My first was a Healthkit GR-54. A great introduction to SWL. My brother helped me build it as he was an electronic tech! I still have it and often fire it up! Happy memories!
My first radio was....The star roamer. My dad and I built it in the 60s and I used to listen to it on the dining room table. The first ham I heard on it was KH6OR in Hawaii. It amazed me. Many years later when I moved to Hawaii, I looked Fred up and sad to say he had passed away. That radio though was magical and started me on my path to Ham radio.
This is the FIRST TIME I've heard a Star Roamer working. I got a Star Roamer kit when I was 11 of 12 years old and across two or three attempts to build it, I never got it to work. In the last attempt, I got the lights on the dial to illuminate and a 60 cycle hum out of the speaker. And that was it. Now I'm 66 years old and finally, FINALLY I get to hear a Star Roamer thanks to the magic of the Internet. Thank you!
My first sw radio was a Star Roamer. I cut grass all summer to make enough to buy one. My dad and i put it together. Enjoyed many nights listening to stations all over the world.
This was my first ham receiver. I bought a used Heathkit HX-11 crystal controlled transmitter (50 watts?) at the same time, all from Amateur Radio Supply in Milwaukee (now Ham Radio Outlet). It was a great start to a long ham hobby. Just this last Saturday I was at a silent keys house and found a pristine Star Roamer. What luck! I used a Variac to test it out, no smoke. At 120 VAC and just a short wire antenna on it I heard a station! WOW, has this brought back memories. From 1966 to 2024 and this radio still makes me smile.
My first radio was a very compact AM-FM -shortwave that I bought from the Montgomery Wards catalog when I was twelve. With an ac adaptor it worked pretty well and I listened to old Navy radio men talk about their days in the service. My dad bought the Staroamer and assembled it t for me when I was fourteen. I was able to get shortwave broadcasts from all over the world. Great radio. I'll have to "fire it up" and see how well it still works!
My first shortwave radio was a used Knight Span Master that I bought from the high school librarians husband in 1968. A year later I built a Knight Star Roamer. Worked great but never got it properly aligned. Good radio and had lots of fun using it. Many radios (and years) later I'm using Kenwood R600 and Icom r75 but nothing compares to the first few weeks with the Span Master years ago.
I got started in 1974 from a Midland muliband radio with shortwave band on the radio. I remember Radio Moscow, with great bells of Kiev sounds in the background when first signing on. Wow that was cool. I then got a radio shack dx 160, in High school in 1976, then continued on to amateur radio today.
SevenFortyOne... In my previous comment, I neglected to say how much I liked your video...Thank you ! But the best part was reading the comments from all the others whose love of "all things electronic" started with a Star Roamer.
I built one of those when I was about 12 years old back in the 1960s also. Mine had a "motor boating" sound on some of the bands but I don't remember which bands. I never could find the reason, but back then there was no internet so finding answers was impossible. Of course I rechecked, many times, every solder connection and every wire I had made, but never found anything wrong.
The Knight Star Roamer was my first SW radio. I used to sit and listen while my Dad tuned his old Zenith Transoceanic to the BBC and other overseas broadcasters. I wasn't allowed to touch his radio even as my interest in SWL grew and his shrank. Finally, at the insistence of my Mom, I received a Star Roamer kit for Christmas when I was 9 years old (1964). I immediately commandeered the dining room table to begin assembly of the kit, which I completed in less than a week. I spent many hours tuning through the bands during the height of the Cold War, listening to the VOA, BBC, Radio Havana Cuba and Radio Moscow, always fascinated by the different perspectives on news and events between The East and West. I accumulated many, many QSL cards from stations all around the globe, including Radio Australia, which I religiously listen to in the early morning hours before going to school. All with a simple wire antenna I'd strung out of my second story bedroom window and back over the roof, which Mom wasn't too happy about when she found out because I'd climbed out onto the snow covered roof and attached the antenna to the chimney and then to the far end of the peak of the roof. "You could have broken your neck!" she said, but since it was already done and I'd been using it for many weeks, there wasn't anything she could do but smile when my back was turned and later tell me what a good job I'd done making do with next to nothing. LOL
Thanks for sharing your story! I remember doing lots of crazy things just to get some wire in the air when I was young too....all in the name of exploration and learning.
This radio is the first radio I built. I received it for my 8th grade graduation. It took me about 10 hours to build and it worked! I listened and listened to CB radio, Short wave, Longwave and Ham radio broadcasts. Two years later I studied and got my Novice Ham radio license as WN9KXG! 16 years old and all on my own! This radio really started me out into a new world of communications. I am now an Amateur Extra ham operator. Allied Radio was the ultimate company that gave experimenters very cool equipment to build and experiment with! Too bad they sold out to Radio Shack which started out great and progressively degraded to less and less serve the experimenter.
