Memories: Listening To The World! For whatever reason, my interests were always in electronics, even at an early age. I had my radio operator’s license when I was first in Junior High School in 1957. Our neighbor down the street, Marion Gillick, asked me if I wanted her old Zenith Trans-Oceanic console radio, and I, of course, said YES!!! It was bought new in 1938; people then did not have TV, so radio was their evening entertainment.
For one hundred dollars, you could listen to the world. Today on eBay, these go for $1,500 or more. One thousand percent markup in eighty years! Take a close look at the prices in the 1938 newspaper advertisement below!
I got my wagon and, with help, hauled this gigantic radio four doors down to my “ham shack,” where I had my tools and spare parts. Mom gave me some furniture polish, and I added the elbow grease. The cabinet was magnificent. The inside, not so much.
I attempted to plug it in, but the cord was “rotten” and ready to catch fire. I removed the radio from the cabinet and replaced the power cord. I then polished up the inside of the console, which was four feet tall and made out of excellent wood.
After inspecting the radio, I had to change the electrolytic capacitors as they were leaking. I changed tubes, but many were from the 1930s and hard to find. The main speaker was “blown,” meaning the paper cone was torn, so I carefully repaired it with fingernail polish (an old ham radio trick to fix speakers).
Finally, came the moment; I turned it on! Snap, crackle, pop went the volume control, but there was music! I turned it off and cleaned the controls with volume control cleaning fluid. Feeling pretty optimistic about now, I made a Windom antenna (copper wire 67′ in length and a down wire tapped in at about 13 feet) and strung it up between my ham-shack at the back of the garage to the neighbor’s telephone pole. Soon it was connected to my first “short wave radio!”
I spend hours and hours late at night combing the 5.6 to 18 megacycle shortwave frequencies and listening to foreign broadcast signals. My favorite was the Russians because they spoke perfect English and told us how their latest “Five-Year Plan” was going, ha ha ha.
I even sent our QSL Cards to the stations and, after weeks, got return cards which I kept for many, many years. My mother would be waiting at the door anytime I got a new card; she studied them.
A QSL card is a written confirmation of either a two-way radiocommunication between two amateur radio or citizens band stations; a one-way reception of a signal from an AM radio, FM radio, television, or shortwave broadcasting station; or the reception of a two-way radiocommunication by a third party listener. A typical QSL card is the same size and made from the same material as a standard postcard; most are sent through the mail.
It’s hard to believe that today, 65 years later, I can punch a few numbers on my phone and listen to the world.
I woke up at 7:00 am, late for me, and tippy-toed into the office to not wake Mary. At 7:30 am, she stuck her head in and said, “It’s PT day!” Oops, my bad! We got ready to go quickly! Off like a rocket, we hurried to Tustin.
PT was about an hour long, and afterward, we stopped at Ralph’s to pick up goodies for Saturday’s egg coloring activity. From there, we went home, had breakfast, and walked the garden; things looked good! Another month and we will be picking! I remembered yesterday when Scout came out to help!
Scout is so helpful! You got to love him!
Time to decorate for Easter, so up the stairs we went, and down came three large boxes of goodies. We spent the afternoon going through everything and putting them in their places. There were loads of memories in these boxes.
My bunny decorates for Easter.
It’s pretty amazing because some of these decorations were in newspapers dating back to 1995, almost 28 years! We have combined mine and Mary’s, and it’s getting to where we can’t tell which one is whose, the way it should be.
Why couldn’t the rabbit fly home for Easter? He didn’t have the hare fare.
Boxes come down, and decorations go up!
We went to Michaels and bought two new candles for the mantle, which are Easter colors! We shopped for a while, but there was nothing ready to jump off the shelf and hop in our basket.
New candles for the mantle.
Mary was anxious to cook up her pickings from the garden. She parboiled the beans and painstakingly shelled the fava beans. Meanwhile, I soaked the steaks in A-1 and Worchester Sauce in preparation for dinner.
People have been eating fava beans for over 10,000 years!
Preparing Fava Beans is a lot of work, but they sure taste good!
Mary decided to steam them this evening. They were al dente in about five minutes; just perfect!
Mary picked peas and beans from the garden!
The steaks went five minutes on a side with medium-high heat, and we had perfectly cooked medium-rare pinkish inside. Why didn’t I add mushrooms? Next time!
I bet my butcher that he couldn’t reach the meat on the top shelf. He said he wasn’t going to bet with me. He told me the steaks were too high.
What do you get when you cross a cow and a porcupine? A steak with a built-in toothpick!
I did the steaks, and they were perfect.
We watched two Bourne movies while we were eating dinner and cleaning up. They were full of action but somewhat unbelievable.
I noticed a full moon, so I popped outside and caught a snap of our home, the American Flag, and the man in the moon. I love the outside under-the-eve LED lights because I can change them at will via my phone—any of 64,000,000 colors, including twinkles, runner, sound modulated, and ten other schemes.
Our house is purple for Easter, Old Glory is flying high, and a Full Moon is out tonight!
By 10:00 pm, we were safely in bed counting sheep. Dr. Scout, The Wonder Dog, was snoring up a storm as I turned off the lights. Today was a good day.
