Amateur Radio & Short-Wave
Home ] Capt. Lyman M. Edwards, USNR Ret. ]

 

 
JOHNSON RADIO CATALOG - SCAN courtesy of K5JWK; catalog courtesy of Johnson

CARDWELL VHF-UHF OSCILLATOR (This uses acorn tubes) From the E. Sharpe  collection at SMECC

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Joseph M. Reinert


 

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Brophy Radio Club QSL Cards

 

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Joseph Reinert's Amateur Radio License

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Joseph Reinert at Mountain Bell

   

Joseph M. Reinert

03-10-1924  to 12-18-2009

 

Joseph Reinert, better known as Joe, was born in Chicago, Ill. In 1948 he
and his family moved west to Phoenix, AZ. Shortly after moving to Arizona he
obtained a job with the telephone company and worked for nearly 40 years
throughout all the changes. He started out climbing the poles and worked
into installation, mobile phone shop, and the microwave towers for various
radio and television stations. He worked on many of the radio and television
loops, as he called them, for big events in Phoenix. I remember he worked on
the loop when JFK came to downtown Phoenix and my Dad brought my sister 
and I to his work section so we could see a close up of Mr. Kennedy. It was
exciting to know he was around some famous people. He also worked on big
television projects such as the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament.

 
 
 
In the early 1960's he became interested in being an Amateur Radio Operator.
Our kitchen was filled with radio equipment that was placed against the wall
from one end to the other. Many days and nights he would sit and I could
hear "CQ, CQ, CQ6, this is K7HYG in Phoenix, Arizona is anyone out there". I
was amazed at how many people were on the radio. He received numerous 
cards from all around the United States. He designed his own card and was
 involved with the Brophy College Preparatory School Radio Club and designed 
their call card also. My Mom assisted with the design and then proceeded to 
do the silk screening to print the cards.
 
 
 
After his passing we found some of his radio equipment , cards, and a
picture. I contacted Ed Sharpe after looking for a home for his memories to
be displayed. Ed was very gracious and told me that he was going to do some
research to see if he could find more information regarding Dad's
communication experience.  I am so looking forward to seeing a part of my
Dad's life being reflected in the SMECC museum.

 

Mary Lou Mitchell   

 

what is a loop?

 

by Bert Wiener

 

Bert Wiener and Associates

Well, a loop is a Telco term that generally refers to a circuit - mainly between a customer and a C.O., or between the two ends, at least that's the way I've always heard it used.  I dealt with a lot of "Program Loops", or circuits over the years.  For example, when doing the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra broadcasts, we'd order a 15 kHz loop, or circuit, sending from the Music Center to our studio's on Wilshire Boulevard.  Prior to the advent of ISDN, program circuits were in common use between a remote broadcast location and the studio.  Still, today, it's not uncommon to have a loop, or program circuit carrying a station's audio from its studio to its transmitter.  Program loop/s is a way to get good quality audio from one point to another short of running your own wire out the door and down the street.

Prior to satellite delivery, network feeds, such as the Mutual Network, CBS, ABC and all the others all pretty much depended on Telco program circuits.

Common program circuit bandwidths are 8 kHz (AP3) and 15 kHz (AP4).  I've always gone with 15 kHz circuits because the installation costs were about the same and the monthly fee was only a few dollars (like $3 or $4 dollars) different.  15 kHz circuits are generally cleaner and don't present roll off in the same part of the spectrum as other system filters or roll offs might.  Having all the system filters rolling off in the same place can cause ringing in the audio, the same way it does in video. 

In video the ringing can show up as anticipatory, or pre or even post ghosting - quite noticeable around collars and other sharp transitions from black to white.  In audio it can appear as distortion in the area of similar roll off.  I prefer having all bandwidth/s as wide as possible ahead of the last narrower filter.

Then there are "Stereo Pairs", which refer to two program circuits used for stereo broadcasts.  These had to be the same length, run over the same path, and had to equalize out so that the maximum phase shift between the "pairs" at any frequency between 50 and 15,000 CPS (Hz) was no greater than 3 degrees measured end to end.


 

 

 

Photographs and Cards of the late
Capt. Lyman M. Edwards USNR Ret. Amateur Radio Operator  

W5FJ

Click above to go visit Capt. Edwards...

 


At The Museum...

 


5-T Sky Buddy at the museum.
1936, 6 tubes, 3 bands, orig. $29.95 

 


KWS-1

We have one!

we need: 

A set of Finals

Set of HV cables

Antenna Relay

75A4 Receiver  to match  with it




 
The history of the Rubber Ducky Antenna.

I've read a lot about "Rubber Ducky" Antennas on the Web and
it seems that nobody knows where they came from! It seems
that many people think that they are just some natural outcome
of a typical engineering design. In fact, if a Rubber Ducky
Antenna did not already exist, and you put a bunch of Engineers,
Mathematicians, and Physicists in a design conference and
asked them to design one, they would properly claim that
it couldn't possibly work.

