Does anyone recall...

[Gliderman8]

And somewhere I have a letter postmarked from Antartica. There was an advertisement in Popular Mechanics in the 60's to send in 25 cents and get a postmarked letter from the first post office in Antarctic. I still have it.

 

[waltesefalcon]

I have a friend from high school who works for the company that maintains the weather equipment at McMurdo. A few years ago he was selected to be stationed there over the winter in order to monitor the equipment and he sent me a post card. It's pretty cool.

 

[pdplot]

My dad had a "ham shack" amateur radio station in the finished attic that we had in the 1940s. His call sign was Wn1VGU - "one very good uncle". The N was for novice. He never got his full ticket because you had to pass a Morse Code test and he would not or could not pass it. At 10 years of age in 1943, I was the youngest radio amateur in the country riding around with my dad in first the 1939 Pontiac and later the 1941 Packard 160 talking on the Abbott TR-4 radio as a member of the WERS - War Emergency Radio Service. I also built a crystal set with cats whiskers and galena ore. On weekends, my father made pilgrimages into the radio district in NYC to pick up parts at the several stores in the Lower East Side like Lafayette Radio and I think, the original Radio Shack. He took my brother and I with him. Today, all are gone my dad and the stores). I miss Radio Shack.

 

[mikephillips]

Whenever I see these "toys" as an adult, I think back how envious I was of the rich kids who owned them. I managed to acquire a used microscope and from parts made a short-wave radio. The bigger the antennae, the better the reception. Come in Moscow! GONZO

Had a buddy when I was young who's dad was a ham radio guy. We used to sit around sometimes listening to the Russian broadcasts with them telling us how wonderful the Soviet Union was and how they had to turn 1000s away at the borders to keep the country from being over crowded. We used to get quite a laugh out of that since even as youngsters in the early 70s we knew that wasn't true.

 

[DrEntropy]

I also grew up around a couple W3's (western PA) in the fifties and sixties. One had a huge rig in the basement pumping out as much as the Pittsburgh AM station KDKA. He was part of the emergency network, too. Sunday mornings they would all report in. My dad got the Hallicrafters SX-99 from him. The guy had modified it to include a variable pitch oscillator circuit, making it possible to listen in to sideband broadcasting. Made voices sound like cartoon characters but they could at least be understood. The other was a physics PhD, they, along with my dad were mentors to me as a pre-teen kid. And I did build my first "cat's whisker" receiver at about ten or eleven, had a code practice oscillator with a key, learned Morse Code as a result. All but forgotten now, though; -. --- / -. . .-- ... / -. --- .-- !

 

[DavidApp]

My Dad was fluent in Morse. Learned it in his Commercial Cable Company training and had to read it from the early paper chart telexes as they came in to the office in Waterville Ireland.
On several occasions he had to go up in the Water Tower to send or receive Aldis lamp messages from the Cable ship in the bay. There was no Cell phones in those days so that was the best way of getting information to and from the ship. The Water Tower was an impressive stone structure with the tank on top. * will see if I can find a photo.
The cable ship was fishing for the broken ends of a cable. Fishermen would often damage the shore ends of the cables.

David

 

[DrEntropy]

Wow, David! Sounds like your dad had a perilous job! Certainly not for the faint-of-heart.

 

[longbridgehealey]

When in the Marines I was assigned a 2033 MOS, aka radio telegraph operator. Went through the Morse code school in San Diego, graduated and within two weeks they eliminated the use of morse code, and my MOS. Can’t remember much of it at all, now.

 

[gonzo]

Learned sign language but Morse Code eluded me for some reason. Probably because a good friend at the time was deaf - is that OKay to say these days. Anyway, had fun communicating this way. All useful and handy skills to have. Even toddlers are taught sign now!

In WWII intercepted coded Morse code messages were interpreted by personnel who could detect the "hand" or "signature" of the person sending. Intelligence would then track the signature from one location to the next, then from this deduce what activities might be planned in that new area. They also deduced that only experienced "hands" were transferred to areas of strategic importance. GONZO

 

[DavidApp]

He probable did not consider it that perilous as the stairs were inside the building. There was probable no hand rail. There was a tank behind him.
This is what remains of the water tower. It is an apartment now.

The office building which was constructed in 1899.

This is what the paper tape recording looked like before they did the punch tape. I remember the old ink units. Got ink on my fingers playing with them when I visited the office.

One of the maintenance guys made me a steam engine from scrap pieces of brass. Wish I had not lost in one of my moves.
David

Wow, David! Sounds like your dad had a perilous job! Certainly not for the faint-of-heart.

 

[pdplot]

I used to listen to Radio Moscow also. The Moscow Mailbag. A woman would read letters from people in the States about the Soviet Union. I can still hear the musical tune they used to open the show.

 

[Basil]

I recall having a Chemistry Set (probably Gilbert), a Microscope, a Tasco reflector telescope, an erector set, Lincoln Logs, and one of these:

Vac-u-form