Amateur Radio - Golden Era

[MD11]

A bit off topic, not so much entertainment but still Radio...

Having gotten into amateur radio over the past couple of years as a result of my great uncle's passing on I've come to truly understand that the best era of this hobby was (like with most thing) the Golden Era..

I thought I'd share a few pics with anyone interested..

http://www.k6ua.org/Main/Hams_of_Time_Past.html

 

[Fletch]

The radio amateur had a lot more freedom then. Hams actually helped develop technical advances that aided commercial (broadcast) radio in its earliest days.

Hams were even involved in television during its abortive first life, the disc scanning era. Most were viewers only, but a few sent pictures. After the CRT tube, tho, the competition got too intense and it became a game of corporate secrets.

Hams today are only allowed point-to-point communications. Playing a phonograph into you mic to ask for reception tests might have been okay in 1930 but today, anything resembling broadcasting is regarded as a threat to commercial licensees and the fees they generate.

 

[W4ASZ]

I'm of three minds on this one.

The Golden Age of amateur radio arguably extended up into the 1970's when vacuum tubes were finally replaced by solid state devices in receiver circuits despite the superiority of the former in the front-end and mixer stages. (Check out the Collins radios of the era. Still the bee's knees !)

I have a strong feeling that ham radio was still doing well until the FCC decided it was not important enough to merit real exams at its field offices.
I remember going to Atlanta for my Technician class exam and, later, my General and Advanced exams before the worthy staff of Chief Engineer Angelo Ditti, who was truly hard-boiled.

Then they did away with the Morse code requirements, which was a huge mistake.

Take your pick. Still an OK hobby.

 

[vitanola]

After noting this thread, I turned to my bookshelf and spent several pleasant hours thumbing through my bound volumes of QST. It seems to me that the most exciting days of the hobby were the mid-to-late 'Twenties, when little was known of the propagation of the "Low Waves", and it seemed that important discoveries were announced in almost every issue of the magazine. By the early 1930's the game seems to be much more cut-and-dried, with fewer trick hook-ups. Ham and commercial practice converged in the 'thirties, and operating began to definitely dominate the hobby by the coming of the Second World War.

 

[W4ASZ]

There are those of us who can delight in the quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore: QST magazines pre-WWII, and the McGraw-Hill texts of Henney and Cooke, to say nothing of the immortal Bard, Frederick Emmons Terman.

Only a tiny minority of today's hams can lift the hood of a National HRO receiver and understand the genius of James Millen and Herbert Hoover, Jr.

The Golden Era truly is only mostly dead, but the wisdom of the saying, "'Real radios glow in the dark," cannot legitimately be questioned.

73 !

 

[JimWagner]

I have to admit that some fun went out of the hobby for me when I sold my Tempo-One for a solid state rig. Pushing buttons just isn't the same as adjusting the plate tanks.

 

[W4ASZ]

CQ Field Day

Foofoogal noted this under Events and was rebuked. It does belong here.

http://www.arrl.org/field-day

This is a vintage event going back to 1933. Particularly if f you have a shortwave radio that has sideband capability, or you can copy Morse code, you'll be amazed at the number of stations on this weekend.