Month: November 2021

The Radio Boys and a Handbook

My father-in-law was kind enough to send me a couple of books when he learned about my ARRL Handbook collection.

The first book was a 1956 ARRL Handbook in reasonably decent condition (for a 65 year old book) owned at one point by a Stephen Ray Bird/KN0LES from Nebraska. Tucked away in the pages of the handbook are several papers with handwritten schematics and notes.

One of the papers is an ARRL pamphlet, a reprint from a 1956 QST article titled “Your Novice Accent And What To Do About It” written by Keith Williams/W6DTY. This presumably was something ARRL sent to new hams.

“Your Novice Accent” reprint

There was also a meeting reminder postcard for the Otoe Chapter of the Order of DeMolay, which perhaps was being used as a bookmark.

Flipping through the book, I can’t help but wonder what KN0LES was doing with the schematics. Was he sketching out circuits to build? Was he using them to study for upgrading his license (I believe KN0LES would have been a Novice class call sign at the time)? I’m perhaps a little more intrigued by these little bits of paper than I am with the handbook itself.

A quick Google search brings up the obituary of a Stephen Ray Bird who died in 2013 in Arizona, was originally from Nebraska, and was also an amateur radio operator (KS7R). An AE7Q lookup also shows he held the call sign K0LES, which leads me to believe that I am now in possession of an ARRL Handbook he once owned. From his obituary, it seems like he was a nice guy.

The other book is “The Radio Boys’ First Wireless” from 1922. It’s not in the greatest condition, but for an almost 100 year old book that has obviously been read quite a bit, it’s in not too bad shape.

Front cover of a well worn copy ofThe Radio Boys' First Wireless from 1922.
Front cover of a well worn copy ofThe Radio Boys’ First Wireless from 1922.
Title page and illustration from The Radio Boys' First Wireless.
Title page and illustration from The Radio Boys’ First Wireless.
A listing of other books in the Radio Boys series.
A listing of other books in the Radio Boys series.
The Radio Boys’ First Wireless

Inside the front cover is some handwriting that indicates the book belonged to someone named Rex Buzzett and that this book was a birthday gift in 1923. On the back cover he appears to have written his name, where he lived (Apalachicola, FL), and a date of October 16, 1925.

Writing inside the front cover. "For Rex's Birthday With Love from M??? Jan 1923"
Writing inside the front cover. “For Rex’s Birthday With Love from M??? Jan 1923”
Writing inside the back cover. "Rex Buzzett Apalachicola, Fla Oct 16 1925"
Writing inside the back cover. “Rex Buzzett Apalachicola, Fla Oct 16 1925”

A Google search brought up a Rex Buzzett Street in Apalachicola as well as a couple of memorial entries for a Julian Rex Buzzett also from Apalachicola FL. Julian Rex Buzzett served in the US Army and was sadly killed during D-Day at Utah Beach. Considering the uniqueness of the name and where they’re both from, I’m guessing this might be the same Rex Buzzett who owned this book. If so, he would have been 9 years old when he was given this book. I wonder if young Rex Buzzett enjoyed reading this book. Did he own others in the series? Julian Rex Buzzett was a first lieutenant and a combat engineer in the US Army. If they’re the same person, did reading about the Radio Boys’ adventures have an influence on him? What did he do before joining the army?

I hadn’t heard of the Radio Boys series until my father-in-law asked us a few years ago to look out for them at hamfests. So far we haven’t found any, so I haven’t had the chance to read any of them until now. Wikipedia tells me that the author, Allen Chapman, was a pseudonym and that the books were written by ghost writers. Interestingly enough, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series of books (which I have heard of and were some of my favourites growing up) was also published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate that published this Radio Boys series.

This seems like it will be an interesting and fun book to read. The book has seen quite a lot use and I’ll have to be careful reading it. I’m very grateful to my father-in-law for sending this and the Handbook to me.

RFI in the house

Finally had a chance to connect the antenna up to the radio using the coax running through the conduit from the garage side of the house into the shack. Up until now, most of the operating (what little of it there’s been) has been out in the back yard with the radio connected directly to the antenna.

This weekend, I thought I’d give the ARRL November Sweepstakes (Phone) contest a try. After making a 40m contact Sunday morning, I noticed the network had gone down. Discovered the GFCI breaker for the circuit that our service provider’s ONT box is on had tripped. Not entirely positive it was because of me operating on 40m, because I had made a handful of 40m contacts on Saturday without any problems (that we noticed anyway). Seems likely to be an RFI issue though since the network was up just prior to my QSO.

Reset the breaker, got the network back up, and switched over to 20m but then the wife spotted one of her edge lit acrylic signs flickering on and off while I was making another contact and basically turning it into an “On the Air” sign.

Not wanting to risk messing up anything else in the house by overloading them with RF, I wrapped up the ARRL November Sweepstakes contest with 12 contacts in the log and 240 points with most of my contacts from Saturday evening on 40m (40m opens up pretty nicely out to the West coast in the evenings from here).

I’ve had the antenna up a handful of times since we’ve been in the house, but most of my operating has been outside, so any RF-induced problems there might have been in the house have generally gone unnoticed (except maybe for the time the Nest thermostat died). I’m pretty sure the issue is because most of the antenna lays on top of the roof and on the side where most of the wiring is (electrical service entrance, breaker panel, network router, AC unit, etc). Running 100W is probably causing a lot of RF to be coupled into the house wiring.

So it looks like I’ll have to work on changing the antenna situation. Moving the antenna and mast to the fence on the other side of the house would probably get the antenna far enough away to solve most of problem, but then I wouldn’t be able to use the coax running through the conduit without making the coax run a whole lot longer. The mast would also be on the street side of the house making it even more visible when set up. I could also order a ton of ferrite chokes to put on pretty much any current carrying wire in the house (that could get pretty expensive). I guess I could also take my operations portable and head out into the field or a park.