HOW I STARTED IN HAM RADIO (and a bit more)
Ted Hatch
G3ISD RAOTA 2000
Having read the soul baring contributions of several other OT, I wondered whether my
two-pennorth would interest anyone. Maybe so, if only in the interests of helping out our
editor with copy.
It began just pre-war when one of the boys in “our gang” turned up with a small electric
motor in “skeleton” form, presumably from a hair dryer or some other small item.
Fascinated by this, we repaired to the house of one of our number, whose father had a
“wireless set” run entirely from wet batteries. The HT was from a rack of very small
lead-acid cells in series, presumably there were about 50 or 60 cells in the bank. When
his dad touched the motor leads to the battery, the motor whirred in a very impressive
manner and I was hooked. I think the HT battery might have been a “Milnes” unit.
These were equipped with a changeover switch which transferred the cells from series
to parallel connection, then they were charged from a 4 volt or 6 volt accumulator
battery charged elsewhere. Needless to say, the house had no mains supply.
Nothing to do with radio, but it sparked my interest in anything electrical. Noting my
interest, family members would give me spent radio batteries, bits of wire, switches,
bulbs, etc, and I played with these on the kitchen table. The interest in radio was
triggered when Dad bought a “wireless set”. As it happened, it was a “Cossor Melody
Maker”, in a large wooden cabinet, but it was not much of a performer. The controls
were a mystery until I found a lad in our class who knew something about such things.
It turned out that it was a “straight” set which I suspect might have begun as a kit, and
which was unloaded on to Dad as an unsuspecting dupe as superhets were in the
shops. The boy’s name was Loveridge, and I have sometimes wondered if he ever
became a “ham”, but I never clapped eyes on him after I left school as he did not live
anywhere near us. Anyway, I told him that the set had two small knobs which moved
the numbers behind two small windows, two larger knobs, and a push/pull knob at the
side. “Oh yes” he said airily, “the two little knobs are the tuning, (RF amp and detector
as I later realised), and the big ones are a volume control and reaction (?)”. The knob
on the side was the wave change switch of course. That operated a QMB switch under
each of two large coil cans. No doubt the poor performance was mainly due to our not
knowing how to operate it properly, plus the absence of a decent aerial. I was very
impressed with Loveridge’s erudition, and although I never got around to building
anything while still at school, I asked him which side of a variable capacitor went to
earth. He would not tell me, saying, “if I tell you, you will know as much as I do”. I have
never forgotten that, and I only ever came across that strange attitude once again in my
whole life. My first experience of a “restrictive practice” I suppose.
Then I left school , but how to acquire the few shillings to purchase the components for
that
0-v-1? My pocket money was 1/6 a week, (7.5p for any youngsters in our midst), which
was mostly swallowed on the Saturday cinema and the bus fares. I hit on the idea of
selling my precious stamp collection to the master who ran the school stamp club, which
raised the princely amount of 14 shillings (70p) and have regretted it ever since. But it
did buy me the needed parts, including the 2v triode at 4/9, from J & F Stone, in those
days a major high street source of domestic electrical items. My interest quickened
when Dad bought me a copy of Practical Wireless one week. I think it was 3d weekly
then, and full of “good stuff” every time. Who remembers the “backbone” contributors of
those far off days? I refer to H J Barton Chapple, W J Delaney, and Frank Preston, all
of whom, with Fred Camm, contributed the bulk of the articles then. I have never seen
them mentioned in any “anniversary” issue which seems a shame.
I mostly listened to broadcast stations on that 0-v-1, but I soon became deeply occupied
with day release and evening classes at the then County Technical College at Dartford,
in my chosen occupation of an electrical apprentice. After I finished my apprenticeship
which had included six years of study I volunteered for the services having previously
been “deferred “. By now with formal engineering qualifications, “they” decided I would
be more useful in civvy street than in the services and I was directed to the
Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Great Malvern, where I attended
radar and radio courses. TRE had taken over Malvern College for the duration. That
was an interesting experience in several ways. It was the first time I had been away
from home, and I with others was billeted in what were known as the Admiralty Huts
located in a railway siding at Malvern Link station. I imagine they were typical of
services accommodation in that there was no hot water or heating, so they were
desperately cold and uncomfortable. We were a mixed bunch, I recall a vet, a
pharmacist, a mathematician, sundry engineers and physicists etc. We took our
somewhat indifferent meals in what had been the school refectory, (posh name for
canteen) After a while I found lodgings in the attic room of an elderly couple in the
town. This was not much better as I shaved by candlelight using a jug of hot water left
outside the bedroom door by the old lady each morning.
