handbook – AB4UG Radioblog

1953, 1959 ARRL Handbooks

ARRL Handbooks from 1953 and 1959 are the two most recent additions to the collection. I’m just a custodian for these two handbooks though, because they really belong to the club. I don’t know if anybody from the club will ever ask for them but until then, they’ll have a good home with the rest of the collection.

Front cover of the 1953 30th edition ARRL Handbook

Front cover of the 1959 36th edition ARRL Handbook — Front cover of the 1953 30th edition ARRL Handbook

They’re in fairly decent condition for their age (73 and 67 years respectively) with the usual wear and tear from use along the spines.

The name of a former owner, William E Horton, is written (with very nice penmanship) on the inside title page of the 1953 Handbook. The rest of the book doesn’t have any other unusual writings or features in it.

The lower half of the 1959 handbook’s spine is blacked out with black marker for some reason.

ARRL Handbooks from the 1950s: 1950, 1953, 1956, 1959

The 1959 Handbook also has the name, street address (no city or state though), and phone number of a previous owner, Charlie Gober, written inside the front cover. The inside cover also has a section blacked out with a marker. The words “University Library” (possibly a library stamp) are faintly visible in the blacked out area.

Blacked out area inside the front cover of the 1959 ARRL Handbook

Colour enhanced area of the blacked out region on the inside front cover of the 1959 ARRL Handbook — Blacked out area inside the front cover of the 1959 ARRL Handbook

The collection now has 4 handbooks from the 1950s, which ties with the 1970s for the most number of handbooks in each decade.

1937 ARRL Handbook

A 1937 ARRL Handbook with a distinctive orange cover, that I picked up at Hamvention 2025, 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.

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.

Front cover of the 14th edition Radio Handbook edited by William Orr, W6SAI

Title page of the W6SAI Radio Handbook — Front cover of the 14th edition Radio Handbook edited by William Orr, W6SAI

I haven’t gone through a lot of the book yet but based on the table of contents, it seems to cover many of the same topics the ARRL handbooks cover.

First page of the table of contents for the W6SAI Radio Handbook.

Figure of common crystal cuts from the W6SAI Radio Handbook — First page of the table of contents for the W6SAI Radio Handbook.

It might be an interesting and fun exercise to compare this edition of the Radio Handbook with the 1956 ARRL Handbook.

A 1985 ARRL Handbook

In this year’s ARRL Auction, I managed to score a 1985 ARRL Handbook to add to the collection.

It’s in pretty decent condition, although the binding is broken in about the middle of the handbook. Going to have to see if there’s a good way to patch or fix that.

This handbook probably would have first gone on sale in late 1984, so I would have been in the middle of my first year of high school when this handbook came out. Even as late as 1985, there’s still a pretty big section devoted to vacuum tubes and vacuum tube gear. Aside from an old broken radio that was in our basement, I don’t think I had encountered any electronics that used vacuum tubes back then (well, televisions perhaps, but those are a different kind of vacuum tube).

The table of contents covers radio topics you might expect for radio technology from 37 years ago.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be more on vacuum tubes in the 1985 Handbook than there is in the 1980 Handbook. At some point between the 1980 and 1985 Handbooks, the Handbooks gained a considerable amount of ~~weight~~pages.

Size comparison between the 1980 and 1985 ARRL Handbooks

Might be interesting to go through the two and see what kind of content got expanded on with all the added pages.