The Knight Kit Star Roamer was my second kit I ever built, the first was a pair of Knight Kit walkie talkies that me and a friend played with a lot. Then I built the Star Roamer and he built a Heathkit equivalent SWL receiver that was built on a PC board vs. point to point. We had a lot of fun with these until I moved from Folsom CA to Boulder CO in 1966. Then I got hooked on 1/24 scale slot cars and didnt do as much with electronics until high school when I spent half my 11th and 12th grade school days learning electronics in vocational school. After high school I went into the Navy and rode a submarine as an electronics technician for 6 years. During this time I got into audio and never looked back to RF electronics but worked as a TV and stereo repairman for awhile after the Navy. Now I am 67 and retired and still have my Star Roamer that works fine after replacing the filter capacitors and cleaning contacts and pots. I've built quite a few kits over the years including a color TV but my "first love" is definitely my Star Roamer.
My friend, Steve and I, also built a pair of Knight Kit walkie talkies first, then the Star Roamer. Would have been around 63 and started our life long interest in ham radio. What great memories of late night DXing with the Star Roamer with my friend Steve!
@@williamvoss9264 Were those the blue plastic case 100mw 3 transistor walkie talkies? I souped them up with a 12-volt battery and a long wire SWL antenna as a base station. Completely illegal but we got a LOT more range. We had a competition for QSL cards with our shortwave radios. Those were the days! I should add that I built the Heathkit Q-Multiplier to get some selectivity which helped a lot. Then built a homebrew RF amplifier with a FET to get some sensitivity. Made the most from a simple 5 tube SWL receiver.
@@StewartMarkley Absolutely, we bought the pack of 2 C-100's for $18.88. Wish we'd have thought of boosting the power with more voltage. We lived about 3/8 mile apart and they wouldn't quite make the trip unless we both stood under power lines. Marginal copy at best. We didn't have any 'Elmers' around to give us tips, but we sure had a ball with those radios. In hindsight, we should have tried external antennas. My first exposure to short wave/ham radio was when I dropped my Westinghouse 12 transistor AM and it must have shifted the IF and I started receiving Mississippi River boat comms. Steve and I were so intrigued by it that we decided to buy and build the Star Roamer. 25 years later we both got our ham licenses and ended up as extras. Steve (N8CTI) passed a few years ago, but I'm still involved in the hobby. (WV0SS) Thanks for triggering the memories!
One thing I’m noticing is that I own several modern SW receivers and they are not as sensitive as these tube sets. I had a Grundig tabletop unit and a Knights receiver growing up. They sounded way better and picked up more signals than the receivers I own now. I have external antennas hooked up and your radio still works better.
That was my 1st radio too. Eventually after many years had a career as Electronics Tech Foreman with Six Flags until I retired after 39 years. Great little receiver, wish I still had it!
Just wanted to add. After returning from my service in the army signal corp. I built an "O" scope, a DVM, a color "works in the drawer" TV console, a heathkit computer and various other Radio Shack, Knight Kit products. This little gem started it all. When I was still in High School My friends dad was a Ham ( Buddy King ) and I was mesmorized by his equipment. He had the Linears and a shack full of equipment. Unfortunately I never got any further than CB radio when it was still licensed. I still remember the shades of blue given off by the tubes when he keyed up.
Like you my first shortwave receiver was the STAR ROAMER. I enjoyed building the kit and spent many hours tuning around.. This carried me into even more building, such as the Heatkkit SB-102. Then building receiver and transmitting converters for 2 meters and 70 cm. plus several KW amps. Who that that I still love to tinker with this stuff. Thank you Star Roamer. ND9A
Thank you for showing me this video your father was an excellent electronics hobbyist obviously.... And I want you to know that this was my very first major electronics kit I really really wish I had that radio today but it just went to the wayside so many years ago after I went into the Air Force and now I wish I had it...... thank you for everything that this video represents and I thank your father very much for building this beautiful receiver.
Bill Murray AF7WM My first SW receiver was also a Star Roamer which I got for Christmas in 1964. Still have it, though virtually unused from 1969 onwards. It works and I just recapped it from a source on the internet. There were 2 versions of the receiver, as I found, when I downloaded the manual and found some different parts shown in one manual and not the other. I got an HRO-50T1 in 1967 and a Heathkit SB-310 in 1968, both of which I still have.
