Heathkit Sixer

For various reasons I've never been interested in VHF and UHF ham radio. I know I'm shortchanging myself and missing out on an aspect of ham radio that's a favorite of many. And I mean no disrespect towards hams who enjoy those bands. Maybe one day I will too?

But my very first ham radio was a VHF rig that I obtained before I even had a license. Kind of ironic, isn't it? I don't remember my exact age, maybe 12, but I found it at an antique store that my parents had forced me to...I mean...had taken me to and I was shocked to see a bonafide ham radio for sale. It was a Heathkit Sixer that was for sale for the pricely sum of $10. The lady had no idea if it worked or where it came from. She seemed kind of shocked that anyone wanted it. I walked out carrying it after beating her down to $8. I guess I was cheap even back then!

The radio actually worked. I had that thing apart a dozen times, shocked the fool out of myself at least 3 times, and much to my dad's frustration, never seemed to be able to put it together again without his help. Not having any sort of an antenna, a roll of magnetic wire strung across the garage floor served as my aerial, or rather, my floorial. About a 3/4 turn of the tuning knob was all it took to scan through the entire 6 meter spectrum, which I did for hours on end. Nothing. Never heard anything.

Eventually I realized that I'd thrown away my $8, earned by mowing a month's worth of grass ($10, with $2 left over after buying the radio) and I lost interest. The radio sat gathering even more dust. Until one day when I turned it on again, twisted the knob, and realized that I'd just passed a signal. I quickly turned back but nothing was there. For an agonizingly long period of time I kept tuning back and forth about a 1/4 turn and finally, YES, a real person talking plain as day! I could hear him very well but I couldn't hear the other station he was talking to at all, but it turned out that the fellow who I could hear lived in the same subdivision. My floorial antenna worked! Sort of.

That was the only time I ever heard anyone on that radio, but that one instance of hearing someone rekindled my interest in ham radio and I began studying every night to get my novice license (which I kept renewing for the next 35 years even though I was inactive).

I visited home on leave from the Air Force in the late 80's to find out that my folks had hosted a garage sale. My Sixer was gone. "How much did you get for it?", I asked. "Ten dollars", my dad said. "Isn't that what you paid for it?", he asked.

"No, I guess I made $2 on the deal", I said. Actually I was a little ticked that they'd sold it without acking and I quickly inquired about the rest of my ham gear that had been in their attic. Fortunately it was still there, and I still have all of it today.

Maybe I'm keeping it for spite?

A day to just stay inside

I'd just better not operate this weekend. My beloved Vols fell to LSU on an incredible final play, and today my Titans blew it against Denver with a minute or so remaining. If I get on the air, I'm liable to blow something up, I think.

I guess, on the bright side, I got a LOTW confirmation from Togo, so that's a positive, right?

Two bads, one good, surely there's another good out there to balance things out.

But on second thought...

To top the chaos and disappointment off, I awoke to 3 inches of water upstairs recently. The other three inches had already drained downstairs and was running through the light fixtures. Needless to say, there's hardly any drywall left and the floors have been ripped up. So far the insurance company has been great, the disaster team arrived quickly and surveyed the damage and the workers started the following day. It can't go fast enough. It appears that a toilet had run all night and overflowed. In true Southern fashion, my wife said she drove home at lunch to find it sitting in the front yard. Perhaps I'll leave it there to get a rise out of the neighbors? Nah, it might just blend in if I'm not careful.

I wish I had more to say about ham radio - I have received a number of QSL cards both from the bureau and direct, a few new countries. Since completely starting over in late 2007, I'm up to 241 countries worked and exactly 200 confirmed, with 187 of those being through LOTW. Slowly getting there. Now to work on getting cards from the other 41. Seems like I'd been stuck on 230-some countries worked for about a year before getting a couple of new ones this summer. New ones are coming so much slower now. I've read several places that after you work your first 200, it will slow down considerably. Seems they knew what they were talking about.

I guess the other thing ham-related is that my shack took a bad lightning hit back in June. I've always been pretty religious about disconnecting antennas before going on a trip, but I had a trip pop up suddenly and wouldn't you know it, a terrible storm hit. It toasted my K2's 100 watt amp and blew up my new KAT-100 tuner. Receive was fine. It also blew out the comm port and video card in the ham computer and rendered the indicator on my rotor useless. I now turn my antenna by hollering upstairs, "Which direction is it pointing now?!". For some reason, my wife seems to get cranky after the 20th time. For the life of me I wonder why? It also blew up my LDG antenna switch and remote. Both are dead. Of course, they don't make them anymore.

But, while the K2 was off for repair, that gave me time to get reacquainted with my FT1000MP, which, thankfully, was spared any damage. It made me wonder, could I live with only the Yaesu? Sure I could. I actually bought the K2 before I bought the Yaesu, but I'm not sure if I would ever have given the K2 as much credit as it deserves if I didn't have the FT1000MP to compare it to. I really missed it while it was at Don's house. One evening I even took out the FT-857D and set it up. While it is a terrific Swiss Army knife rig, it isn't in the same league and after just a few minutes of use I packed it back up.