At TRE we were lectured by various boffins on a number of subjects. One of these
subjects was waveguides, where I discovered the inadequacy of my mathematics. After
we finished the courses which covered not only the extensive theory of radar and radio,
but also the current radar systems then existing such as Oboe, H2S, CH, CHL, etc.
Unfortunately, on the completion of our courses, our notebooks were confiscated and
presumably destroyed. That was a shame as I think they would have made very
interesting reading now. We were then individually interviewed and told of the various
positions available. My interview was conducted by an elderly RAF officer in civvies,
and those jobs on offer that I remember were employment at TRE, flying prototypes at
Defford aerodrome, “progress chaser” in the Malvern factory, or HQ liaison in central
London, and possibly others. I asked him what a progress chaser was, he explained
that it more or less involved making a nuisance of myself to the production people, and
being given frequent advice to “F… ORF”. (Note the upper class pronunciation of “off”).
Somewhat regretfully in retrospect, I chose London HQ of the Ministry of Aircraft
Production as it would enable me to live at home with the associated comforts, although
it involved commuting daily.
My job was to perform a liaison service between the design establishments (RAE and
TRE, etc) and the manufacturers. Quite a responsibility for my comparatively tender
years. My boss was the late Dick Leeves G2LV, although at the time I knew nothing of
his amateur radio interests, and only found out by chance many years later, and only a
few years before he passed away. I still have the reference/testimonial he gave me
when I left the Ministry. The job entailed some travelling around the country with
overnight stays, all done by rail of course. During all this time, radio as an interest took a
back seat until the war ended, and I managed to secure my release from the Ministry.
Others may recognise the scenario. It was not easy, and took me several months until I
found someone in an obscure office in Lincoln’s Inn who pulled the right levers and I
escaped in about January 1946. Anyone familiar with the Civil Service of those days
(and perhaps today) may recognise the signs. Somewhat cynically, I put the difficulty in
obtaining release down to department heads and managers etc, being unwilling to see
empires so painstakingly built up during the war shrinking around them. At this time,
with my increasing interest in amateur radio, I wanted to join the RSGB but I was late
doing so because in those days one had to be proposed by existing members and I
knew no one. However, I managed it in 1948 as BRS16809.
Thus I rejoined my previous employers in their London engineering office in Victoria as
a draughtsman until 1951, when I joined a chemical company in Luton as works
electrical engineer. During the two years I spent there, Ralph Saunders, G3CVW, who
was also an employee, gave me CW practice in the lunch hour. I took the test at Luton
Post Office where the examiner was a lady telegraphist who used her copy of the Daily
Mirror as her text.
At the time I thought she was a charming elderly lady, but in retrospect she may have
been only in her late forties or early fifties! Thus do one’s perspectives change! I had
not told Ralph that I was taking the test, and he was very pleased at the result.
I had taken the RAE in Dartford in 1951. It was set in the traditional fashion of course,
ie fully written answers with calculations. Box-ticking exams had not been invented yet!
After the CW test I applied for a licence and was allocated G3ISD in late 1953.
Those were the days when one had to spend a probationary year restricted to CW.
When the year was up the, the log had to accompany the application for a full licence. I
kept in touch with G3CVW ever since those days, and in recent years was able to call
on him annually at his home in Cheshire until he passed away about three years ago at
93 or 94. It was during the days in London that I acquired a brand new BC348L
receiver in Tottenham Court Road. I think it cost about £16 which doesn’t seem much
now, but would have been about two weeks salary in those days. As an airborne
receiver it was operated from the aircraft 24 volt DC supply, so I removed the
dynamotor which had provided the 200 (?) volt HT supply for the valves, rewired the
valve heaters for 6.3 volts, added an “S“ meter, a noise limiter, and an audio output
stage.