I built one of these when I was 10 or 11. Was great at following the directions to build it but didn’t know a thing about radios or how they worked. As I recall, the manual pretty much assumed you knew what the various knobs and switches were for and how to use them, which I didn’t, so I was never able to fully utilize the radio. That made it really frustrating to use. Still, I lived in the Central Valley in California and remember listening to a classical music station out of Las Vegas, NV late at night which I thought was pretty slick.
The Star Roamer was my first radio too! Built the kit with my older brother in the late 60's. He was an electronics engineer at the time and I was about 16. Have many wonderful memories of staying up til 3:00 AM building that receiver! The fun, amazement, and education that followed led me into CB and then the great jump into Ham Radio. Sadly, while I was in the military (Star Roamer left at home due to ham gear taking up the space in my car when I left home)…. my niece spied the Star Roamer and sold it at a flea market without asking if I still "wanted" it. I still wanted it and still "want" it, but the radio is long gone. C'est la vie! Love your videos! Please keep making them.
Thanks , nice video. Not much on SW these days. My first radio was the Knight Kit Span master, regenerative radio ( used) in the mid 60’s . Quite sensitive. And again, no BFO.
A GE 8 Transistor SW Portable was my first receiver. Second was the Star Roamer. Bought it from a local ham for $20. BTW, you can receive CW and SSB by advancing the Sensitivity Control until it oscillates. Thanks for the video. 73, Mike KG7M
My first radio was much simpler. I found my dads Philmore crystal radio in his room in about 1967. I was in 5th grade. I asked what it was and said it was a radio. I asked where you put the batteries? He said it doesn't use batteries. Then I asked how do you plug it in? You don't plug it in, he said. I asked well how does it work then? He told me to connect an antenna to it and it would play on thee head phone. I had an old broken off antenna from an old radio so I wrapped a wire around it and connected it to the terminal marked antenna. It did not play. I told him and he said no no not that kind of antenna. He thought a second and said connect a wire to the cold water faucet just below my bedroom window and try that. I did and it played!!!! I fell asleep listening to KOMA 1520 am and when I woke up I put the earphone to me ear and IT WAS STILL playing!!! And no batteries or electricity! I was hooked. I found my metal bed spring on my bed worked also. I built several crystal radios by the time I got to high school where I took radio and TV in votech school in 10th grade. Needless to say I love radios. Especially old ones. I am now 65 and still love collecting and building radios. I am lucky to have a lovely wife who allowed me to build a large shop building in my back yard and I have an awesome man cave in it. I have over 100 radios in my cave.
The Star Roamer was the radio that got me interested in hamming. It was greatly underrated. For $40 it had many more features than the Hallicrafters S-120, which was a comparable radio. Specifically, it had a transformer power supply which would isolate you from being shocked, a weighted tuning dial, S-meter, and longwave band. It even had a functiuon which allowed it to be used as a code practice oscillator to learn Morse code. Probably my best shortwave DX on it was Radio New Zealand and Radio Finland. It was also possible to receive SSB, though a bit tricky. It has a regenerative IF stage, so turn up the sensitivity control until you get a background rushing sound, then very carefully try to tune in ssb. If you are lucky, you just might get something that sounds like English. Same comment applies for cw. Great radio, great vid. thanks for posting. 73. Don ex wd0chr
Sorry, I’m a newb, but what’s the deal with the antenna? Do you have it clipped to a longwire antenna or something? I always wanna buy something like this, but have no idea how to get reception.
My first radio experience (about 1966) was a KnightKit crystal kit quickly followed by a Space Spanner regen. Those both were a blast & I still have them. I got into ham radio Oct. 1969 & still going strong. Radio still fascinates me with its magic
this old rig does receive cw if the sensitivity is aligned properly. when tured to the right, an internal carrier is produced. i listened to many hours of ssb but this wasnt my first. my first was an old wooden radio that had a heavy 12 inch speaker. weighed a ton. this was back in 68. i paid 25 bucks for it and carried it home. i was hooked. i was like 13. then that old thing burned up. thats when i started bugging my mom for this radio. she finally gave in and we got one for 39.95. 10 bucks off on sale. i had a bad cold but i lay everything out on my bed and started putting it together. i felt horrible but i spent all night doing this. my mom got up to go to work. it was around 10 am, the time came to plug it in. i did and...nothing. i smelled burning. i felt the transformer and it was hot hot. i slept for a while and came back to it. i traced back all my connections and i found a wire going from ground to a pin on a tube. i clipped it and the radio came to life. i was so happy. i listened to that thing for years. it was on all the time. i dont know whatever happened to it? im 62 and i just happened to come across one for 10 bucks in good shape and complete. its very poorly put together and has 60 cycle noise. im going to have fun rebuilding it. this thing brings back very fond memories of my mom and me calling her to come listen to some station i picked up. star roamer lives on. thanks for posting this one!
