Back in 1964-65, when I was just a young pup in high school (WA9HMY),
my very good school mate friend (WA9GSK, "SK")made a 2 element 20 meter
Yagi.
How many of you remember the "Scotsman's Delight"?
It was a ZL special affair made of 75 ohm twin lead;
twin lead taped to bamboo fishing poles,
the poles lashed / mounted on a wooden "H" frame for support.
About the only thing he had to buy as special for this contraption was
the $10.00 television rotor we got from Miller's TV Repair Shop and
fixed ourselves.
All else was scavanged at no cost to the project.
Better yet, what did Joe use for a tower..........!?!?!?!?!?!?
He trimmed the tree out in his front yard of all it's branches, and
lashed the contraption to the top of the tree.
Gawd, how I wish I had a picture of that array !!!
He had more wood in this installation than any other material.
Polishing antennas to a shine?
Good Grief !!
We had to check the black tape and the painting as our tune-up practice.
My Scotsman's Delight was for 15 meters, but I used push up pipes and
an Armstrong Rotator.
The Scotsman's delight was a real improvement over my old "One-Element
Rotary" from the Handbook. (Two 10' sections of conduit and a single
loading coil............. Who remembers that guy?)
My shack was in the basement of our house.
Whenever I heard a new on on the band, I ran up the stairs, out the
door, to the pipes, pipe wrenched the push-ups, and ran back to the
shack.
Threw the knife switch from the R-100 over to the Eico 723 and chirped
away!
Ham Radio was definitely not a sedintary hobby back then!
Natural elements were used for elements ,
and Natural towers were used for towers.
I miss those days, and I miss doing stuff like that with guys like Joe.
He graduated fom MIT in 1969 and crashed his light plane into the side
of a mountain in 1971.
Hope I didn't stray too far for the technical purists, but I just had
some memories jogged that I felt like broadcasting.
Joe's call (WA9GSK) hasn't been broadcast in quite a while.
73,
Bob
N5RP
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