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,
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.
100 word bio for Gary
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