Team Jung Racing: OF GUNS, RADIOS, AND THE WOUFF HONG . . . . . or A Trip To (Radio) Mecca

As a birthday gift, I recently received a trip I've been wanting to take for over 30 years. More on my trip in a few minutes, but first a bit of history. Bear with me.

Know ye that the American Radio Relay League, headquartered in Newington, CT, is the largest organization of ham radio operators in the United States, with over 150,000 members. The League was founded in 1914 by Hiram Percy Maxim (1869-1936), the son of Maxim Machine Gun inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim* and himself an inventor of note.

My Man, Hiram Percy Maxim
(who may also have been the inspiration for Eraserhead)

Hiram Percy Maxim, otherwise known as The Old Man (T.O.M.) or simply Percy, was a mechanical engineering graduate of MIT, inventor of the silencer for guns, the muffler for cars and other machinery, and prior to his involvement with radio, was an experimenter with gliders and internal combustion engines. He was hired by A.A. Pope of the Pope Manufacturing Co. (makers of the Columbia bicycle) to develop a gasoline-powered car (this was years before Henry Ford got into the business), and it was a gas-powered Columbia Special, piloted by Maxim hisbadself, that won the first closed-circuit auto race in the United States, at Branford Park horse track, New Haven Ct, on July 25, 1899.

Percy at the wheel of the Columbia Special.

Maxim's car was the first to have a steering wheel instead of a tiller, and first with a front-mounted engine. Hiram Percy Maxim also designed an electric car for Pope/Columbia, which went into production in 1897. One of these electric Columbias drove the 250 miles from Boston to New York City in 23 hours back in 1903. (Anyone see the episode of Top Gear featuring the Tesla? Ha!)

Maxim was also an enthusiast of amateur filmmaking. In 1926 he founded the Amateur Cinema League. (In the 1940's, The ACL published a book called The ACL Movie Book: A Guide To Making Better Movies, which was distributed to all ACL members.) Percy's account of his youth was published as "A Genius in the Family: Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim Through a Small Son's Eyes", and his book was adapted for the screen in 1946 as So Goes My Love.

Another field of interest for H.P. Maxim was astronomy, and in his later years he wrote and lectured on it. He was particularly interested in the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe and he authored a book on the subject, "Life's Place in the Cosmos". He was present to witness the casting of the great 200-inch Palomar telescope mirror at the Corning glassworks, and was invited to the Percival Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff to make observations of Mars.

Percy with the globe of Mars he constructed.

Maxim started the ARRL back in 1914 as a result of difficulties he experienced in making a radio contact between his town of Hartford, Ct and Springfield, Mass, only 30 miles away. Even though he was running a kilowatt input on his spark gap transmitter, he was unable to make the contact but he happened to know another ham who lived halfway between Hartford and Springfield, so he contacted him and had him relay the message. Nothing new about that, but it got him thinking about ways of fostering cooperation between radio amateurs with the goal of improving long distance communication. The ARRL was his solution.

So, 33 years after my initiation into Amateur Radio (WN4GQF), I finally got to visit ARRL headquarters. Lorena and I drove down to Newington on a cold wet day in early March, and the following morning we arrived at HQ. There are two buildings there, the actual headquarters building and W1AW, the ARRL "club" station. Everything from equipment testing to magazine production goes on in the HQ, while W1AW is used for broadcasting Morse code practice transmissions and bulletins concerning the Amateur Radio Service (the FCC's official name for ham radio). It's also available for use by visiting hams, but since I don't currently hold an active callsign all I could do was look and drool...and take some photos for y'all.

W1AW building.

ARRL Headquarters building.

The lobby comprises a shop for books and clothing, a receptionist's
desk and a display of some beautiful old radio gear.

An example of what's on display. This Hallicrafters SX-100 was before
my time (okay, it was only a year before my time, but still) and sold
back in the day for $295.

One of the office hallways/museums of ham radio history, where
you'll find early spark-gap transmitters, pieces of historical radio
antennae, and a "specimen of a real live Wouff Hong", perhaps the only
one extant today. WTF, you may well ask, is a Wouff Hong? Seek ye
the link below for the answer.

The test bench where every piece of radio gear is tested and reviewed
for QST, the ARRL's monthly magazine since 1915. The room is
completely encased in sheet metal, to shield the test equipment from
extraneous radio signals.

The room where various stuff is built and ARRL staff communicate
with extraterrestrial intelligences.

The QSL Bureau office. QSL cards (postcards verifying a radio contact)
come into this office from hams, get sorted, and sent out to their intended
recipient stations all over the world. It saves hams a bundle on postage.

Each bin is for a different country. For example, 7X is for Algeria,
9H is Malta, FV4 is Fuquay Varina.

On to W1AW.

On entering the station you encounter the automated broadcast
setup. This is where the bulletins and code practice sessions
originate. Those are the transmitter banks to the right.

Another view of the broadcast console.

One of the three studios for visiting hams. This one features a
Yaesu FT DX 9000D transceiver, some seriously cool gear.

The rig in question. Twelve grand, at your local Yaesu dealer.
A video clip of a guest ham operating at this very position.

Another of the guest studios. It was very quiet the
morning we went and no one was operating.

Heil's beautiful "Classic", a reproduction of a
1930 model microphone.

And with that we were on our way. Next time I visit I'm going to arrive with my new ham ticket in hand. I'll let you know what time and frequency to listen on!

Over and out,
Rusty

*Hiram Stevens Maxim (Percy's father) not only invented the Maxim gun, he also exhibited a working incandescent light bulb years before Thomas Edison (the two ended up battling in court over it) and is said to have been the first person to achieve unassisted powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft...albeit accidentally. His inventions include the first automatic fire sprinkler system and the spring-operated mousetrap. In all, H.S. Maxim filed 271 patents. Read more about him in this biography of Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim.

Some radio related stuff you may find interesting: