Hi Glenn,
We both got our licenses in the same year. My first call was WN7EZI. I was a little younger when I got mine. I was also absolutely test equipment poor. I had to borrow a meter from another ham to see if I had any high voltage to a tube.
My first receiver was a Knight kit regenerative "Space Spanner" and my transmitter was a spark gap affair using an automative ignition coil and a rotory interrupter. Of course all built by hand. It worked pretty good for me on 40 meters. However, I always horrible tone reports and also was all over the band.
When I mowed enough lawns to buy the parts for a single tube crystal controlled transmitter. I thought it was the ultimate rig. :-) I still remember how much I had to earn to buy those parts. $7.00 I built it in an old cigar box.
Before I was out of high school I had worked up to using surplus equipment from old B29s and then had worked an evening job to get an AF-67 Elmac transmitter and an SX100 receiver. I think I was like some sort of heroin junky. I worked and earned money for only one reason. To feed my habit.
Michael
--- In Amateur-repairs@yahoogroups.com, "Glenn Crawford" <grc1939@...> wrote:
>
>
> I got my first ham license in 1955 when I was 15. At that time my family was very poor and I had no test equipment at all. By 1958, I had acquired a cheap VOM that I used constantly to repair my own meager station equipment and neighbor’s radios and black and white TVs. Tubes were tested at the local drug store. As time went on and I was able to earn money, I acquired more test equipment building from kits, and buying at flea markets, garage sales, and auctions. Now I have power supplies, a signal tracer, a VTVM, a digital VOM, an analog VOM, audio and RF signal generators, a scope, a frequency counter, a capacitor checker, and a tube tester. I don’t’ think I could do without any of them. However, the digital VOM gets used the most. 73, Glenn, W8EXX
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Jose V. Gavila" [eb5agv@...]
> Date: 09/24/2012 04:27 PM
> To: Amateur-repairs@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Amateur-repairs] Poll: Which test equipment do you use in your radio repairs?
>
> Hello Boyd,
>
> > Have been doing electonic repair since 1949 so have accumulated every
> > piece of test gear imaginable. Have more than one of most. In some
> > instances you need more than the basics, but if you have a good vtvm,
> > signal generator, both audio and RF, Scope and lot's of schematic
> > knowledge, you can solve almost any problem. 73,Boyd, W0BUW
>
> I agree 110% with you :-)!
>
> I started this thread as I am in a similar position (regarding test gear
> I own). Most of it is unused 99% of the time. Well, at least I have
> fixed most of these units, so they have been already useful to learn new
> things, like working on pesky SMPSs!. And my plan is to go from fixing
> to designing, so then an, for example, HP-8753C (300kHz to 6GHz VNA)
> will make some sense. But for the repair work, it is seldom used.
>
> Thanks for all your contributions to this thread. Please, keep it going :-)!
>
> Regards,
>
> JOSE
>
> --
> 73 EB5AGV - JOSE V. GAVILA - IM99sm La Canyada - Valencia(SPAIN)
> http://agvradio.com AGVradio
> http://jvgavila.com Personal WEB
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
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