This was my first entry into electronics as well. I believe it was Christmas 1966 when I received the Star Roamer (SWL Receiver) and WV-38AK (VOM Multimeter) kits for Christmas. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. BTW, back then we called them mega-cycles. Mega Hertz became the term a few years later. Thanks for the memories.
The Star Roamer was my first receiver, and when I got my Novice License (WN7CSK) I actually used it for ham radio on 80 meter CW. Thanks for the reminder there was no BFO. Operating CW was a challenge. Eventually someone figured out a gimmick capacitor (2 wires twisted together) in the IF stage to send it into oscillation. This was a terrible receiver for ham radio, although I had fun listening to Radio Havana and Radio Moscow on it.
My first SW receiver was a "Lafayette Explor-Air Mark V" Worked pretty good too! After that, the next decent receiver was a Kenwood R-2000. Got interested in Ham Radio at about age 13 or so, after learning morse code for a boy scout merit badge. Got licensed about 1972.
I just met a neighbor that has a similar story and was part of the inspiration for this video. Like you, he got into the hobby as an early teen but gave it up once he went off to college. Now that he's ready to retire he's getting back into it and remembering all the fun he had with it as a kid. thanks for sharing your story!
The Star Roamer was my first Short Wave radio. I was 14 and had talked 'Santa" into leaving the kit under the tree for me. I worked slowly and carefully assembling the kit. I was shocked that when I first turned it on that it worked! The frequency's were pretty close to the dials, and as I had no VOM or other means to tune, I left it all just as it was. I spent many many hours working my way up and down the bands. I still have the radio, but the caps are now shot and need to be replaced. A great radio for its time and price!
I owned a Star Roamer in 1968 when I was 17 years old. The high point of ownership was the day US Navy men from the USS Pueblo were being held in Cuba after being caught and detained by North Korea accused of spying. The radio broadcast was from Radio Havana beamed towards the US. The captured US Navy Men were being forced to say we were spying on North Korea and we citizens of the United States should tell our leaders to admit our activities. I still have black and white photo taken by the local newspaper reporter who used my story and photo in the local newspaper. It was a great radio and I was amazed at all the Russian radio jamming that was occurring worldwide. I guess our side was doing some 'jamming' as well but of course we were the good guys so it was ok!
My first real radio is the one you saw in my video- the Hallicrafters SX-42. My father gave it to me when I turned 15, and he bought it brand new at age 15. A true family heirloom, it was discovered to be one of the first 100 to come off the Hallicrafters assembly line. I love the radio.
That radio is a keeper. The real value is the heritage and story behind it. The low production # is icing on the cake. Stuff like that is priceless because of its history and what it means to you. Great story - thanks for sharing it!
SevenFortyOne yes, it’s always going to be my favorite. Someday, if my son ever gets into the hobby, it will be his. But right now, he discredits anything “old”.
A nice radio with great memories, sitting there doing what your dad did turning the knobs as you are now. It has good sound, better than a lot of new ones.
In the sixties, most radios had shortwave bands which I was attracted to listen as all the bands were filled with numerous stations. Oh boy, the first radio? I cannot precisely identify it. There were old tube radios at home, some of them were made from bakelite. The first radio that I remember was a German Nordmende radio from the 50s with numerous lettering on each band referring to cities around the world.
The shortwave bands aren't what they used to be. That Nordmende sounds like it was a pretty nice radio. My local radio museum has a few nice examples of radios like that from that era.
My "first" radio I received when I was six - a "Valiant" six transistor radio. The knight is cool! Never had one to check out. Would have been neat if there was a "BFO" on it so you could listen to sideband. Always good to have at least one "space heater" on the bench. Take care! BTW.. Snowing here as I type.
You do not need a BFO in this receiver. Play some with the selectivity knob (AvC off) and then you can create a beat frequency, adjustable with the bandspread knob
My first radio was a Radio Shack DX-160, (I know you're probably laughing) that my mom & dad bought for my 14th birthday. lol It actually was a pretty good rig. I had a 60 foot long wire antenna strung between a mast on the corner of the house (with a pulley and counterweight), and the other end to a tree. And a 6 foot ground rod pounded into the ground. I used to do a lot of SWL, at various hours. I think I accumulated QSL cards from a few of the stations I heard, remember the SINPO code? My mom & dad also bought me one of those Radio Shack Science Fair 200 in 1 or 300 in one electronics learning sets, I used to have fun making the electronics circuits.
