By W7CRG
It was called a Big Ben alarm clock made by Westclox I believe. As I remember it was about 4 inches in diameter and came in white or black. Mine was black. I’m not sure but I think it had a luminous dial so when I woke at 2:00 a.m. I could know it was not time to wake up. I would like to be able to say it quit telling the time; but, in the 1950’s that was seldom the case. Planned obsolescence was a concept of the 1980’s -90’s. Things broke but it was not the common occurrence.
I think I can blame it on curiosity. How did all those cogs and gears fit together and create a machine that circled the dial in one hour? And it continued to do so for a day or two after which you wound it for the next period of time.
I could have just removed the back and marveled at how that little machine worked. I didn’t. I disassembled it. Why, you ask? Why does a ten year old do most dumb things. I assured my mother that I could put it back together again. Alas, like Humpty Dumpty, I couldn’t put Westclox back together again and I didn’t get another alarm clock until my birthday.
Yeah, just what every kid wants for his birthday! I think it was more that Mom was tired of having to wake me in time for school and to teach me a lesson, which happened more than once as I grew up. At any rate I was one year older and the proud owner of a new and functioning alarm clock.
This was a portent to my life of building and working on things. Most turned out better than the Westclox but there were drawers and cardboard boxes scattered through my parents house with “projects” that were not completed. Some may have been for lack of parts. Some for loss of interest or lack of time. But some actually were finished and …. wait for it … worked!
I may have mentioned my uncle Bob was an electrical engineer for Boeing and got me interested in electronics and radio. I got a crystal radio kit for Christmas from uncle Bob and aunt Maxine, I’m relatively sure aunt Maxine had little to do with choosing the gift. Christmas day I found the time to follow the directions and assemble the kit.
That led to my first real lesson with electronics! Was it the concept of radio waves coming through the atmosphere and the thrill of hearing a station on a radio I had built? No, it was not. It was the shocking reality that the antenna picks up a current and when you hook the bare ground wire to a water pipe you might feel the wonder of electricity! Shocking! I was much more careful connecting wires in the future and have succeeded in have relatively few similar experiences. Keeping one hand in your pocket insures that you don’t form a circuit and experience the shocking affects of electricity.
Being partially colorblind has been a hindrance in my electronics development. I would often times have to bother my wife asking if the band on the resister was red, green or brown. She was generally cooperative and willing to help the handicapped until the “Transformer Incident”.
We were always on a budget as a young family and therefore most of the parts for my electronic builds were salvaged out of defunct radios, TVs or electrical devices. Color coding was used for parts and certain wiring. Transformers had a multitude of wires blossoming out of holes and you were supposed to be able to determine what they did by the color of the insulation. So the primary power leads were black. Good I can tell black unless the lead has become discolored due to heat, dirt and dust. High voltage is red and the center tap is red and yellow (I know, for many of us this is getting rather technical, but bear with me). The filament winding, these are lower voltage and are what “heats” the vacuum tube, the colors are green, brown, slate and usually really discolored from heat and dust.
As I said before most all of my parts were salvage. I was in my workshop trying to figure out which wire was what, when my loving wife brought me a cup of coffee. She set the coffee on the bench (lucky for me) and asked, “What are you doing?”
“You can help me, I’m trying to identify two green and two brown wires.”
She picked up two wires and said, “These two are the closest to green that I can tell.”
Now here is where the infamous “Transformer Incident” went awry. I asked without thinking, “Oh, do you feel anything?” It only took her a millisecond to realize that she could have been shocked!
In defense of my actions I was thinking which wire was which, it was very low voltage as I was working with a Variac, she was holding the insulation and I had a very stupid sense of humor! I was also lucky she was no longer holding a cup of hot coffee. Needless to say, color identification help was not as forthcoming in the future and it was quite awhile before I got a nice cup of coffee in my workshop.
This meandering diatribe has wandered from windup alarm clocks to electronic projects and gone a little far afield. I apologize to the reader but the point to be gleaned from it all is the satisfaction one can get from putting something together and having it work! It might be setting up your radio station or installing a mobile rig in your car. It could be building a simple kit on Wilson’s Wednesdays Workshop or constructing an antenna. The satisfaction of making that purchase from the swap meet work or learning to use a new mode such as digital. These are a few of the things that can bring a grin to an operator’s face.
One of the best things I’ve received from my dalliance in amateur radio is the satisfaction of achievement. That was why I pushed to upgrade my license. That is the feeling I got when I built a buddipole from the inventor’s instructions. That is the hit I got when the broken VTVM (Vacuum Tube Volt Meter) worked. Did I really need it? No, but it is nice to have and makes me feel special when I use it. A sense of achievement can give a real boost to an otherwise bad day.
Am I an avid DX’er? No. But you should have seen the grin on my face when I made my first contact with a station in Finland! My father was the product of a Finnish family so it was the same feeling as my first contact from Germany as my maternal Grandmother sailed around the Horn to become an indentured servant in the Hawaiian sugar fields. Ham radio was relating to my heritage.
Are you stuck on a problem with your radio? Ask at a club meeting or call in on the Noontime Net. Go to the 2:00 Wednesday Pie and Coffee or call one of the members. I can’t tell you how many times Joe Joncas NJ7OK has helped me with a problem. He always does it in such a way that I’m the one fixing the radio and learning new skills and information. We have a vast array of experience, ability and talent in the Lincoln County Amateur Radio Club, don’t be afraid to tap into it!
Hope to hear you on the air!
Chuck Gerttula W7CRG