My interest in things electronic had its genesis in a trip that my family took to the East Coast of the USA when I was nine years old. From the Smithsonian Institute to the Empire State Building, we traveled enjoying as many sights and museums as possible. Yeah, I was one of those kids that really enjoyed doing stuff like that...maybe the car rides weren't my favorite part, but the places we went were worth it!
One of the final stops on our trip was a brief stay with one of my Father's WWII Navy buddies in NJ. Johnny just so happened to be a Ham Radio operator and one evening fired up his Collins station and introduced me to this wonderful world by working other Hams in Europe...I was hooked! While many of the minute details of that evening are lost to time, I still never forgot how exciting it was to hear folks from across the Atlantic Ocean talking to us!
Now, understand, this was back in 1961, when we here in San Antonio had the third of the three major network TV stations on the air for less than four years, we were a year away from the launch of the fourth station, KLRN-PBS, and our first color TV (with a round screen nonetheless!!!) was still a few years away...long distance phone calls were a rarity...and driver's licenses and credit cards were made of paper!
So, in 1961, Ham Radio was the king of electronic hobbies, and even though the word was never used then (well, except for describing a circus side-show act where a pin-head bit the heads off live chickens), they were the computer geeks of their day.
Back home here in San Antonio I had very little contact with anything resembling Short-Wave or Amateur Radio, except for an old pre-WWII console radio my Uncle Bill had out in his garage. Every time we went to visit my uncle and his family, I would disappear to the garage and tune that old radio thru the short-wave bands and listen to whatever I could find in English.
I didn't get my first Short-Wave radio until I was about 13 or 14, and got my first copy of "The Radio Amateur's Handbook" in 1966. I poured over the pages in this ARRL publication, not understanding really very much at all, but reading over and over, and dreaming that one day I would be able to become a Ham.
But, not long after this time, puberty grabbed me and wouldn't let go! The only thing I could think about was wimmen...well, girls....and my radio geek tendencies took a back seat to other hobbies...I never met any other guys into radio and electronics, but made some lifelong friends in High School that were gear heads...played around a bunch with photography...and just in general, was not really any kind of remarkable fellow...
My twenties were a blur...well, this was the 1970's after all! I did restore a few British sports cars, and had a Kawasaki KZ-900, was married and divorced, and then it was the eighties....
After a very bad auto wreck in 1984, I faced a series of broad life re-evaluations. I went back to working with my Father in our family business. The next year I restored a wrecked Yamaha XJ650LJ Turbo and got back into photography... The best thing to come out of the wreck was that my mother got to see me get clean and sober before her untimely passing in early 1992 from a malignant brain tumor.
Then, in the late eighties, my girlfriend and I took a trip to Colorado in my 4WD Nissan truck. I figured that we would be out in the back country on four-wheel drive roads and if something were to happen that maybe a CB radio would come in handy...well, except for seeing some of the most magnificent sights in the backwoods areas of southern Colorado, nothing radio-worthy happened....
But, one day here in SA, I turned on the CB and heard some fellows in Wisconsin talking! The skip was booming in! Once again the radio passion was ignited!
I played with CB in various guises, SSB, outband, etc.,"shootin' skip" was my thing! I had base stations, modified 10m rigs for mobile, footwarmers, etc., and really had fun...for a while....
The more I got into CB, the more I saw it's limitations, and the more I thought that there had to be a more technical bunch of radio guys out there that I could hook up with...and one day, all that changed.
Then one day at my family's appliance service business, a fellow stopped by the shop looking for some repair info, etc., and we discovered that we were both into the radio scene...he told me about a place here in San Antonio called
"KComm, The Ham Store"....well, to make a long story short, I found out that there were tapes to help one learn the Morse code, study guides to help one learn the material that one would be tested on, and I was in heaven! I met another fellow, and started going to Hamfests...
I learned the code while driving from service call to service call. I learned the code while sitting at home listening to the tapes. I learned the code by listening to the ARRL's broadcasts of code practice in the evenings...I learned the code by forcing myself to do it. I wanted that Ham ticket, and the code was merely a bump in the road to that license...
The time came for me to go and take the tests. I walked in, and a short time later, I had passed the Novice, Technician, and General Class written exams, and the 5WPM code...I almost had the 13WPM, but I really was topped out at about 10WPM at that time...I was a HAM!
