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I hope I don't get banned for posting this picture


Jeff Leites

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What did a Radio Club....do...exactly?

 

 

Amateur radio (ham). We had a ham radio station at my high school with all the gear built or modified from military surplus by the students. Because of a lack of qualified faculty advisers (every school club had to have one), the year I entered 10th grade, the Radio Club merged with the Wakefield Rocket Society. They had, among other things, a Moonwatch station on the roof of the school and we were the first in the Washington DC area to track Sputnik i.

 

The Moonwatch station consisted of two arrays of telescopes arranged so that they covered two fan shaped portion of the sky with each telescope in a line at a fixed angle from the horizon. The arrays could be moved so they lined up with the predicted satellite track. Each telescope had crosshairs. and we contributed to the tracking data by reporting the time that the satellite crossed each telescope's crosshairs.

 

My contribution, as audio expert in the Radio Club (I also had a ham license, still do though have been inactive for at least 30 years) was to design and build the time recording system. I built an audio oscillator whose frequency could be controlled by selecting resistors switched by a pushbutton at each telescope station (today you might call it a synthesizer). This was recorded on one channel of a stereo tape recorder (on loan from the language department).

 

The other channel recorded the audio output from a receiver tuned to the time signal at WWV. When an observer saw the satellite in his telescope field, he pressed the button for a couple of seconds to have enough audio to easily recognize which telescope it was. He pressed the button again quickly to mark the time the satellite crossed the crosshairs. When the tape was played back, we got the crossing time to within 1 second accuracy by determining the time of the closest second to the time mark. This was as tedious as waiting for the satellite (that sometimes wasn't visible).

 

Fun times in high school!

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My high school started a club during my last couple of years in high school, but it didn't lasted long after I graduated. Our physics teacher, who wasn't a ham, was our adviser. I was one of only a couple of kids in school that had a general class license, K3OHU, and I became the club's license trustee, WA3ADR. We also had a physics student teacher adviser, who administered the novice test to a bunch of members. We had a huge war surplus transmitter that must have been 8 feet tall, and came with instructions on how to destroy it in case enemy capture was imminent. I don't think we ever actually used it. We had some more reasonable gear on loan to us.

 

What really brings back some funny memories about the picture is the short pants :lol: I lived in the Phila. suburbs, just across the river from Craig, and that is how we wore our pants. My parents would never buy me pants like that, so I wore the pants that I had out grown. Maybe the trend was started by us being in that period of rapid growth. The only difference was that in my school, we wore black socks. White socks were considered "jive" (I don't know what that meant to them, but it was very uncool). I was such a dork (not the vulgar slang meaning), that until my later years, I wore argyles :o:facepalm:

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The way Craig is posed front-and-center of this photo suggests that he was the star member of the Club... which shouldn't surprise anyone. (-;

 

He's to the right and slightly behind the young gentleman in the standout dark suit. That would make Craig the lead guitarist (or keyboard player, since he's dressed dorky), and suit guy the lead singer. :idk:

 

Terry D.

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How the hell did you find that?

 

 

To make a short story long... I was YouTubeing a couple of old Phila. bands, and one thing let to another. I found some postings of Woody's Truck Stop, which reminded me of the time I took a date to the 2nd Fret, probably to see Mandrake, but WTS was also on the bill, and to my surprise, she and Larry Gold knew each other (went to high school together). We're still friends, and she told me recently that she also knew Linda Cohen, and a girlfriend of one of the Elizabeth band members. So last night, I sent her a much more recent YouTube video of Larry to see if she remembered him. I also sent her his 1965 yearbook picture for comparison. Classmates.com has been publishing every yearbook they can get their hands on, on their web site, and it has a cool, filterable search feature. I wondered if I could find you, so I searched for your name in the 1960's New Jersey yearbooks, and I found that picture in the '65 yearbook. I would guess you were in the class of '66. They don't yet have the '66 yearbook, so I didn't find your graduation picture (but I did find a Pamela Anderson).

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To make a short story long... I was YouTubeing a couple of old Phila. bands, and one thing let to another. I found some postings of Woody's Truck Stop, which reminded me of the time I took a date to the 2nd Fret, probably to see Mandrake, but WTS was also on the bill, and to my surprise, she and Larry Gold knew each other (went to high school together). We're still friends, and she told me recently that she also knew Linda Cohen, and a girlfriend of one of the Elizabeth band members. So last night, I sent her a much more recent YouTube video of Larry to see if she remembered him. I also sent her his 1965 yearbook picture for comparison. Classmates.com has been publishing every yearbook they can get their hands on, on their web site, and it has a cool, filterable search feature. I wondered if I could find you, so I searched for your name in the 1960's New Jersey yearbooks, and I found that picture in the '65 yearbook. I would guess you were in the class of '66. They don't yet have the '66 yearbook, so I didn't find your graduation picture (but I did find a Pamela Anderson).

 

You, my friend, clearly need a restraining order. :D

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Amateur radio (ham). We had a ham radio station at my high school with all the gear built or modified from military surplus by the students. Because of a lack of qualified faculty advisers (every school club had to have one), the year I entered 10th grade, the Radio Club merged with the
. They had, among other things, a Moonwatch station on the roof of the school and we were the first in the Washington DC area to track Sputnik i.


