out around the high end of 20 meters, then 14.3 MHz, hunting for DX. After engaging in this activity for a while, another repressed urge took hold - for during the war I had become interested in radio Teletype. After acquiring a surplus model 26 Teletype machine from the Telephone Company, I built a terminal unit, or Teletype converter, and got into that phase of our hobby. And it didn't take long to learn that my prized HRO-60 was not sufficiently stable for serious RTTY work. This was in 1956, I believe, and Art Collins had his 75A-4 receiver on the market. I purchased one of them at Western Radio, and it worked great. As a matter of fact, I still have it together with a KWS-1 transmitter purchased a year or two later. Let me explain that in those days we didn't have PK-232 terminals and computers, so the Teletype converter I built fully furnished the necessary intelligence and power to run a noisy Teletype machine. Of course 110 volts AC was used to power the machine's motor. Later I came by a model 19 Teletype machine with tape perforator and tape reader. Now I was really in business! But then a strange thing happened, for after successfully making the noisy contraption work there was no challenge remaining, so I gave away of all the raucously loud machinery, much to my wife's joy and relief.

It was at about this time that I grew weary of the practice of law, so I sought, and obtained a position on the Bench at the Courthouse in downtown San Diego. This occurred in 1959, if my memory serves me correctly. My Ham activity lagged from there on until retirement in 1974. Howard Shepherd and I conspired to run for Director and Vice Director respectively for the Southwestern Division of ARRL in 1964. Due mostly to Howard's determined campaign we were elected. During my two-year term I did as little as possible while Howard, bless his heart, took all of the responsibilities. At the end of our term, in 1966, it was agreed between us that Howard had had enough, so we didn't run for re-election.

So time rolled on with minimal activity on my part, except in 1967 when my daughter was a student at the University of Bordeaux. For that school year I kept a weekly schedule with a French amateur, F9YZ, Jacques Cartier, who lived near the University. We kept it mostly on CW as the French counterpart of our FCC frowned deeply on third party traffic being handled on 'phone, or CW, for that matter, except for the fact they didn't worry much about the latter. Actually all they seemed to worry about was 'phone patches. On a few Sundays, when we figured that the monitoring officials were goofing off, we resorted to SSB at 21,251 KHz, so that Mama could talk to her Chick. Happily we got away with it.

One other item should be added. An informal schedule was maintained between Arthur Scotten, W6ZMZ, and myself from 1947 until the late seventies. We met once or twice a week, on 3523 KHz, to discuss almost everything imaginable. He is now a silent key, but in his heyday was a marvelous conversationalist. He lived in a rather run-down three story mansion on Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena. Obviously his family had been wealthy at one time. Unfortunately the good times had long since departed. It seems that he had graduated Magna cum laude from Stanford University after only three years of undergraduate work and had been the 1929 Rhodes Scholar from that institution. His field of education was in the classics. Our conversation lasted for some thirty years. We had a lot left to discuss when he left us behind. Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

From the time of my early childhood the sea was a thing of deep fascination for me. As a youngster I often stood at the bluff's edge for hours on end, looking out to sea and watching the sailing ships, hull down on the horizon, dreaming the romantic dreams of childhood all the while. Actually I attained a commercial radio telegraph license in 1937 or thereabouts, but was always too busy going to school or earning a living to try to find a sea-going job. When the war came I ended up in the radar business, although there was considerable sea duty involved in it. Well, in 1974 I thankfully retired from the Bench, which was about as bad as the practice of law, only to find that retirement didn't suit me. Accordingly I contacted the FCC and Coast Guard in order to become licensed properly. It happened and thereafter I spent about seven months aboard one of the Scripps Oceanographic Research ships as a radio operator, thereby coming up with the six months seagoing experience required of shipboard radio operators. Following that I signed on with the MEBA-AMO, which, translated, stands for Marine Engineers Beneficial Association - Associated Maritime Officers Union, and was quickly assigned to the SS Mount Navigator, KNAR, a rather decrepit old tanker berthed at New Orleans, from whence it was ordered to take on a load of wheat destined for the starving masses of Egypt. We loaded at a grain elevator situated on the Mississippi riverbank, thereafter proceeding downriver to the Gulf of Mexico and thence across the Atlantic via the "hole in the wall" in the Bahamas. Passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, we traversed the Mediterranean Sea and made port at Alexandria, one of the three great cities of antiquity.

There I divided my time between the excellent museum and the bar at the Hotel Cecil. I remained on this old "Rust Bucket* for some six months, making two trips from the Gulf of Mexico to Alexandria, after which it made the circuit between Gulf Coast ports and ports on the Atlantic seaboard, loaded with oil. As I recall, on arriving aboard this ship I checked out the gear in the radio shack, finding that nothing worked. There were no tools and only a few parts in the spare parts locker. With the aid of a screwdriver and my Swiss army knife I managed to get it all going, although I'll now admit the auto-alarm receiver was not really operative until we hit the mid-Atlantic. The statute of limitations has run, so it's OK to tattle on me now. Oh yes, I had a knock-down drag-out disagreement with the Port Engineer over the defunct emergency lifeboat transmitter-receiver, finally telling him that I wouldn't sail unless a functioning device was aboard. I won! We sailed!