In 1953 after two years in digs in Luton where radio was not possible, I was offered the
post of chief electrical engineer of a large paper mill in Kent. I accepted the offer,
married at the same time, and moved to take up the job. I was now able to take an
interest in ham radio again. In order to serve my CW “apprenticeship”, I made a 160
meter “breadboard” transmitter consisting of a 6C5 crystal oscillator and a 6L6 amplifier
from the 11th (1947) edition of “The Radio Handbook” (USA). Thus I made the requisite
number of CW contacts in the year, sometimes doubling in the amplifier for a few 80m
contacts. Soon the need for a AM transmitter arose and not being one to do things by
halves, my “specification” was all bands (except 160), and 150 watts, thus giving an
ideal opportunity to indulge my preference for design and construction. So the line-up
was 6SJ7 vfo, 6SJ7 buffer, (using a copy of G5RV’s Elizabethan vfo), followed by three
or four 5763 doubler stages using a “Labgear” switched coil unit, and ending with an
813 beam tetrode. I chose the latter because they were cheap, easily available, and
with a massive indestructible carbon anode. Not only that, but the 50 watt filament
helped warm the garden shed shack in Winter! I found that contrary to the Labgear
info, the 5763 line-up gave insufficient drive to the 813. So a tuned driver stage was
incorporated using a so-called “miniature 807” (I forget the actual nomenclature) after
which all was well. The modulator consisted of a pair of 811 triodes in push-pull. The
line-up here was 6SJ7 mic. Amp., 6SJ7 phase splitter, two 6B4Gs in push-pull, then the
811s. This was capable of 200 watts of audio, far more than needed, and so was much
under run, but it produced excellent audio quality. The psu supplied 1000 volts for the
813 and 811 anode voltages using 866 mercury vapour rectifiers, as well as 400 volts
and 200 volts for other stages. All this was topped off with an ATU, everything then
being mounted in a 19 inch panel rack on casters.
Eventually the BC348L was
replaced by a secondhand Eddystone 888 which suffered from drift until the vfo heaters
were supplied from an external 6 volt constant voltage transformer.
This set-up was in use for a number of years until SSB reared its head. I had made a
number of good friends on AM, including ON4KP (callsign since re-issued) who passed
away twenty years ago. Paul was a doctor who was originally involved in the Antwerp
diamond industry before he studied medicine, after which he took a degree in
electronics. Truly a man of many parts. We were in close touch for many years until his
untimely early death, and we continue to receive his widow Helene here every year.
So what about SSB? Initially the AM set-up was supplanted by a secondhand KW
Viceroy and the Eddystone 888 referred to above. That was soon replaced by a
KW2000A which did sterling service for several years until a move of house and job in
1971 meant six years of QRT until 1977 when activity re-commenced using the
KW2000A.
But before that, in the later 1960s the AM transmitter needed to be disposed of. I
advertised it in RadCom with no result, until I had a phone call from someone in East
Anglia who was interested, having been told about it by G3KPO, the late Douglas
Byrne. This was in the days of the pirate radio stations in the North Sea, and the buyer
who was not a ham, had what he thought was the brilliant idea of a station in the very
centre of The Wash and thus out of territorial waters.
Wrong of course, but anyway he bought the transmitter, but I don’t know what became
of it.
Some time before our move in 1971 I had begun construction of G2DAF’s linear
amplifier using two of my favourite 813 valves. In fact by the time we moved I had
completed the construction but not the commissioning. Then soon after retirement in
1982, I started to finish the job, but by now I had decided that the G2DAF method of a
grid driven amplifier with the screen voltage derived from the driving source via a
voltage doubler was not for me. I felt that the way to go was to use the “grounded grid”
cathode driven connection as being inherently stable, easy to get going, with ample
drive being available from the usual 100 watt transceiver. This amplifier was described
in RadCom in May and Sept 1982. and worked very well but I later disposed of it when it
was followed by an improved version which benefited from experience gained on the
earlier one. The later one was eventually sold when QRO was no longer an issue with
me. Each of these amplifiers was capable of 1kw SSB. The second one appeared in
SWM for March and May 1986.
After 17 years with the paper company, I had thought it time for a change. The new job
taken up in 1971 was with a USA design, construction, and procurement engineering
company operating world-wide in many industries, including mining, petroleum,
chemicals, etc etc. I don’t need to dwell on detail, except to say that I never expected to
visit the USA, until I did so eight times in one year when I was 50ish. Work in the
Middle East and South Korea involved among other things, various periods in Japan on
material sourcing, and I must mention Akehabara in Tokyo. This is an area of several
streets given over to businesses selling electrical and electronic goods, often over
several stories. One floor would be white goods, another TV etc, and another ham
radio products. It was a veritable amateur radio wonderland, and on one trip I brought
back a Yaesu oscilloscope and ATU, and on another an FT101E. After paying import
duty and VAT at Heathrow, there was still a good saving to make it worthwhile. As this
was over thirty years ago, things must have changed since then.
