Radio & TV News Article

Sir:
I'd like to contribute to you the attached WRL info, hope you'll add to your page about
Leo. HE BUILT THE BEST TRANSMITTERS FOR HAMS !!!
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 My first call was K5JLK, see my QSL card in Red, between the HQ-110 and
the speakers!  I personally had the pleasure to operate from this shack  in 1958. At that time the "Globe King" 500 transmitter was built into the  desk on one side, with drawers on the other side.
 

Radio & TV News February, 1958

  The girl on our cover this month is Dorothy Hicks, K0BRZ, who lives in  Omaha, Neb. Dorothy is shown operating at WRL's demonstration ham shack in  Council Bluff, Iowa. Although she would eventually like to have a home setup that is as elaborate as the one shown, Dorothy's home station is a  little more modest - a Johnson Viking "Ranger", a WRL tri-band beam, and a  National NC-300 receiver. She does most of her rag-chewing, usually about  three hours worth a day, on 10 and 15 meter phone.
     Dorothy really comes from a hamming family. Her husband, Curt Hicks, is  K0AMM. He is president of the Ak-Ser-Ben Radio Club and is very active in  local Civil Defense affairs. Much of his hamming is with a mobile rig consisting of a 10-meter Subraco transmitter and a PMR-6 Multi-Elmac receiver. Paul, one of their two sons, received his Novice ticket when he was 11. His call is KN0GZJ.

     Dorothy took her Novice and General Class training at World Radio Laboratories' code classes. Her son was also trained here. Novice training  has been going on here for the past several years. During last year, approximately 300 received their licenses and Leo Meyerson, head of WRL,  expects that almost double this number will receive their licenses this  year. As a matter of fact, the last group of trainees (some 86 in
number)  was so large that the group had to meet at one of the local schools for  adequate room.

     The ham shack shown on our cover has been set up for the convenience of customers who wish to keep a schedule while passing through or simply for them to keep up on their hobby by seeing and using the latest ham gear.  Equipment is changed regularly so that over a period of a year, just about  manufacturer is represented. The ham shack is in operation for about two  hours a day and it is also available to Novice operators who don't as yet  have their own stations.

Equipment Shown
In the setup shown, Dorothy is speaking into an Astatic D-104 crystal mike which is connected to the Hallicrafters HT-32 transmitter (center unit on desk). A Vibroplex bug is nearby for c.w. operation. The transmitter is being used here as a single sideband exciter with its output suitably reduced by a power reducer network and applied to the r.f. section of the WRL "Globe King" 500B transmitter (at right). The power of this transmitter under single sideband conditions is 720 watts peak envelope power input to the final. Since the 500B also contains its own exciter, v.f.o., and speech modulator sections, this unit may be used independent of the separate  exciter shown here. As such, the "Globe King" may be used as a complete phone and c.w. transmitter with band switching provided from 10 through 160 meters. The plate power input is 540 watts on either phone or c.w.  The Ht-32 exciter may also be used as a completely separate and independent lower power standby transmitter. The unit provides single- sideband, phone, or c.w. operation from 80 through 10 meters. The peak envelope power input is 144 watts.  The output of the 500B is fed to a High-Gain 20-meter beam through an external antenna relay.  Atop the exciter unit are two loudspeakers which are connected to the two receivers at the left. The upper receiver is the Hammarlund HQ-110, a twelve tube super-het with dual conversion. Full-dial coverage of the 6 to 160 meter amateur bands is provided. The receiver provides an
Audio-Response feature that lowers the audio passband as the audio gain is increased.
Thus the response to strong signals is broad band and to weak signals is narrow band. Other features include crystal-controlled second conversion, oscillator, Q-multiplier, crystal-calibrator, and separate linear detector for SSB.  The bottom receiver is the National NC-109, an eleven tube general coverage unit tunable from 540kc to 40mc in four bands. A separate product detector is used for SSB and c.w. reception. A gang-tuned r.f. stage, plus two i.f. and two audio stages are used.  The idea of using a pair of receivers is so that a continuos civil defense monitor system can be employed. In this case then, the HQ-110 may be used as the amateur band receiver while the NC-109 may be used as the monitoring receiver.  Tacked onto the wall behind the equipment are some of the large number of QSL cards from hams that have been worked from WRL.



73,
Bill Taylor  K8TBW
705 Hart Ave.   Fostoria, Ohio 44830
k8tbw@yahoo.com
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