There followed assignments to a number of ships. Among them was the SS Independence, KPHI, one of the last U. S. built ocean liners. She had long since been transferred to the Panamanian flag, had subsequently been laid up at Taiwan and was in sad shape. To make a long story short, I was sent out to Kobe, Japan, to oversee the installation of the communications gear as the ship was being prepared for return to the U. S. flag. Certainly the technicians out there were very competent, but the Captain was an old friend who wanted me to see to it that everything would be in working order on the day he was scheduled to take command. At my first glimpse at the old ship, then at the Kawasaki shipyard, I held little hope for her rehabilitation, for she was filthy and teeming with cockroaches. But the Japanese shipyards move with remarkable and admirable efficiency so, in the course of a few weeks she was converted into a thing of beauty, minus the bugs. I must say this for the Japanese yards - they move with great efficacy and one doesn't have to put everything under lock and key. The U. S. yards, I fear, are loaded with folks who will steal everything that isn't chained down. At any rate we made a test run in the Inland Sea, and thereafter departed for Honolulu with the ship's company, consisting of the crew and essential members of the hotel department aboard.

Because I was the only "sparks" aboard at the time, and it turned out that massive amounts of traffic had to be moved in order that the ship's hotel department might be prepared to accommodate passengers aboard shortly after our arrival in Honolulu, I had piles and piles of messages to send, but didn't worry too much about this as we had SITOR gear in the radio shack by which the voluminous traffic might be moved by TELEX. For benefit of the uninitiated, SITOR is much the same as AMTOR. I had used the system on other ships so was well acquainted with it. Well, Murphy was at it again! Not 24 hours after we took departure from Kobe, the ARQ part of the system stopped working. ARQ means automatic error correction. That didn't stop me as the HF transmitter had a kilowatt output, so the FEC (forward error correcting) system remained operative and KPH could still copy my voluminous traffic relatively error free. Then the other shoe fell! The automatic antenna tuner failed! It was contained in a nitrogen filled enclosure located atop the wheel-house. There were no spare parts for it, and to repair it while under way was impossible. Now the output of the HF transmitter fell off tremendously and the remaining pile of traffic was daunting. Well, KPH copied a lot of the pile by manual telegraphy while, fortunately, propagation improved, enabling me to go back to the FEC mode. I told the ops at KPH to use their judgment on the readability of the copy, after which the hook was finally cleared a day or so before we made port in the Hawaiian Islands. To the good crew at KPH I owed a lot! It might be well to explain that KPH was the only SITOR equipped coastal station on the west coast at the time. KFS didn't have it until July of 1980.

To shorten a long story, I served on a lot of ships and was able to see quite a bit of the world, some of which was great, Singapore among the best, and some of which I could easily do without. My service extended from "Rust Buckets" to fine vessels. Two of the ships had elevators to save my aging body the pain of climbing an endless number of ladders. (Translate that to stairs, son.) The largest was a super tanker which was hardly a ship, rather more like a floating oil tank. The thing was about a thousand feet long over-all and had a beam of 185 feet. Although the accommodations were grand, I never really could think of the monster as a ship. Because there was a satellite navigation system aboard, keyed into the automatic pilot, about all the Mates on watch had to do was to keep a visual watch and take an occasional sun-line or star shot, just to keep in practice, I suppose. But now I recall that the Mate on watch had to make a log entry of this event, so you may disregard my last remark. Oh yes, the Mates did have to answer the telephone which directed shoreside calls to the ship via the marine satellite in geo-stationary synchronous orbit. Practically all of the ship's communications were by telex and telephone via the satellite. Actually I didn't have a great deal to do, except to go along for the ride. The sea-going operators that remain active today tell me that the satellite systems have been greatly improved since my time.

Retiring from the sea at age 70 in 1982, I came home to my Snug Harbor, having fulfilled a lifelong ambition. The experience was rewarding, and I had a lot of fun at it. My view of going to sea was not that of the archetypal mariner, for I was curious about people, places and things. It seemed to me that most merchant sailors, whether residents of the fo'c'sle, or of licensed quarters were not much interested in people, places or things, and when in port hardly ever got further from the dock than the nearest bar, or bordello for the younger ones. You may rest assured that I was over the side whenever lines were made fast in a foreign port for there was nothing for me to do aboard, and being secure in the knowledge that the ship couldn't leave without me, it was true contentment. In foreign ports it was usually my practice to hire a cab for the day, one that had an English speaking driver, and take in all there was to see. Thus, if there was anything that interested me particularly, I could get back to see it in detail, provided that the ship remained in port long enough. In the late seventies and early eighties, the practice of hiring a cab for a day was relatively inexpensive in a lot of foreign ports. All of this superb entertainment and enjoyment is due to my very good fortune, for the day of the licensed merchant marine radio-electronics officer is fast approaching its end, a thing that makes me so very grateful for the opportunity I had. It was truly a fulfillment, and an experience I will always cherish and recall with pleasure; an experience bringing to mind the words of John Masefield, the sailor poet:

In the Beginning

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