Ancient History

Personal 10 comments

A friend of mine sent me this You Tube video that he shot in 1989.  It’s me, John WN9T, Steve NQ1F and Dell W1LD at a 160 meter Morse code ham radio contest.  We’re using Boston’s WILD AM radio transmitter room and their 259 foot broadcast tower.  I’m 33 years old at the time and I give some commentary on the technical details of our setup.

Enjoy!

(Visited 9 times, 1 visits today)

10 comments

  2. Okay you hopped up and then started to speak in a language I have never heard before.

    Why was there a ‘dog house’ under the tower? Were there guard dogs? 🙂

    Thanks for sharing MJ. Do you know if the older guy (W1LD) who lived 4 miles from the place still alive.

    Looked like a guy who would have had a lot of great stories to tell.

    Brunty
    .-= Brunty´s last blog ..Thai Dancers, Simply Stunning. Thailand. =-.

    1. hi Brunty. i was talking “radio speak” and telling the details about the ham station we had setup. ancient history as i said. lol the dog house is what we call the small building under the tower that houses the matching networks. Dell Hood, W1LD is still alive i believe. he renewed his license in 2008 at least. according to his FCC data, he was born in 1908, making him over 100 years old! that’s all the details i have for him. but he is a really interesting guy. he was stationed on Johnson Island during the war and he personally experienced some A-bomb tests. he still has his test goggles and i remember taking them outside to look around. i looked directly at the sun with them and couldn’t even see a faint image of light. completely dark, and Dell said that the A-bomb blast was “bright” with those on. i can’t imagine. the evening that Scott shot that video, when Dell had to leave, he said “well, i’d better go while there are still some coats left.”

  3. WOW.. who shot the video??? This must be before I started to go to those 160m contests… because I don’t ever remember meeting Dell (W1LD) at these contests. I did go by his house one time with WN9T to setup a multi-band dipole for him.

    I’m guessing this was before the beverage antenna that was built by John, Steve, and myself. The memories that video brings back of operating from that cold little transmitter shack.
    .-= mike01905´s last blog ..Hurricane Bill – A near miss with New England =-.

    1. Mike, Scott, WB1F shot the video. Steve, NQ1F is on the left in the opening, and i discuss the Beverage antenna, RF preamp and bandpass filter on the video. so the Beverage antenna existed at that time. i don’t know where you were when that was shot.

  4. OK… I didn’t pay too much attention to the audio in the video. I don’t think I ever met Scott either (callsign doesn’t sound familiar).

    If you talked about the beverage antenna…. then it was after I started to attened those 160m contests. Maybe it was one of the times when I went there with someone else… and left early (the first few times… I didn’t stay all night like you and John did).

    –… …– -.. . -. .—- . …- ….
    .-= mike01905´s last blog ..Hurricane Bill – A near miss with New England =-.

  5. One more thing. I know its not related to this video… but…

    Ccongratulations to the Kuei-Shan Little League baseball team from Taoyaun for making it to the Little League World Series Championship game. They’ll be playing against the Park View Little League from Chula Vista, California in Williamsport, PA on Sunday at 3pm (3am Monday morning there).
    .-= mike01905´s last blog ..Hurricane Bill – A near miss with New England =-.

  6. That’s awesome, MJ! I think it’s really cool that someone has sent this to you after so many years. I keep hoping that someone will do this with me from my years of singing and dancing on stage in China. I don’t have any videos of that time and hardly any photos. Thanks for sharing. It’s nice to put some images with all your crazy stories!
    .-= Carrie´s last blog ..Summer ‘09 Update from the K-Bergers =-.

Comments are closed.