I met Syd Medford, VK7SF, at Burnie in September 1995. My father worked in telephone company in UK. He fell off pole - semi invalid. Built crystal sets Built own condensers and 100 foot mast Syd used galena in crystal sets on NW coast never worked well No close stations Built 1 valve set while at school That worked alright. We came here in January 1928 so must have built it about 1930 Relative bought TRF in UK Lon Jensen (7LJ) was the science master when I went to high school. He brought box of radio junk to school When I left school I built a dual wave set, three Philips valves 415 detector, 409 audio and B406 output Gave full speaker strength American amateurs Tuning condenser was in two sections paralleled for broadcast band On shortwave just used part of the gang Used aerial trimmer Scrounged old batteries from behind post office for power supply Only a few houses in Cooee and no mains power for quite a long while Went into amplifiers then - PP 2A3s etc First transmitter was Command set Joined WIA in 1950 and got licence in 51,52 Ian Pearson 7KB and Doug Fisher 7AB instrumental in getting radio club going here. Put an ad in the paper and we met at a shop in Burnie. Murray Richardson was our instructor, he got his licence through instructing us. Ken Hancock 7KH We sometimes met in the shop in front of my garage Devonport radio club before the war was pretty active Then met at Ulverstone - Terry Tong 7TT organised it. Now meet at Penguin High School Lonah repeater was up there. Now off air because of fuss about hydro power. Andrew Perkins 7ZAP now KAP put crystal in rig very cluey boy Repeater on Table Cape for 70 cm The command transmitter (40M) came from England for 10/- and had no coils in it as they were not allowed to sell them in England in a going condition I had to rewind coils and replace all the balls which had fallen out of the condenser. I had a Command modulator and used them when I got on air I only had to switch on and say VK7SF testing and there would be a dozen Yanks back straight away Later I built a home brew rig with a pair of 807s with modulator. The receiver, again from England was an aircraft receiver with 2 or 3 bands and worked into a converter and IF strip Built by STC? Disposals a lot cheaper in England and the suppliers were very good Henson? in Liverpool Ellis and I both got a lot of stuff from England. Postage was very good - you'd get quite a big parcel for 2/6. Customs didn't worry us in those days, but then suddenly they began to charge a lot - a valve that you'd paid 2/- for in England they'd ask 3 or 4 shillings duty 25% sales tax on Command receivers Barry Mason was extra good, but this bloke from Hobart came and threw the book at us Then stuff had to go to Hobart for assessment Built transmitter with broad band couplers so didn't have to tune each stage Then I bought a Collins ART13 transmitter with automatic tuning (for $20) they had an 813 and a pair of 811s as a modulator and an 1155 receiver which I fed into a Q5er Ian Pearson had an Eddystone When sideband came I got an FTDX400 with separate VFO Bruce Craw 7BC You'd like a cuppa wouldn't you.