Bring back the Magic!

"Once upon a time, there was a young lad who wanted to become a Radio Amateur."

It all started when he read about building a crystal set in a book called the Boys Own Paper. This publication is no longer in print of course, and crystal sets have long since bit the dust! However, for me the seed was sown at that time and I was hooked - on radio. I wanted to be able to make something that I could listen to distant radio stations on, other than my parents Murphy ten-valve radio. I also tuned around the short-wave bands on this radio and managed to hear hundreds of stations, and interesting sounds.

In the early 1950's money was tight, and it took a long while to save pocket money to buy components at the local radio store. However, this I managed to do, and together with birthday presents and Christmas presents, I constructed a crystal set on a breadboard, just as the book said. I had no headphones, and had run out of money! My uncle came to the rescue; he had a pair of headphones saved from the second world war, and these provided me with my audio. In the meantime, I had erected a long piece of wire from the house to the bottom of the garden as an antenna. Upon hooking this to my crystal set, imagine my delight when, fiddling with the cats whisker, a station appeared in my phones. My parents were duly impressed and I was on my way.

After a while, and much reading of books from the library, I decided to build a valve receiver. Using a super-regenerative circuit, with HT and grid bias batteries, not to mention an accumulator for the heaters, I made this receiver. The two valves came from the local radio shop and cost a fortune. I had saved for a long time for these. Proud as punch of my new receiver I demonstrated it to my uncle. In my haste, I connected the HT battery to the LT terminals. I was devastated; you don't get a second chance with such a stupid action, and I paid the price! I could not afford to replace the valves, so left the radio on the shelf.

One day, my friends and I were walking around the town and we came across a second-hand shop selling all sorts of radio bits and pieces. We went in and I could not believe my luck as I found those two valves I needed, at a fraction of the cost I had paid originally! Needless to say, we never visited the high-street shop again!

I managed to repair the radio and was enjoying listening, when I heard a strange station, who appeared to be talking to somebody in Holland. Well, I eventually found out it was a local radio amateur. I also managed to find out where he lived, and was invited to the local radio club. This was the start of my amateur radio activity.

I served my short wave listener apprenticeship over the next few years and in the meantime I commandeered part of my fathers shed in the garden, where I had an R1155 receiver with an RF27 unit as a crystal controlled converter for 21/28mHz. The R1155 was a communications receiver used on board a second world war bomber aircraft. The modification of the RF27 unit was done for me by Doug, G3HUL. I spent many a happy hour just listening on all bands, collecting call-signs, finding out where they were, serving my short wave listener apprenticeship, as we all did in those days.

Numerous visits to the library followed, gleaning all the radio knowledge I could. I helped on National Field Day events, attended club meetings and so on. One member of the club invited me around to his QTH, where he had several receivers and other equipment that I had not seen before, an AR88D, and HRO and such-like. I was hooked even more! He gave me his old ARRL handbook, dated 1953, and I still have it to this day. It became my bible, and I read avidly and looked with envy at the advertisements in the back pages!

Two other amateurs, known in the hobby as Elmers, offered to get me through the radio amateurs examination. Bill Brennan, G3CQE, unfortunately now a silent key, was a BBC engineer and he covered the technical side, and Pat Gowen, G3IOR, taught the morse. We had one evening a week from August until the following May to cover the complete syllabus, and Bill, being a BBC engineer was very thorough. We also had fun doing it, with some mock examinations and lots of coffee, tea and biscuits. We used to end the evening by getting into Bills' shack and he would have a few QSO's.

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I passed both the technical and Morse examinations and was a very proud teenager to sport a new G3 licence at the radio club. Then the hard work began. I had to build my own equipment as nothing could be bought with the exception of a communications receiver as they were called. I left school and obtained a job and within three years I had sold my R1155 receiver and bought my own AR88D. I was over the moon with this and then set to work building the Elizabethan transmitter. It was in a six-foot rack, all valves of course, and ended up in a pair of 807's modulated by a pair of 807's. Other rigs followed, and several years later I built an SSB rig and also began helping other newcomers by teaching morse.

