Nostalgia Reflector?

[Shadow]

Let me tell you... They must have been doing Cloning and never told us.. I had the same lifeless
worm it the FCC office in San Francisco on Battery Street.  Give me my First Class Radio
Telephone Exam in 1969.

I also had the pleasure of the same grade school desk, 2 sheets paper, 2  pencils and my high
technology calculator....  A Slide Rule

Shadow
=============
lurch wrote:

> personally, i like the reflections.  it has brought back memories of my experiences in the
> FCC's 'dungeon of doom' in the Dirksen Federal Building on Dearborn St. in Chicago in the
> late 70's and early 80's...I got my Extra not too long before they implemented no-code and
> the VE thing.  I still remember the examiner's face...a blond guy with as much facial
> expresison as an undertaker...and the little grammar-school Franklin desks and the old
> Instructograph with the Cannonball headphones.  I don't think they ever did upgrade that
> office to some new technology, like perhaps a wire recorder <chuckle>...when I passed my
> Extra, the blond guy got done grading my paper and said simply "it's all over now".  The
> next week I sat for my commercial ticket...I did actually get almost a smile out of him when
> he saw me sitting there waiting to take my commercial.
>
> Each exam, I made a day of it, rode the train into the city, went for my exam, then met NG9U
> [then KA9EZA] who worked downrtown, for lunch, then on the way home I would ride as far as
> Oak Park and change to the Central Avenue bus to visit the Radio-TV Lab up on Irving Park
> Road.  Sadly, I hear that the Lab has finally closed it's doors...the owner, WA9JEZ, was in
> business since about 1946 and still seemed to have one of every item he EVER had.  I still
> recall [remember this was back in the late 70's] he had a shelf bank of S-Line gear about 5
> shelves high and 10 feet long...the A-Lines were piles around it.  The place was 50' wide
> and about 100' deep and there was space about 3' wide and 6' deep just inside the door to
> stand...the rest of the shop was piles about 7' high with...well, basically, take the Dayton
> hamfest and cram it into a storefront and you get the idea.  Bought my first 'store bought'
> rig there--a mint Heath AT-1 for the princely sum of $35.  Wish I still had it.  The folly
> of youth...got my first phone rig there too--a Heath Apache...then when I got my Advanced I
> stopped and got the SSB for it...when I got my Extra I stopped and got a Johnson Invader
> that day...never did come up with the bucks for the mint 51J-4 that was right ahead of me at
> eye level as I walked in the door...although I still have the 51J3 I acquired in 1980 as a
> high-school graduation gift from my folks.  I think this winter I'll restore it...it still
> works, but is badly in need of alignment and a new drum decal.
>
> About 4 years ago I stopped in there for some 813's for a 'someday project' amplifier...and
> got 4 of 'em NIB for $20 each...and all the Collins stuff was sold off and he was adrift in
> a sea of old Tektronix scopes and 'brand-x' boatanchors...mostly Galaxy although there were
> one or two SBN-series Heath S-Line clones still about.
>
> The Chicago amateur community is losing a hell of a boatanchor resource with George
> retiring...but frankly, amateur radio is not as it once was...the days when those of us
> standing around on the sidealk in fron tof the store, waiting to be waited on, and talking
> shop about homebrew gear, have been replaced by an internet reflector...
>
> 73 de KA9EGW
>
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