Books – AB4UG Radioblog

1937 ARRL Handbook

A 1937 ARRL Handbook with a distinctive orange cover is now part of the collection. It’s in relatively decent shape for its age, although the cover has become unglued from the spine, so I’ll need to glue it back on at some point.

Front cover of the 1937 edition of the ARRL Radio Amateur's Handbook

The call sign W8NYY is written on the front cover, and on the inside front page is the former owner’s name and call sign, Lloyd H. Miller W8NYY.

A quick Google search turns up a 2-Jun-1978 obituary from the Akron Beacon Journal for Mr. Miller and mentions he was a ham radio operator (W8NYY).

Obituary for Lloyd H. Miller (W8NYY) from Akron Beacon Journal 02-Jun-1978. Text of the obituary follows.

Lloyd H. MIller, 79, of 9 Wilpark dr., died June 1 at Akron City Hospital.
He was born in Akron and was a life resident of the area. Mr. Miller retired in 1966 from Goodyear Aerospace with 13 years service. He was a ham radio operator (W8NYY) and had been a member of various amature (sic) radio clubs.
He is survived by wife, Helen; daughters, Miss Jean Miller, of Akron, Mrs. "Chick" (Nancy) Watkins, Cuyahoga Falls; 2 grandsons, David and Scott Watkins.
Funeral services Saturday 1 PM from the Hopkins Funeral Home, 547 Canton rd., Akron, Dr. Russel AJones officiating. Burial Holy Cross Cemetery. Friends may call at the funeral home 7 to 9 PM Friday.

A short blurb in the June 1937 QST talks about a 160m “round-table QSO party” he organized.

On Easter morning, 1937, fifty-two ‘phone stations in thirty states, coast-to-coast, all operating on frequencies between 1955 and 1965 kcs., took part in a “round table’’ QSO party, organized by Lloyd Miller, W8NYY, O.P.S., Akron, Ohio. The stations were selected in advance as consistent at W8NYY and were invited by card to participate. Starting at 2 a.m., EST, W8NYY called the roll in numerical and alphabetical order. Each station then called the Round Table for one minute while the rest listened, and after the round each station reported the other stations heard, with signal reports. The party lasted until 6:20 a.m., and a “good time was had by all.” Souvenir QSL’s were sent to all participants.

In a December 1942 QST article, he’s listed as a WERS operator in Barberton OH.

Sounds like Mr. Miller was a fairly active and involved amateur radio operator.

I think it’s always neat to get my hands on stuff like this and be able to find out a little bit about their owners. I wonder what other journeys this book has had between being owned by Mr. Miller and when it entered my collection.

Portable operating and Hamsats

Added a couple new books (that are not ARRL Handbooks!) to the collection.

Portable Operating for Amateur Radio was one I’d been wanting to get for a few months now to support my portable operating ambitions, and I happened to find a copy on the shelves at a used bookstore. Seems like a pretty good book with some useful information for different styles of portable and mobile operating.

Front cover of Portable Operating for Amateur Radio by Stuart Thomas KB1HQS. The cover features a man kneeling on a mountain top summit holding a microphone connected to a radio on a metal frame backpack.

A copy of Amsats and Hamsats (an RSGB publication) also happened to be on the shelf too, so I thought I’d pick that one up too. Aside from listening to the ISS repeater when it goes overhead, I haven’t looked into doing much with amateur radio satellites yet but I’ve always thought it would be interesting and fun. This book seems like it’s got a decent collection of information in it.

The front cover of Amsats and Hamsats by Andrew Barron ZL3DW

A new ARRL Antenna Book

The 25th edition of the ARRL Antenna Book is on the shelf now, joining the 22nd edition book I picked up when I was first licensed in 2012.

The cover of the 25th edition ARRL Antenna book — 25th edition of the ARRL Antenna book

It’s a pretty big book, and the digital download weighs in at about 1 GB (~1.4 GB uncompressed). About 1GB of that is the supplemental content, software, propagation prediction, and antenna modeling files. By contrast, the CD included with the 22nd edition was just under 650 MB.

Content wise, it’s pretty similar to the 22nd edition with some expanded sections on antenna modeling and propagation. Where this version shines is in all the extra content provided in the digital download. The supplemental files for each chapter alone accounts for about half the size of the digital download (about 770 MB).

The 25th edition goes for the same simple black cover and silver text as the 100th edition ARRL Handbook.

Looks pretty good next to the 2014 Centennial edition and 2023 100th edition of the ARRL Handbooks.

2014 Centennial edition and 2023 100th edition of the ARRL Handbooks next to the 25th edition of the ARRL Handbook

New Handbook additions

Some new amateur radio handbooks got added to the collection this week.

At a used bookstore with a much larger selection of amateur radio related books than expected, I found a hardcover 1989 ARRL Handbook in pretty good shape and decided to add it to the collection.

Front cover of the 1989 ARRL Handbook — 1989 ARRL Handbook

It’s about as hefty as the 1988 ARRL Handbook that was added to the collection a while back. I really like the 1980s and 1990s ARRL Handbooks for all the homebrew projects they have in them.

Thanks to my father-in-law, I also now have a 23rd edition of the Radio Handbook by William Orr/W6SAI, which will go along with the 17th edition Radio Handbook I was given a while back.

Front cover of the 23th edition Radio Handbook by William Orr W6SAI — 1997 23rd edition Radio Handbook by William Orr W6SAI

He also gave me a copy of an 8th edition of The Radio Amateur’s Handbook by A. Frederick Collins, from 1940.

Front cover of The Radio Amateur's Handbook by A Frederick Collins — 1940 8th edition of The Radio Amateur’s Handbook by A. Frederick Collins

Title page for The Radio Amateur's Handbook. The left page is a photograph looking up to the top of a tall tower. The title page reads: A complete and practical g uide to radio construction and repair by A. Frederick Collins author of Wireless Telegraphy. Eighth edition revised by E. L. Bragdon radio editor of The New York Sun. — Title page of The Radio Amateur’s Handbook

Lots of good info in these books. Going to have to make some more room on the shelves to squeeze these in.

The Radio Handbook

Another radio handbook has joined the collection, but not an ARRL handbook this time.

This one comes to me courtesy of a local ham friend who’s been downsizing a bit. A very nice gesture for which I’m very grateful.

The Radio Handbook (14th ed), edited by William Orr/W6SAI and published in 1956 by Editors and Engineers Ltd. It’s a well used copy and the spine is not in the greatest shape. It’s come unglued from the book and is quite literally hanging on by the threads of the cloth covering. I’ll have to see if I can do something about that. The rest of the book seems in reasonable shape for a 66 year old book.