The magic - if it can be called that - has stayed with me throughout the years, but it was only because I knew what I wanted to do, and that was communicate with other like-minded people. Unfortunately, the modern generation does not seem to either view the hobby, or even enter the hobby in the same manner. I have seen lots of them who think they wish to be an amateur, but do not want to devote the time and effort to study the theory and Morse in order to become licensed. Amateur radio is a pot pourri of all sorts of people, but mostly with a common denominator of a basic technical skill, good operating procedure and the ability and willingness to help others. In other words, adherence to the amateur code, as printed in the front of all ARRL handbooks.
If the amateur licence is too easy to obtain, it will not be valued. This is the premise on which we should work, not the other way round. If something is worth having, it is worth putting a lot of effort in to get it. This is what my father taught me, and it should stand today.

However, having just said all this, it can be debated until the cows come home. The fact is that the number of active amateurs is dropping. This is probably to be expected with the advent of modern technology, plus the inevitable silent keys of course. The mobile WAP phone, the Internet, the PC and all that it entails, have all taken their toll on the hobby. We therefore have to try to attract the newcomer in other ways. We have to show the advantages of being within the hobby. Emphasis must be placed on the social side, club meetings, field days, contests, and so on, plus the operating awards that are available, QSL cards, and so on.

Using the Internet is fine, but there are no QSL cards or awards to be had by using Emails, nor is the basic satisfaction of having communication by radio. With amateur radio, you can chat, for as long as propagation will allow, with somebody in Australia, in fact to lots of people in Australia, or just about any country in the world.

We should be promoting this sort of thing, with talks at schools and colleges. We should arrange a demonstration station at certain public events, with a display of QSL cards and awards, encouraging the contact to talk about his locality, his geography, his work and so on. The modern QSL card usually contains pictures and information about the place visited, and a comprehensive geographical knowledge can be built up over the years this way.
One of the most satisfying aspects of the hobby is the fact that lifetime friendships can be formed with amateurs in other countries through regular skeds. This can lead to visits and holidays with each other, something that could not possibly happen without the hobby.

I suppose I am living in a dream world, as several of the large national radio societies are advocating the 5 wpm morse test, with a view to abolishing it altogether. They are also advocating making the technical knowledge required such that all the prospective candidate will be asked to show is that he can put a mains plug on correctly. To my mind this is not good for our hobby. Whilst I can understand the arguments that suggest this is the way forward, I do not agree with them. It is extremely difficult to reconcile the differences, but making it easy will not bring back the magic. There again, I suppose the magic is all in my mind, and not shared by many these days. Perhaps it was something that was peculiar to my generation of amateur and trying to rekindle it will not work.

I am concerned that we might be on a downward spiral that is difficult to reverse. Emails are so easy and fast, and this is the way that modern youth thinks. This is called progress, but it is a shame that this progress comes at a price, and if we are not careful, that price could be our frequency spectrum. Commercial interest in some of our bands is certainly there, and some frequencies have already been lost in certain parts of the world. If governments can see an easy buck to be made, I don't think a few amateur radio protestors would get in their way! We have already seen the selling off in the UK of frequencies that can be used by the modern technology, WAP phones, satellite navigation and so on.

I have valued my licence and my hobby over the 45 years I have been involved. Making it easier to obtain will de-value it and might even lead to further erosion of the amateur population. Most of those that had to put lots of effort into obtaining a licence seem to remain active and interested. They also have the added advantage of being reasonably technically competent, and say what you will, this hobby IS a technical one, and long may it remain so. If the licence was easily obtained it will be likewise easily discarded.

I can already hear you asking yourself - "So - what can I do about it?" Well, you can do a lot. Consider becoming an Elmer yourself. Remember the help that you had when you were trying for your licence. You can spread the word of amateur radio into schools, colleges, and youth clubs. Put on a few demonstration stations at special events. I realise that there are quite a lot of you doing this now, but we obviously need more.

Modern technology is mandatory in amateur radio these days, the PC for example, is an essential part of a well-equipped modern shack. However, the younger generation can feel some of the magic that we had by constructing something simpler to start with. There are plenty of QRP circuits around that are easy to build and can give a huge amount of satisfaction to the new amateur. To think that a circuit board of approximately 2 inches square can transmit a signal across that vast Atlantic Ocean, surely this must bring some of that magic back again?

I wonder what you think?

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