While waiting for the ticket to arrive in the mail, I converted the "shack" from a CB/SWL'ers into one fit for the new Ham...and even though I had been making contacts all over the place on CB, it took me quite a bit of nerve to answer my first CQ on 10m the night I got my license!
Several months later I took and passed the Advanced and Extra written tests, and the 13WPM code...now, with my Advanced ticket I was able to go just about anywhere on the bands!
I played with all the Ham modes...I did AMTOR, RTTY, SSB, FM, AM, PACTOR, Packet, G-Tor....I built a satellite station to use our Oscar Satellites AO-10 and AO-13 and some of the FM birds...I was with a small group of hams that developed a local high speed over the air TCP/IP packet setup with a gateway to the Internet and had my own dotted IP address...I talked to the astronauts on the space shuttle...I restored and collected lots of gear, I edited one of the local Ham Clubs newsletter using Publisher, I went to hamfests hundreds of miles away....
But, once I had done all these things, I still wanted more....there wasn't really anything else to do in Ham Radio that interested me...heck, time for something else, huh?
That's when I got back into audio.
In 1985 I purchased a set of Ohm Walsh 2's. I ran these from the front channels of a Sansui QRX-7500A receiver. I bought a turntable from a shop here in town, Audio Source (now gone, but in the present, I happen to work part-time for the owner of AS that still is in the audio business, mail order and Internet sales!) and thought that I was happy.
Famous last words!
I bought a used set of Infinity RS-IIIa's, a Carver C4000 preamp, and a Soundcraftsman PCR-800 amp in pawnshops and rocked out....for a while...
Next up were a set of Magneplanar MG-1's, also bought in a pawn shop, that I rebuilt the tweeters and crossover in...
Then came the PS Audio 4.6 preamp and the Adcom GFA-555-II....then an Adcom GFP-565....
One day in 1997, I fell in love with a set of Martin-Logan Aerius-i's....a few months later, I ordered a set in Oak with the bi-wire option....ahhh, what wonderful speakers...but, I needed a better amp....and preamp!
I bought a BEL 1000 MkIII amplifier and an Audible Illusions Modulus 3A from Galen Carol, before I started helping him, and later added a second BEL. What a wonderful combination! This was a very musical combination.
Front end digital gear was a complete Audio Alchemy setup, a DDS III, a DTI 2.0 and a DDE 1.2 HDCD DAC. Analog was a Yamaha PX-3 linear tracking turntable with various cartridges. FM tuner was a Sansui TU-719.
A trip to the local Linn dealer one day, led me to bringing home a used Linn Axis table with a Linn Basik Plus tonearm. The improvement over the Yamaha was astonishing! I was not prepared for how good analog could sound! In every area of performance that I could ascertain, the Linn was clearly a superior piece of gear...and, this is with using the same exact cartridge in either turntable! Denon 103, Ortofon MC10 Super, or Blue Point Special, each cartridge was much better served by the Linn.
After using the Axis for a while, I found a fellow that wanted to get a simpler turntable than his Linn Sondek....we emailed back and forth, and finally made a deal, my Axis and a bit of cash for his Sondek...we both ended up happy with our decision...I wouldn't mind rewiring the tonearm, like I have done for so many Rega RB arms, but the horror stories about the fragility of the Ittok's arm bearings have kept me from even attempting that!
While the Valhalla'ed Sondek might not be the end all/be all of the turntable world, it is a very musical piece of gear. I learned how to tune and repair Sondeks from the local Linn dealer when I helped them out do just that for a few months as they were closing down. I really like the classic wood + brushed stainless look of the unit, it's a warm and inviting look.
Speaking of warm and inviting....one word: Tubes.
I like tube audio, SE or PP, I like tubes. Oh sure, solid state can be really, really good, and I have heard some really great gear from MBL, Spectron, Pass Labs, BEL, etc., but it has just gotten to the point to where the only time I really get emotionally attached to the music is via an all tube system...
The downside of tubes, at least here in South Texas, is heat....so I actually have systems I can run in the winter, and SET's that I run in summer...the little Paramours hardly have any heat output whatsoever...the Adcom GFA555MkII used as a sub amp puts out more heat at idle than they do...the Dynaco St-70's or the Sound Valves Vta-70i, on the other hand, are more of a winter use amplifier.
So, this just kind of touches on the high spots of the fun I've had and I hope you enjoy the site.
Please feel free to email me