Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 07:31:30 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:
Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On 19 Nov 2004 01:39:52 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:
Our regional boating magazine is about to observe its 40th year of
publication,
so I'm digging through issues from each of the first few decades to
choose
material for an article to lauch the anniversay year.
~~ snippage ~~
T&G Electronics was advertising some VHF radios. (Remember, these are
1965
prices...) The 75-watt, six channel model was available for $299. A
110-watt
model, also six channel, was priced at $399. The top of the line, very
deluxe
150-watt unit with *8* Channels (!) was a mere $549. (A lot of
middle-class
jobs only paid about $500/month back then. Imagine taking out an
18-month
installment loan to buy a VHF)
And those were crystal controlled with flibberdejibbet tune controls.
I have one in my collection of antique radios - I'll take a picture
today and post it.
Gosh...from the days when Radio Shack was a real electronics hobbyist
store.
First store ever - right across from BU on Commonwealth Avenue in
Boston. I had a Radio Shack short wave receiver from that my Uncle
sent me one Christmas. I was living in WI at the time (before we
moved east) and heard the BBC for the first time when I was around ten
sitting in my room with wire strung all over the place hooked up to
the little transistor "Shortwave" receiver. Sparked my interest in
electronics actually.
Remember Lafayette Electronics? My first FM receiver was a Lafayette
- I'll never forget putting that kit together - took me almost a month
working after homework was finished late into the night. Got it
together and had to tune it and bought my first piece of test
equipment - a signal generator - which was also a kit. :) I
remember my father saying "FM - it will never catch on - all they play
is classical music". WTMG in Milwaukee in fact had the only FM
transmitter in the mid-west at the time. WGN in Chicago was a couple
of years behind them.
Heathkit was also high on my list of stuff every Christmas when they
were still around. At one time I had a ton of Heath amateur radio and
test equipment. My Dad's first color TV was a Heath. That was fun.
Oh - gosh - how could I forget Allied Electronics on Michigan Avenue
in Milwaukee. I used to beg my Dad to take me to work with him at the
Milwaukee Sentinel on vacations so I could hang at the Allied store in
the afternoon and just look at "stuff".
Ah yes - the gud ole' daze...
Later,
Tom
I certainly do remember Lafayette and Heathkit.
We had a wonderful Radio Shack in downtown New Haven. It had some
displays of "manufactured" goodies, but most of the store consisted of
aisles and aisles of red plastic and painted wood parts bins, with every
electronic piece and part known to mankind, or, at least, all that a kid
could imagine. I think the store was that good because it was in walking
distance of Yale's engineering college.
I remember in the 7th grade finding a brand-new Model A Ford spark coil
there, if not OEM, then one built to Model A specs. Well, I really
needed one badly, because my Science Project for that year was to build
a cloud chamber. Which I did...and the damned thing worked. I still
remember exactly how I built it, too...after all these years.
--
Man, talk about flashbacks ...
Back in the late 50's or very early 60's when "HiFi" was the rage my father
and a group of his friends got into building speaker cabinets for their
"systems". They all met 1 or 2 times a week after work at one of the
friend's garage because he had a well equipped wood working shop. I still
remember the cabinet design - V shaped with a tunable slot along the rear
for bass reinforcement. They took me along to the Radio Shack in Boston to
get the speakers and crossover components and I can still remember the
building and the original Radio Shack sign.
A few years later when we moved to CT, there was a Lafayette Electronics
store at a strip mall on the Merritt Parkway. I saved all my lawn mowing
money one summer because I just *had* to have a Lafayette audio amplifier
kit. I built it and it was the center of my music system for years. I think
the kit was $18.95 and my mother, who drove me to the store when I finally
had the money, just couldn't understand why a box of tubes, resistors and
capacitors meant so much to me.
Little did she know, it was the beginning of what ultimately led to a career
and still remains as an enjoyable hobby.
Eisboch
(sorry 'bout the email Harry. I accidentally hit "reply to sender" instead
of "reply to group"