WB0SMX

  First Mobile VHF Rig Filed in Station on Dec.10, 2010 In July of 1981, Mom gave me a nice birthday gift. A Kenwood TR-7800 2-meter mobile rig.  It had 25 watts out, and a synthesizer to eliminate the need for crystals.  There was no tone board installed, but you really didn’t need one in the midwest back then, as few of the repeaters had tone access. It was nice to have the touchtone pad on the front.  It allowed for direct frequency entry and for using the telephone autopatch that was installed on some of the repeaters.  That’s what we used before everyone had cellphones.  I remember dialing up a number, and having to tell the people on the other end right away that we were on the radio, so they would not say something inappropriate over the air. I still have the rig.  It is mounted in my Nissan Frontier behind the seat, and is used as an APRS transmitter when I remember to turn it on.   TR-7800 when new   Migrated Comments...

  Ham Shack 1985 Filed in Station on Dec.08, 2010 In 1985, we lived in Garden City, Kansas. I was scanning in some old negatives today, and came across these.  Nice looking shack back then…   Hamshack 1985 I was a member of Navy/Marine Corps MARS back then (NNN0AFM). The equipment was: Top Shelf: TH-21 2 Meter HT, Antenna Switch, Navy OS-8C Monitor Scope (For RTTY Tuning) Middle Shelf: MFJ-949 Antenna Tuner, Homebrew Audio Switchbox, IRL-FSK500 RTTY MODEM Bottom Shelf: Astron RS-20A Power Supply, Yaesu SP-107 Speaker, Kenwood TS-430 Behind me is a TRS-80 Model 4, with single 5-1/4″ floppy (360K) and built in Green Screen 80×50 character monitor.  This was a big upgrade from the TRS-80 Color Computer that used a cassette recorder to store data. Shack w/o me blocking view