When I was at the Lyman School in Westborough Massachusetts,
a reform school for juvenile delinquents, I operated a Ham
Radio Station on the 6-meter phone band. My call sign was
K1KLR. Because space was a premium, I was unable to have an
outside antenna.  Therefore, I invented what became known as
the "Rubber Ducky Antenna". It was first called a cantenna
long before Heathkit borrowed the name for a dummy-load.
It was published in QST Magazine sometime around 1958 by
my mentor, Mr. Guido Sandini, who was the cottage master
at Westview Cottage at Lyman. Mr. Sandini was a well-known
"ham" who taught a "ham-radio" class at the Lyman School.

This is the story about that invention.

I was kind of a privileged character at Lyman, having already
"done my time" and awaiting out-placement. I became part of
a successful program where such persons were allowed to attend
"outside school" in Westborough.

After returning from outside school each afternoon, I was
supposed to use a small room at the front of Lyman Hall
for my homework studies. After I would barely complete my
homework, I would set up my Ham Radio station and attempt to
communicate with others in the Westborough area.  I didn't
have a place to install an antenna so I would connect the
shield of a co-axial cable to the screen of a screen-door,
poke the center conductor through a hole in the screen, then
attach a 1/4 wave-length wire to that.  This would dangle
outside and sometimes work as an antenna.

Some hams would refer to this makeshift antenna as "loading
up a screen-door". At one time I thought I heard the words
"screen-door spring". This make me think. The problems with
the wire dangling through the screen were that it was too
long and it wasn't properly oriented for a good antenna.

So, my first attempt at a rubber-ducky antenna was what
I called the "cantenna". This consisted of a paint can
which I filled with rocks for support. To the top of the
can I soldered 4 radials of brazing rod. Their length
was determined by the size of the floor of the closet
where I would store this contraption. In the center of
the can-lid I installed a coaxial connector so that
the solder connection was oriented upward from the
top of the can and outside the can. I Punched a hole
in the side of the can so that I could insert the
coaxial cable from the transmitter and receiver T/R
relay. I soldered a section of a screen-door spring
to the center conductor of the coaxial connector.

I found that the spring needed to be only about 10
inches high after I had stretched it so that none
of the turns touched each other. This was tuned, with
the transmitter at low power, by adjusting the length
so that a neon bulb would illuminate when brought
near the top of the spring and an inductive loop
coupled to a light-bulb would light the bulb when
brought near the base of the spring.

After scratching my eye while taking my portable
antenna down, Mr. Sandini suggested that the spring
be put inside a piece of windshield-wiper hose. Since
we didn't have "shrink-tubing" in those days, this
was difficult to do until I threaded a wire through
the spring and used it to pull the spring through
the tubing from the bottom of the spring so it
wouldn't distort and stretch out the antenna.

Mr. Sandini made some further experiments with my
antenna, in fact making one that required no ground
radials at all. It was just a spring in a rubber hose
with a banana plug on one end. This would plug into
the top-of-the-box antenna connector on the portable
transceivers used by the Civil Defense, the Gonset
Communicator III. He made several for both the six
and two meter amateur radio bands.

After using this antenna successfully at a "Ham Fest"
in Swamscot, Massachusetts, Mr. Sandini published an
article about it in the QST magazine.

Now, neither Mr. Sandini nor myself knew why the spring
worked as an antenna. My first thought for the design was
that I needed a spring that, when stretched out, would
be 1/4 wave-length long to emulate a 1/4 wave-length
whip. I carefully calculated the stretched-out length
of a spring from its circumference and wire diameter.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that the thing
would resonate, produce better than a 2:1 VSRW, and
actually function as an antenna, when about 1/6
the calculated length! Then it was thought that
it was the resonance alone that made it antenna-like.
However, this wasn't true because good coils don't
radiate very much energy (they are low-loss). Then
it was thought that the thing just acted like a base-
loaded whip. This turned out to be untrue as well.

Basically, the Rubber Ducky can't work as well as
it does. A well-constructed Rubber Ducky has a base
impedance near 50 ohms. This is dependent upon the
ratio of the diameter to length. It also has about
10% bandwidth.  This is dependent upon the spacing
of the turns, the closer the spacing, the lower the
bandwidth. It also has an aperture that is over twice
its physical size. This is the real anomaly. No
other antenna has an aperture greater than its size.

After I left Lyman School, I started a career that
has spanned over 4 decades of successful Engineering
Design.  I have moved from Radio Transmitter design
through medical Ultrasound design to Software Design
for CAT Scanners and Airport Baggage Scanners. Every
time I see somebody with a Cell-Phone, I remember those
beginnings. Now, if I had only Patented the damn thing!

I read about the origin of the name "Rubber Ducky".
It was originally called a cantenna and then a vertical
helical, neither of which really defined the antenna.
I think it was Caroline Kennedy who gave it its name
when pointing to one on the top of a secret service
security guards transceiver.

Cheers,

Richard B. Johnson
Project Engineer
Analogic Corporation

 

 

 

   

We have a Galaxy V need a power supply though wither 12 v  or 115 volts. 
 email info@smecc.org  with 'Galaxy Power Supply" as subject!

Below are a few other things  we have in the collection! We are looking  for manuals  and accessories for most of them!

Swan SW120                                                                       National NC-190 receiver with matching speaker

Gonset Communicator IV  Yes defetly need manuals  for this one!

Power supply  for???!?!  the Swan maybe??? Help.....

 

 

 

Everyday we rescue items you see on these pages!
What do you have hiding in a closet or garage?
What could you add to the museum displays or the library?

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