A chance encounter during a family vacation and the innocent pursuit of magical whiskers start a lifelong addiction to radio.

Before the days of GameBoys, portable DVD players and a host of other computerized high tech devices, a boy had to find things to do like reading or exploring to occupy his time. Difficult to imagine, but true. It was a different time and it was on one of my daily explorations during a family vacation along the Kings River in central California that I made my initial discovery in radio and fell under the spell of the magical ways of RF.

I was out hunting frogs (catch and release, of course!) when I first noticed the building. It was made of cinderblock and had a red and white painted thingie pointing upwards to the sky. I decided that this building had to be checked out. I could see that the door was open with a screen door in place to keep out the unwanted bugs. It appeared dark on the inside. With frog in hand, I approached the screen door and was immediately overcome by an odd odor. No, it was more like a strange, heady perfume. This was great stuff and my little brain was cataloging it right up there with the wonderful aroma of grandma's homemade bread.

I was being drawn closer and peered through the screen door of what I later found out was a tiny UHF TV station. I knew this was going to be better than finding frogs. I stood there inhaling big lung-fulls of the stuff, breathing in the intoxicating aroma, a mixture of ozone and the smell of burnt dust on transmitter tubes. There was magic going on there, a magic that I didn't understand at the time, magic that I could smell, almost feel and wanted to be a part of. The magic of RF.

Due to the fact that I must have looked pretty funny with my nose pressed against the screen door of that tiny station, whiffing away, I was allowed entrance to the building, sans frog, by a gentleman in his fifties. The UHF TV station was a privately owned one-man operation. The station owner/operator was obviously a big-time RF junkie himself. He was airing some old 16-mm movie and I watched the process for the first time. Wow! This was cool! I asked a lot of questions, testing the poor guy's patience. Periodically he would need to stop the Q&A session and study the lines on an oscilloscope, which reminded me of the radar operator on my favorite TV show at the time, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." This added more mystique and magic, for indeed I was watching a wizard at work with the glow of the transmitter tubes just beyond.

When this curious little fellow found his way into a box, he had no idea he might fall prey to a youthful whisker hunter. Now, on just what exact frequency are those whiskers resonant? [Bob Schetgen, KU7G, Photo Illustration]

The Not-So-Proverbial Cat's Whisker

My adventure continued when I returned home, as I now had to have my own piece of the magic. I had to have a radio, but not just any radio--it had to be a crystal set. My grandfather's youthful stories of his "cat's whisker" crystal radio set made me long for a family cat. Unfortunately, we only had a dog. My little mind twisted and turned. In order for this radio to work, I rationalized that my parts list required a neighborhood feline for the necessary whiskers. So, being the successful frog hunter I was, I decided that a catch-and-release program for cats would be a cake walk. New dimensions in hunting were required, however, as after a few sessions of chasing cats I quickly discovered that the neighborhood cats were faster than I. Frogs could be hard to catch at times, but they didn't climb trees.

I decided to study the felines so as to figure out a harmless means of obtaining the magic whiskers. Observation was the key and I would lie in the long summer grass and watch the unsuspecting cats, following their movements just like Jim Fowler on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

I decided that the construction of a box trap was also required, as all I wanted were the whiskers, and my grandfather's garage was the right place with all the needed supplies. After the box trap was built and equipped with a long piece of kite string played out as a trip line, me, the little RF junkie, lay hiding in the grass, waiting for the first cat to take the bait.

It was just as I was settling in that my grandfather happened upon me. He asked what I was trying to accomplish. After a good chuckle he informed me that "cat's whisker" was just the nickname for the thin wire used on the detector of the radio. Days of planning ran down the rat hole. My dreams were dashed and I was crushed.

This was probably more along the line of Grandpa's thinking...

The Mighty Hunter Rewarded

However, all was not lost and there was a happy ending to this portion of an RF junkie's life. A few days later my grandfather rewarded my interest--and the humor that I supplied him with the cat catching scheme--with the present of my own crystal set. It was an Olsen diode detector radio that my grandfather built for me from a kit. Hot dog! I was one happy boy with my very own receiver, a magical device I used to listen to rock'n'roll!

Magic, being magic, has that unexplainable way of touching and amazing others. While most ham shacks are now solid-state--and lacking a certain RF perfume--the magic of radio is still there. As Amateur Radio operators each of us is a wizard, a holder of the ability to make licensed RF magic. With this we are all stakeholders in the future of the hobby with the ability to positively touch those around us with magic. So if sometime you find a nose pressed up against your screen door, perhaps it may be wise to first hide your cat and then invite the soon-to-be RF junkie into your shack and let the magic begin.

Randall Shreve, KD7PCW, lives in Hooper, Utah and works in the aerospace industry as a supplier representative. He is also a quality auditor and metallurgist, with a background in commercial broadcasting, as well. A long-time shortwave broadcast listener, Shreve earned his first Amateur Radio license in 2001. He is also a member of Utah Army MARS and the Davis County, Utah, ARES group. He can be reached via e-mail at kd7pcw@arrl.net.

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