Sunspot activity in the later seventies and the eighties was such that we all enjoyed
those days when ten metres was wide open, and we made the most of it. Then I took
early retirement and thought of “fresh fields” etc. It coincided with the appearance on
the club notice board of a Creed teleprinter for sale. As good a change as anything I
thought, and took a look at it but it was a well-worn example and I declined.
Subsequently, and through the good offices of G3GJW I bought from the widow of Peter
Balestrini G3BPT his Creed 7E which appeared to be almost new. With plenty of time
to fill, this became a reason to start building things again, and so I joined BARTG,
bought the PCBs and built an ST5 terminal unit etc and sallied forth on RTTY. About
this time I disposed of the KW2000A and bought a Kenwood TS680.
Soon after my “induction” into RTTY, I was at one of the Sandown Park BARTG rallies
when I met Peter G3WHO who had written a best-selling RTTY program for the BBC
computer which I was using at the time. We had a very agreeable chat during which I
asked him if he had specifically asked for his distinctive call, recalling as it did the TV
series “Dr Who”. (He is now a retired doctor). “Not at all“, he said, “I was given the call
while I was still at school, and had no idea then that I would take up medicine” An
interesting coincidence.
Very soon Amtor appeared on the scene, and by this time the Creed 7E had been
supplanted by a Creed 444. I forget the details, but I purchased an item which enabled
Amtor to be operated using a teleprinter. I think the item in question was the work of
Peter Martinez G3PLX, the originator of Amtor. However, the transmit and recovery
times of the TS680 were not fast enough for Amtor, and I had some correspondence
with G3PLX who had the same tcvr. Peter duly supplied the details of the minor tcvr
modifications, which entailed the use of wire cutters! My cutters hovered nervously over
the upturned TS680 before I gathered the courage to snip the indicated wires in my
“pride and joy” of a very pricey item, after which the TS680 changeover timing was OK.
Eventually, the PC took over from the teleprinter as the appropriate software became
available. In my case, this was at first the BBC computer with G3WHO’s program (see
above), then the PC with G4BMK’s excellent multi-data software suite.
Some years later the TS680 was replaced by an Icom IC775DSP which I still have. I
enjoyed a number of years on Amtor until it seemed to fall from favour about the very
early nineties with the advent of PSK31.
I found Amtor ARQ a very relaxed mode, mainly because the changeover function from
receive to transmit is initiated by the “other” station when he is ready, so that you don’t
have to concentrate both on your type-ahead text and also watch out for when he
finishes his “over“. Plus it is to all intents and purposes, completely error free and I for
one would welcome a resurrection. Yes, it is slower than other modes, but what’s the
hurry? Meanwhile, I had met Colin G3MUL (at one time a well-known DXer from a
number of overseas locations) on 80m Amtor. We became firm friends and maintained
a twice weekly Amtor ARQ sked for fourteen years until his failing health caused it
gradually to die out. We continued with a weekly ssb then telephone QSOs until his
untimely passing about three years ago.
For almost ten years I enjoyed committee membership of BARTG, assuming the post of
“Components Sales Manager” and contributing regularly to the BARTG publication
“Datacom”. These activities included producing a number of designs and (jointly with
G6LZB) associated PCBs. Among these were the psu mentioned in OTA News
recently, and a new terminal unit called the “Versaterm”. This used op.amp tone filters
instead of the LC filters of the venerable ST5, which made them easily adjustable.
Subsequently, John G4SKA revamped the Versaterm into the Multiterm by substituting
quad op. amps. for the discrete 741s, which made for a smaller and neater assembly.
Ignoring recent years of relatively low activity, this just about brings me up to date.
Except to say that the IC775DSP deserves to be switched on more often, and the beam
rotated occasionally. Most activity takes place with the PCs these days, at the same
time encouraging my xyl into the mysteries of a laptop, with the phrase “blind leading
the blind” coming to mind. But here I must confess that this narrative is much longer
than I anticipated when I started it, but as is usually the case, memories continue to
surface as one writes. I would gladly enter into email correspondence with any
interested party concerning the contents of this “write-up” Hopefully, anyone who has
read this far has managed to do so without “drifting off”.
E J (TED) Hatch G3ISD RAOTA 2000. September 2011
NB This article appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of the OT News, The Journal of the
Radio Amateur Old Timer’s Association.