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[Phys-L] Ham radio. was: Re: (no subject)



I was a bit later, probably 16. (ca. 1953) I wasn’t interested in talking, just be legal in experimenting. However, I managed to voice communicate via. the 420-450 MHz ham band from San Marcos Pass to a friend in down town Santa Barbara, about nine miles, AARL field day. [1} I discovered later the APS-13 IFF unit in a San Francisco surplus store. While a Sophomore at UCSB, one of the profs. was setting up a large scale cosmic ray shower detector. He was going to use co-ax. cable. I suggested radio using the APS-13, which already had a blocking osc. pulse generator, transmitter and receiver. The detector had about five Cherenkov detectors paired 5” MPTs in coincidence looking at water in heavy Al army stock pans (10 gal?); diameter of detector circle about a half mile? This was for the International Geophysical Year (1957/58). My intro. to radio while in HS was a 6J6 oscillator. (These were the transmitter, a pair, in the APS-13). I managed to “get it up” to 800 MHz measured w/ lecher wires. Resonance length detected with a torch bulb in a wire loop. I drove the tube hard, cooled in a cup of water, intermittent use, of course.

bc waxing nostalgic.


[1] I still have the transmitter and receiver and one APS-13. The plate diss. is ~ 30 W. This is laughable now, wherein all in a tiny IC! And much higher frequencies. My friend at the Exploratorium is experimenting with the mm wave radar IC used in ’bile's vehicle proximity sensor. (Our Prius’ most useful feature!)

On 2020/Mar/22, at 01:29, Bob Sciamanda via Phys-l <phys-l@mail.phys-l.org> wrote:

When I was a boy of 14 I was a Ham Radio Operator. We built radio
transmitters and chatted with others world wide.
Now modern technology lets EVERYONE do this via the internet using
facebook, etc and cell phones. We used both Phone and Morse Code. Now it is
Voice and Texting!

Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
treborsciamanda@gmail.com
www.sciamanda.com
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