The Moonwatch station consisted of two arrays of telescopes arranged so that they covered two fan shaped portion of the sky with each telescope in a line at a fixed angle from the horizon. The arrays could be moved so they lined up with the predicted satellite track. Each telescope had crosshairs. and we contributed to the tracking data by reporting the time that the satellite crossed each telescope's crosshairs.


My contribution, as audio expert in the Radio Club (I also had a ham license, still do though have been inactive for at least 30 years) was to design and build the time recording system. I built an audio oscillator whose frequency could be controlled by selecting resistors switched by a pushbutton at each telescope station (today you might call it a synthesizer). This was recorded on one channel of a stereo tape recorder (on loan from the language department).


The other channel recorded the audio output from a receiver tuned to the time signal at WWV. When an observer saw the satellite in his telescope field, he pressed the button for a couple of seconds to have enough audio to easily recognize which telescope it was. He pressed the button again quickly to mark the time the satellite crossed the crosshairs. When the tape was played back, we got the crossing time to within 1 second accuracy by determining the time of the closest second to the time mark. This was as tedious as waiting for the satellite (that sometimes wasn't visible).


Fun times in high school!

 

 

This story sounds has the makings of a good movie "Ham...The Incident at Wakefield High" (after you add a few embellishments, of course)

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My high school started a club during my last couple of years in high school, but it didn't lasted long after I graduated. Our physics teacher, who wasn't a ham, was our adviser. I was one of only a couple of kids in school that had a general class license, K3OHU, and I became the club's license trustee, WA3ADR. We also had a physics student teacher adviser, who administered the novice test to a bunch of members. We had a huge war surplus transmitter that must have been 8 feet tall, and came with instructions on how to destroy it in case enemy capture was imminent. I don't think we every actually used it. We had some more reasonable gear on loan to us.


What really brings back some funny memories about the picture is the short pants
:lol:
I lived in the Phila. suburbs, just across the river from Craig, and that is how we wore our pants. My parents would never buy me pants like that, so I wore the pants that I had out grown. Maybe the trend was started by us being in that period of rapid growth. The only difference was that in my school, we wore black socks. White socks were considered "jive" (I don't know what that to them, but it was very uncool). I was such a dork (not the vulgar slang meaning), that until my later years, I wore argyles
:o:facepalm:

 

Yeah jeff, you were a Bucks County PA. area Guy as I remember...(my original bailwick. Washington Crossing/ Titusville/ Trenton area,.) I remember you and your Cool Triumph Spitfire ...same color and year as my older brother's....

White socks were definitley 'uncool' back then...'Jive', also known as 'Neck' or 'Hard' 'fo sho'.. don't know 'bout you, but....we had to wear black 'Banlon' socks, or die a slow death from ridicule by the local 'Sock / fashion Police'.;):lol:

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Yeah jeff, you were a Bucks County PA. area Guy as I remember...(my original bailwick. Washington Crossing/ Titusville/ Trenton area,.) I remember you and your Cool Triumph Spitfire ...same color and year as my older brother's....

White socks were definitley 'uncool' back then...'Jive', also known as 'Neck' or 'Hard' 'fo sho'.. don't know 'bout you, but....we had to wear black 'Banlon' socks, or die a slow death from ridicule by the local 'Sock / fashion Police'.
;):lol:

 

:eek::eek::eek: Whoa! Who are you ? You are completely blowing my mind! How do you know about me and my Spitfire? Did you see one of my FB or Classmates photo albums, or did you really know me? Yeah, I lived in Warminster in Bucks county, went to William Tennent HS, the Ambler campus of Temple for one year (that didn't work out) Bucks County CC for two years, and finished up at a small college in Ft. Lauderdale.

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To make a short story long... I was YouTubeing a couple of old Phila. bands, and one thing let to another. I found some postings of Woody's Truck Stop, which reminded me of the time I took a date to the 2nd Fret, probably to see Mandrake, but WTS was also on the bill, and to my surprise, she and Larry Gold knew each other (went to high school together). We're still friends, and she told me recently that she also knew Linda Cohen, and a girlfriend of one of the Elizabeth band members. So last night, I sent her a much more recent YouTube video of Larry to see if she remembered him. I also sent her his 1965 yearbook picture for comparison. Classmates.com has been publishing every yearbook they can get their hands on, on their web site, and it has a cool, filterable search feature. I wondered if I could find you, so I searched for your name in the 1960's New Jersey yearbooks, and I found that picture in the '65 yearbook. I would guess you were in the class of '66. They don't yet have the '66 yearbook, so I didn't find your graduation picture (but I did find a Pamela Anderson).

 

Yikes! Now I know why lots of you guys don`t use your real names.:idea:

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Whoa...how the hell do you make a radio out of ham?

 

 

I don't know about making a radio out of a ham, but when Mackie bought Sydec, they celebrated by making an HDR24/96 out of Belgian chocolate.

 

Someone said that the "ham" in ham radio came from the way that the British pronounce "amateur" as "hamature" but that sounds kind of contrived to me.

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