Amateur Radio Station W1UJR

10/04/2023

Electric Radio
Celebrating a bygone era.

10/30/2022

How I spent my Saturday.
Talking with the world and good friends, enjoying great coffee, from the newly renovated radio barn. Clean, light 💡 and bright. What a blessing. Be even more so once the heat gets installed. 😉
Gratitude.

Bruce W1UJR
www.w1ujr.net

10/25/2022

Tonight.
Remembering those who have gone before.
What a rich legacy.

W1UJR

01/10/2022

Homebrew - 1928 MOPA Transmitter - Both CW and Phone

Modeled After Early REL Transmitter, Uses a pair of UX-210s, see schematic.

This was not my build, but was given to me as a gift by a brother ham, as the caretaker.

03/29/2021

12/23/2020

An Early Christmas Present

BEGALI KEYS Morse Code Key
Arrived yesterday from its trip across the sea, sent from a machine shop in a small town in the nation of Italy. Big, heavy, impeccably made from a solid block of AISI-304 stainless steel, this isn’t just a Morse Code key, it’s a fine instrument. Called a “Sculpture Arrow”, it was nicely engraved with my government issued call sign of W1UJR. You’ll note it sitting next to “Sculpture Mono”.

The purpose of a “key” is to act as a simple mechanical switch, to make and brake a circuit, to turn the radio transmitter on and off in a way that creates a series of dots and dashes that represent letters, numbers, punctuation and “pro signs”, procedural abbreviation.

The Victorian Internet
Morse Code is one of the truly ancient languages of the modern world, a throwback to a time before electricity, when messages were sent by smoke, sound or light.

Before cell phones even before telephones, people communicated through Morse code. Despite being a technology that is over 160 years old, it’s still used today among amateur radio users and on some ships. If you were in Boy Scouts, you might have messed around with Morse code or maybe you had a grandpa who used it on his ham radio.

The History of Morse Code
Morse code was invented by Samuel F. B. Morse in the 1830s. The code that Morse developed for use with his system went through a few transformations before arriving at the code we’re familiar with today. In 1844, Morse appeared before Congress to show off his little machine. The first public message was transmitted on May 24, 1844. It was “What God hath wrought.”

The original telegraph system had an apparatus on the receiving end that spat out a string of paper with indentations on it. Short indentations were called “dots” and the longer ones “dashes.”

As telegraph users became more proficient with the code, they soon dispensed with the paper tape and deciphered code by year. Self made tycoon Andrew Carnegie worked as a telegraph operator as a boy. He set himself apart by learning to decipher Morse code by ear.

Ten years after the first telegraph line opened in 1844, over 23,000 miles of line crossed the country. The telegraph and Morse code had a profound effect on the development of the American West. Railroad companies used it to communicate between their stations and telegraph companies began to pop up everywhere, shortening the amount of time needed to communicate across the country.

In the 1890’s radio communication was invented and Morse code was used for transmitting messages at sea. As radio frequencies got longer and longer, international communication soon became possible and a need for an international standard code developed. In 1912, the International Morse code was adopted for all international communication.

However, many railroads and telegraph companies continued using Railroad Morse code because it could be sent faster. Today, American Morse code is nearly extinct. A few amateur radio users and Civil War re-enactors still keep it alive.

Morse code became extremely important in maritime shipping and aviation. Pilots were required to know how to communicate using Morse code up until the 1990s.

Today Morse code is primarily used among amateur radio users. In fact, up until 2007, if you wanted to get your amateur radio license in America, you had to pass a Morse code proficiency test. Though that’s no longer true, it’s still a wonderful throwback to the past, and reminder of a time when things were much simpler.

Respectfully,
Bruce

12/22/2020

1937 National NC-101X
Restored.

12/20/2020

W1UJR Return To The Airwaves (Party Like It's 1933)

Winter is here, and with the short days, longer nights, better propagation, and as the long-distance precision rifle game winds down a bit, I think it's high time that amateur radio station W1IUJR returns to the airwaves for 75 meter AM in the early evenings, and 40 on weekends. And to get to restoring some old radio gear from the 1930s.

I've been out of the radio game for a while, as life and other interests caught my fancy. We all grow, change and evolve, hopefully as better people over the years (I know that I have), but my love for and fascination with radio has not diminished since when I was a teenager, listening in during the 1970s, cold, late nights in upstate New York with the Radio Shack DX-160 my dad bought me for my 12th Christmas.

I also long for those great and meaningful conversations with the old-timers like when I was first licensed in the back in the 1990s. Many of those are now Silent Keys (passed away), like my own Elmer W2UJR, but perhaps we can find and pick up some of that radio magic if we reminisce.

I'd like to recapture some of that radio magic and fellowship, and get some regular schedules set up, early morning or early evening with some folks, something we can do weekly, informal QSO about life, radio, history, etc. Anything but news and politics, let's party like it's 1933.

Reach out to me at [email protected] if interested.

Warmly and 73
Bruce W1UJR

07/19/2020

Saving old "Malden metal" is what I do.

https://w1ujr.com/national-nc-101x-restoration/