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A Short Explanation of Novice Rig Round-Up.
Well . . . maybe not so short. Many years ago, a hang-glider enthusiast and I were talking about his gliding experiences. "What was your most thrilling ride?" I asked. "Oh! My first ten feet off the ground." He continued on to relate that since then, his goal has been more or less, to recapture the thrill that first ten feet. That's what we are doing with Novice Rig Round-up. Recapturing the magic and thrill of our own "first ten feet".
For
many of us, that "first ten feet off the ground" was accomplished with a
war surplus tube, a block of wood, a boy scout telegraph key and dad's
shortwave receiver, or home made regenerative handbook "Novice
Receiver", and a lot of bailing wire strung in the trees. For others of
us, it was when we fired up that Heathkit that took about two weeks to
screw, bolt, and solder together, possibly, then after a spell of
trouble-shooting to find that missing solder joint. Finally, it worked!
Finally it lit up! And then the Magic happened.
Some
of us were Novices in another era, where the crystal was no longer
requisite, and plate input power climbed to two hundred watts. That was
my era, 1977. Nonetheless, novices like me, with chronically limited
budgets, continued to build our rigs from what we could find, swap, or
get at the Milsurp store. Our receivers may have been a fifty-dollar
SP-600, practically given away at the local hamfest as our upper
classmen were doing everything they could to dump their "Boat Anchors"
(a term that was originally a pejorative), in favour of the new
transceivers coming from out of Japan, the Yaesus and the Trio
Kenwoods. Or this upstart company out of Tennessee, Tennessee
Technical, or "Ten Tec". Despite the cast-off ancient 1950s tonnage
considered "junk" by most, he Magic was no less amazing.
Just
as an aside, I had a hard time selling my friend's Hammarlund HQ-180,
new, still with the box, for seventy-five dollars because I couldn't
find the manual. This was 1980! My 1978 Novice Stations sported an
HQ-140/ Speaker, mint, a Johnson Ranger, a KW matchbox, a custom rack
with fold out table. It was sold to my by WN4TJZ who just upgraded to
General. I bought it all for fifty bucks. It was really too much for
this simpleton. I sold it all again for fifty bucks. That was the world
of 1970s Ham Radio! But I digress....
Still,
some experienced their "first ten feet off the ground" with a Kenwood
TS-520, now a classic in equal standing with any National or
Hallicrafter. Or a kind member of the Fox Tango club may have made an
early model FT-101 available to them. Or a Tempo One may have turned up
courtesy a local CBer! All these rigs are somebody's first rig, and
enabled there "first ten feet off the ground".
Novice Rig Round Up
celebrates all these things. It celebrates and focuses on the
recollection of our first Novice Steps. It seeks to conjure back what
was the awe and mystery of Radio that each of us experienced in our
earliest days in Radio. It celebrates those simpler technologies and
simpler approaches that made it all possible. Whether a DX-60B or an
Icom 760, the commonality lies with YOU, the Novice, moreso than the
rig.
Indeed,
the classic so-named "Novice Rig" is Iconic. As such, when referring
to a "Novice Rig", it is those crystal controlled transmitters
specially built for the Novice, 1950 - 1975 that we use for event
scoring purposes. Included are those rigs such as the Johnson Ranger,
which had provision for Novice operation. But there are other Novice
Classics as well. Like the Kenwood TS-520. The Ten Tec Century 21.
The Tempo One, all legal for use by novices after 1975.
As
novices, we were obviously "code-only", which we think appeals to the
simple dynamic of NRR. As such we have many SKCC and FISTS members
among us.
At this point we do not have formal membership, only participation in the one event we sponsor, from which we get our name Novice Rig Round-Up.
A Little Background:
Novice
Rig Round-Up began as a conversation had between myself (WD4NKA) and
Bry (AF4K). Both of us are SKCC members, and having just participated
in one of the Week End Sprints (WES), we talked about how well my
DSB-100 and his Knight Kit did, and how much fun it might have been to
have some sort of WES just for us back when we were Novices! The
conversation roamed far and wide, touching on Boat Anchors, vintage
keys, SKCC and FIST, minimalist rigs that we used to build as Novices,
and how exciting these old rigs were, how magic they seemed.
So,
where did that magic go? What happened to all that excitement? Why
have these incredible specimens of 1940s, 50s and 60s become "Old Hat"?
Was it because the mystery had gone away as we came to learn and
understand more? Or was it because some quantum change occurred to make
it go away? No, not really. Forty meters is pretty much still forty
meters, only instead of a Russian Woodpecker or the Diathermy machines
causing QRM, we have re-allocated digital signals in what used to be the
Novice Sandbox. But there is still room, there are still folks on the
air, there is still propagation, even when the bands are supposedly
'dead'.
Maybe
it's because we so increased the level of our personal technology that
those simpler times, along with those simpler rigs, just . . . got
buried in the "stuff". Maybe it's because we just "moved on". Or
both.
Well, maybe it's time to "move back"! At least, for a while.
We
concluded that just maybe one of the keys to that "Novice Magic" lie in
the non-complication of our Radio World. Although there are several
large groups and organizations that focus on old rigs, like the AWA or
dozens of Boat Anchor groups and AM groups, no one seemed to focus on
the simple Novice technologies such as the HT-40 or the DX-60 or the
"Novice Specials", those project rigs that populated the Handbooks of
the 1950s. Wouldn't it be great to get a bunch of these rigs on the
air, kick back, and do some Novice-style slow-code with each other?
Just to relax and remember? To recall those clear winter nights when
you just knew your inverted vee would get your 50 watt signal into KL7
land on 80m via the Ether? To recall when a regular conversation could
qualify you for the Rag Chewer's Club?
Bry
and I decided to find if there might be shared interest in this
concept. Why not plan an event to celebrate our first rigs, whatever
that might be? We knew that "Novice Rig" could mean a xtal homebrew
6V6G rig and Regen, all the way up to a TS-580, or more. "Novice Era"
spanned about forty years with three or four major regulatory changes,
and then there were technology changes, so just what constitutes a
"Novice Rig" could be anything from the 1930s, up well into the 1990s!
Therefore, for such an event, it wouldn't do to place limits on who
could operate or what sort of rig they could use. However, this being
an event, and since the term "Novice Rig" applies, in the main, to
those rigs designed specifically for the Novice Class License as it was
for many years, for Event purposes we thought it might be fun to
have a simple scoring system just to tally, if for no other reason than
just sheer operator curiosity, just how many Classic Novice Rigs
one might have managed to contact during what would come to be a week
long event. Ergo the tradition we now have of scoring based on the rig
you contact. For Event purposes, higher scores are awarded for certain
types of rigs dating to the "xtal/ 75 watt" novice era. Higher scores
if your correspondent is operating via xtal control, or/ and is under a
certain power level.
Since
we chose to try out a Novice Centric event using an easy, non
aggressive contest approach, I thought it might do to offer a
Certificate of Participation as well. Since our focus is on
participation, and not tallying up huge score numbers, I wanted to make
these certificates reflect this. I own a Letterpress Shop,
so why not make these certificates a hand-printed affair to reflect the
"hands-on nature" of early Classic Novice operation? So, I printed our
first awards in the same manner, and on the same type of paper that Ivy
League Colleges employ for their Degree / Diploma documents. A very
high end paper, metal dies, linseed oil based inks, and the ancient iron
platen press. Each Certificate carries the same level of work that I
employ for my clients who pay to the tune of about twenty bucks for such
impressions. It would be worth the effort and material cost investment
. . . if others shared the enthusiasm.
We put the word out on SKCC and the various Yahoo Groups Bry and myself were party to. We set up a FaceBook page to help communicate our vision and to share it. Bry put up a web-site
to post necessary information. We set a date for the second week of
February, 2015. We put it all out there, both on the Web and on the
air. And indeed, we did find quite a number of hams who quite latched
onto the idea. Soon, before we knew it, our FaceBook page crossed the
500-member mark. Discussion was prolific. Lots of web activity. Lot's
of "buy in".
The
first NRR event seemed quite successful, although nowhere near 500
people participated, but we did have enough participation during the
week to encourage a furtherance, a continuance to this effort. The FB
page continued to grow. Awareness was beginning to mount. Rigs were
being restored or built in anticipation of NRR 2016.
This
past February, NRR 2016 came . . . and went. We are still counting the
logs sent in as I write this. I have the certificates ready to label
for the participant. We have much needed and appreciated volunteers to
help, it's not just Bry and Myself now (whew!). Participation during
NRR was robust, we are soon to find out if more log books were sent in
than last year. We are growing. Lot's of folks are engaged and talking
about NRR on the air and on the Web. Perhaps more than just a few Hams
enjoy getting their Novice On, and Recapturing the Magic of those more
simple days, with the more simple, yet very classic . . . at least to us
. . . Novice Rigs. Whatever rig that may be!
de
-gary // wd4nka. NRR co-founder and itinerant letterpress printer.
