Comment

Hello, A.J.!

Read yesterday's posting on the KAAY "blog". Very interesting, and
brought back some memories.

Ron Henselman, W9FT, is an old friend of about 32 years. One of the
first hams I became close with, and we still keep in touch. We share
the love of AM radio in its heyday, ham radio, BCB DX, and record
collecting.

I started DXing BCB back around 1963. KAAY was one of my faves; the
sound of that booming echo in the night made the hair on my arms
stand up. I still have my QSL card; it was one of my first. We may
never have that sound again.

I tuned in so many hundreds of stations I can hardly remember details.
I managed to hear about 42 states and a bunch of provinces, and some
south-of-the-border stations in the first couple of years. I remember
hearing Radio Costa Rica on 625 KHz during a WTMJ (620 KHz, Milwaukee)
power reduction one night. One thrill was getting a QSL letter from the
CE of a tiny station, WHOT 1330, in Youngstown, OH, in response to a DX
report. I heard them when they were doing a XMTR check one morning and
power had been reduced to a few watts. On occasion I hear WJJL 1440 in
Niagara Falls (daytime power 500 watts) at night, when they lower their
power to about 15 watts. I sent two reception letters to them and even
spoke to the DJ and the CE, and they never sent a QSL. Now they stream,
so the chances for a QSL are nil.

The "warm glow" of my old Hammarlund HQ-105 at night back in the mid-60s
was a sensation I'll probably never have again, but it stays with me.
Drove my parents nuts, sitting up half the night listening to static and
lightning crashes. ;-)

In my senior year of HS (1967) I built an FM BCB transmitter from Radio-
TV Experimenter magazine and souped it up a bit. ;-) I had an RG-8 fed
stick on my roof so I had a range of half mile. I taped my shows, and
out on the street my friends couldn't figure out how they were hearing
me.

What a treasure radio used to be. The serials of the early '50s that I
remember as a kid; the screaming disk jockeys of the 60s. Thank goodness
for guys like Dick Biondi, who does his show on 94.7 FM evenings from 7
to 11 (they just changed the call-sign back to WLS so they could use the
old 1960s vintage PAMS jingles again!) He keeps radio alive like no one
else can. A living legend and a good friend. He's 76 now and I hope he
lives forever.

Have a great 2009!

Mike Wolstein WB9QHL
Park Ridge (Chicago) IL