talk about Timtron and RNYI yet.
But I will here.
Along with some many other things
I want to say.
Bruce
Got a coffee cup. Waiting here until you get back, Bruce.
Nice website they've got here. Nice chairs.
Timtron is greatly loved by many here
on the East Coast.
He does shows on WBCQ - I have not
heard them.
He is a ham radio operator, but I won't
give his callsign.
When I got my very first "communications
receiver" in 1969, I heard TimTron on 75 meter AM.
As the years past, I heard him on 80 and 160 also.
In 45 years, TimTron has sounded exactly the same.
Although he "marches to the beat of a different drummer" -
his knowledge in circuitry involving AM transmission is huge.
I think he could take any kind of AM BCB transmitter, 1 kW,
5 kW, or whatever - and put it on the AM phone portions of
160, 80, 40 meters, or whatever he wanted. (He would
not run illegal power, I know that.) He is a genius.
He knows about 1910 transmitters. He knows about Class E.
He knows everything in between. If it's AM and high power,
he knows it. He knows about vacuum tubes, from little teeny
ones to 4-1000s or more. He can put any transmitter anywhere.
That's where the Cadaverlac comes in, and this is a clue about TimTron.
He put a huge AM ham radio set-up in an old Cadillac hearse. He put
a huge vintage ham station in an old bus in a field. I won't say the
name of the bus.
He is always there, working on high power AM transmitter
projects for the ham bands. And he appears to be a good
friend of the WBCQ crew. I can't say I've listened to him
everyday of 45 years on the 75 meter AM segment, but
I bet he has been there the whole time.
And in 1969 on my Heathkit HR-10B receiver in W. Hartford, CT
- at night - his beautiful AM signal around 3885 kHz or thereabouts -
would quiet the receiver to nothing except his voice. The meter would
be at 40 to 60 dB over S9.
He has also been known to sing and play blues guitar at ham
radio conventions. These songs (or - the one song) well - when
I heard it - well - I don't remember it.
A genius, marching to the beat of a different drummer,
loved by many it's - TIMTRON.
I wish
I knew what he knows, and I wish I could do the kind
of transmitter work he has done.
I don't know if the Cadaverlac runs. It might just sit there
in the field next to the bus.
TIMTRON, The Legend
Bruce
Sorry. I guess your coffee must be cold
by now.
Next time, I'll try to talk about my receptions
of Radio NewYork International at my monitoring
post in Newington, Connecticut.
Bruce
P.S. And in those days, it REALLY was
a monitoring post.
of the way way past. (Side Bar:
I'm running a magnification program
on here because of vision problems. If
it messes up the way my message really
looks on the board, let me know.)
I'm going to have to do this in
pieces.
In the 1970s and 1980s, I heard
quite a few pirates on AM, FM and SW.
Carl - I know you have never heard a
pirate broadcast - and you have always
wanted to hear one. Let me say this:
It is/was only fun hearing a pirate if they
know/knew
what they are/were doing - then listening to
them would be fun.
I don't advacate pirate radio - actually -
there are plenty of pirates right here in the
Hartford area, and they are no fun to listen to
at all. Things have completely changed. Back in
the 1970s and 1980s - a pirate station was a
wonderful thing - I mean wonderful in the
literal sense. You wondered how they got it
on the air in the first place. It was HARD to
make a pirate station in those days.
Now - it's a completely different thing. The
pirates around here aren't doing it for the
technical fun and the radio art. They are just
buying broadcast equipment and are making money
from commercials. I find it to be very annoying.
But that's a whole other subject and doesn't fit into
the "Yesterday Radio" thread. I don't think it's fun to
talk about either.
The pirates that I heard between about 1973 and 1995
were different. They were in it for the radio art - and were
doing it at a big risk. Some of them found out the hard way.
I'll name a couple of SW pirates I heard. In 1973, I heard my
first shortwave pirate on 7400 kHz. I was fading away because
the skip distance was changing at sunset. I never got an ID.
I heard something called KQRP in the 1980s on 15.050 kHz,
right below the BBC on 15.070. I heard Radio Clandestine -
a pirate that had no schedule and never showed up on the
same frequency twice. Radio Clandestine was on for a
long time. They sure must have known how to tune HF
equipment and antennas. Maybe they had a rig that
went from 2 to 30 MHz, I don't know. Unfortunately,
I don't remember the frequency. It was just an accident.
I have to go. I'll be back.
Bruce
All your radio experience makes great telling here on a cool gray day in the midwaste.
From what I hear on the Allan Weiner Worldwide weekly radio shows, TimTron is part of the WBCQ crew, he does air shifts and keeps their old transmitters running at full-flame.
Like a good ex-pirate TimTron likes his beer and I think he smokes with the intention of causing a tobacco shortage.
Like you said, Bruce, I would enjoy hearing a pirate on any band, and actually have heard illegal CB broadcasts from California, but the talkers were speaking broken English and I couldn't understand them.
I'll be back with more soon.
Bruce
I started tinkering with radio at the age of 5, almost 60 years ago.
I've been recapturing my youth, purchasing from Ebay the toys of my youth-Radio stuff.
This is my latest aquisition, an Essex WT-303 3 transistor Walkie Talkie.
CB channel 7, Super Regenerative receiver, no volume control just on/off and PTT.
I got two of them. After replacing the electrolytic caps (3 in each unit) they came to life. One works perfectly. The other needs a replacement PTT switch but it does receive.
My buddies birthday (same age as me) is the day before mine. We each received one at his 8th birthday party. Thanks Mom!
Well, I found two more WT-303 WALKIE TALKIES on eBay.
This pair is black. Both needed the electrolytics replaced but the PTT switches for both are good.
The pair work fine and are in pretty good shape for their age.
"What do we have now? Deaf people playing artificial instruments at maximum volume with screamers pretending to sing, pushed on over-amplified radio stations ignored by the public on their perpetual cell-phone calls defiant against the growing brain tumors."
Instruments?....it's all elecronically made....no istruments play any rap/hiphop and all pop music today, or any since the ninties.
Glad you see it.....it's musially challenged generation.
I love those old radios. some were works of art. Even the table radios of the 50s and 60s were styled nicely and blended in with other fine furniature in a room.
I grew up listening on a 6 tube Marconi(had the RF amp), a 1957 model.
Mark
Only for the musically and audio challenged.
The high end components and makes are all still there and the hi-fi stores are all still there.
The mass market stuff you get at Best Buy like what you are referring to where for 400 bucks you get a surround sound audio/video home theater system is not hi-fi but garbage for people who think that is good sound. Same for the musically challenged people who put these subwoofers in cars and shake the house down the block besides the 20 year old garbage car.
Real HI-FI is normal 2 channel and doesn't use subwoofers.
You can pay $3000 for a good integrated amp, $1000 or more for a tuner, up to $20,000 for the best turntables, good speakers can run you about $5,000 and up. Or there's makes like NAD that make good quality components that are more affordable.
The additional cause of the demise of hi-fi and the likeness to a live performance is music is not music any more....it's all electronically created.
And most of the mass market stuff whether at home or in those cars that shake the houses as it goes by is also the audience that listens to Rap.........I rest my case.
Mark