Aerials... Mine And Theirs!

I Worked At Henry Radio

Henry Radio was the king of Ham Radio in the 1950's and 1960's. I worked as a technician repairing these little devil radios getting one shocking experience at a time!

An antenna (plural antennae or antennas), or aerial, is an electrical device which converts electric power into radio waves, and vice versa. It is usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver. In transmission, a radio transmitter supplies an electric current oscillating at radio frequency (i.e. a high frequency alternating current (AC)) to the antenna's terminals, and the antenna radiates the energy from the current as electromagnetic waves (radio waves). In reception, an antenna intercepts some of the power of an electromagnetic wave in order to produce a tiny voltage at its terminals, that is applied to a receiver to be amplified.

All my earning went back into ham radio and if you are a ham, you need an aerial!

My First Tower/Antenna

I bought an 88 foot steel tower which we put in the back yard. It was technically a mast as it required guy wires but only two sets!

On the top of the tower was a prop-pitch motor (the motor used to vary the angle of the propeller on commercial and military planes.  It was powerful enough and slow enough to mount the antennas on and point them

Not me but I spent a lot of time making adjustment at 88 feet in the sky!

The antennas, sometimes three, would each have a coax feed plus the rotator control wires would make for a hefty bundle.

From my operating chair in my bedroom I would merely move the pointer and the antenna 88 feet up would gracefully swivel pointing my signals to some far remote destination!

When I went up the tower, Mom went into the house!  I did have all the professional climbing gear as I also put up towers and antennas for a "living" while going to high school and college.

Living One Asks!

At Henry Radio they employed a Crazy Brit name Burtron Chappell. One heck of a nice guy! He headed up the tower department which consisted of he and I! Sometimes we contracted to Henry Radio and sometimes he would contract with the purchaser of the tower/antenna. I never knew how that worked... and didn't care except that working for Burt directly put cash in my hand directly and a lot of it.

As I said, we has a character! He owned a 1956 pink Buick station wagon!

It was a classic!

We said it was a tough vehicle and indeed it was.  We move 800 pound steel collapsible towers (20 feet when collapsed) on the top of that car!

We had tools, rollers, gin poles, a frames, and carts inside the wagon to be able to handle the beasts we put up!

I know I did about 100 jobs with Burt before I had to bow out and get serious about college.  Here is  memorable installs in a nutshell!

We put up a sixty foot tower on the top of a 40 story Santa Monica apartment building the and ham lived on the 32nd floor! We spent on day hoisting all the tower and antennas onto the roof and assembling them into a tower ready to go and a large Hy-Gain six element antenna.

Day two we anchored in the bottom of the tower and using an a-frame lifted it into a vertical condition tieing then first two feel with stainless steel multi-strand guy wires. Rough on the hands.

We cranked it up to fourty feet and repeated the process and again at the sixty foot top!

Out came the gin poles which gave us a block and tackle system to left the 200 pounds of antennas to the very top and fasten them in!

Last we had to route and cables down eight flights of stairs and into this guys luxury apartment! We drilled holes to handle the clamps every two feet for what seemed to be forever!