I remember back in the 70's my dad playing with his radios in the basement of our house, I remember him having some of the radios I have today, I bought them off eBay. He had a Lafayette Explore mark V, Lafayette HA-230, Lafayette PF-200, Eico 753, and a few other odds and ends that I cant remember plus a home made 2m radio made by a friend of his. I got my first CB in 1979 and had the handle Maddog. I think I have some pics I can scan later.

    Long before the inventions of the ACC (Advanced Computer repeater Controller) in the early 80's, I would key his radio to hear the cw id and the talking clock at the end of the transmissions. I thought that was just so kewl. I began listening to his shortwave and as things let to another I was using his call on his Eico 753 and when he got his Swan 350D I was in heaven. A digital radio that you can talk all over the world on. I must of talked with every country with him at my side. I remember being outside and learning how to make dipoles and the formulas that determine its length to frequency and then I was building the dipoles for myself on 80m and 160m. Bands my dad had no interest in. I was very still into CB at this time as well. I was using a Radio Shack Navaho TRC-490.

    I decided to get my own license in 1982 at the age of 16 and was licensed as KA3KTB. I remember buying my first radio, an Icom 2AT even tho I didn't have a tech license, I used it anyway and that's how I met my best friend Joe on the 146.64 repeater. He encouraged me to upgrade and I finally did. Through high school and college took most of my time for the next few years, I studied when I could. I bought a Coco TRS-80 computer and was making my very own repeater controller, in BASIC of all things. To my surprise, it worked very well. I had most of the features the ACC repeaters had.

    As I ended up moving to my own place at in 1988, I took the radios my dad and I bought, to my place. He said he didn't want them anymore. To this day he never got back on the air and let his license lapse. I was able to upgrade through the years to general, advanced, and extra finally. I became active in the ARRL VEC program and spent much of the early 90's doing 40 or so exam sessions for three local clubs.

    As time went on the radios took a more of a back seat as I started working more and more hours. You all know how it goes, you need to work more to get more money to pay for the same things that were cheaper the year before. Soon the radios were just gathering dust when the internet came along. I got into the IRC very heavily and radios didn't interest me anymore.

    I moved to a new apartment in April 2000 for where I was for 11 years the owner died and the new owner didn't want to be renting their basement out. So after I moved the radios got pushed more to more aside to work more hours because my new place was costing me an arm and a leg. As the time progressed, I assembled a discone out on the patio and a few magnet mount antennas and got back on the air locally with shortwave, a scanner, and 2m and 440. I don't use them much now but they are setup and mostly in the winter months, I can be found tuning the shortwave dial of my old Lafayette HA-230.

 

Rick NJ3P

My Current Radio Station (2008)

 

 

web page design by
(www.RichardKratt.com)