Nothing wrong with a Baofeng....as long as you don't transmit with it :)...hey, whatever works right? It got your foot in the door and now you have some pretty nice radios to fool with.
The Star Roamer was my first shortwave radio, thank you for the trip down Memory Lane with this great video! One comment you made is that it only receives AM. This is not totally true. It *IS* possible to receive SSB and CW by turning up the Sensitivity control until it breaks into oscillation, and then very carefully adjusting the frequency until you get an audible tone on CW, or essentially a "zero beat" for SSB. That being said, the frequency stability is so poor on this simple radio that you will likely need to constantly be adjusting the frequency to keep the signal intelligible for more than a few seconds at a time, especially on the higher bands/frequencies. In practice, you'll likely find it not worth the trouble to ever use it for SSB or CW. Still fun though!
PS-I like the looks of that radio. Very similar to a Heathkit, but with much nicer looking cabinet and dial colors. I think your filter caps might be ok- that definitely was him from plasma and/or lighting. I have a neighbor with an old plasma that at times decimated my AM bands.
Yeah - my old plasma TV sure does create a racket. I'm waiting for it to die so I have an excuse to replace it. We just don't watch that much TV in the first place though...
SevenFortyOne I think just about any high def tv gives off crazy RF. I used to worry about failed filter caps, till I started hearing that same buzz on my Grundig. I don’t think it will ever leave the broadcast band, unfortunately.
Lovely video thanks for sharing. My first radio here in UK in 1981 was radioshack 2 channel cb 27/81 hand held followed by a Amstrad CB901 (40 channels, fm) with fairy light signal meter.
My first was a Healthkit GR-54. A great introduction to SWL. My brother helped me build it as he was an electronic tech! I still have it and often fire it up! Happy memories!
My first radio was....The star roamer. My dad and I built it in the 60s and I used to listen to it on the dining room table. The first ham I heard on it was KH6OR in Hawaii. It amazed me. Many years later when I moved to Hawaii, I looked Fred up and sad to say he had passed away. That radio though was magical and started me on my path to Ham radio.
This is the FIRST TIME I've heard a Star Roamer working. I got a Star Roamer kit when I was 11 of 12 years old and across two or three attempts to build it, I never got it to work. In the last attempt, I got the lights on the dial to illuminate and a 60 cycle hum out of the speaker. And that was it. Now I'm 66 years old and finally, FINALLY I get to hear a Star Roamer thanks to the magic of the Internet. Thank you!
My first sw radio was a Star Roamer. I cut grass all summer to make enough to buy one. My dad and i put it together. Enjoyed many nights listening to stations all over the world.
This was my first ham receiver. I bought a used Heathkit HX-11 crystal controlled transmitter (50 watts?) at the same time, all from Amateur Radio Supply in Milwaukee (now Ham Radio Outlet). It was a great start to a long ham hobby. Just this last Saturday I was at a silent keys house and found a pristine Star Roamer. What luck! I used a Variac to test it out, no smoke. At 120 VAC and just a short wire antenna on it I heard a station! WOW, has this brought back memories. From 1966 to 2024 and this radio still makes me smile.
Great story -thanks for sharing!
My first radio was a very compact AM-FM -shortwave that I bought from the Montgomery Wards catalog when I was twelve. With an ac adaptor it worked pretty well and I listened to old Navy radio men talk about their days in the service. My dad bought the Staroamer and assembled it t for me when I was fourteen. I was able to get shortwave broadcasts from all over the world. Great radio. I'll have to "fire it up" and see how well it still works!
My first shortwave radio was a used Knight Span Master that I bought from the high school librarians husband in 1968. A year later I built a Knight Star Roamer. Worked great but never got it properly aligned. Good radio and had lots of fun using it. Many radios (and years) later
I'm using Kenwood R600 and Icom r75 but nothing compares to the first few weeks with the Span Master years ago.
My first radio, brand new on Christmas morning, age 12, 1963 - been a Ham 54 years now
I got started in 1974 from a Midland muliband radio with shortwave band on the radio. I remember Radio Moscow, with great bells of Kiev sounds in the background when first signing on. Wow that was cool. I then got a radio shack dx 160, in High school in 1976, then continued on to amateur radio today.
Certainly better than my Globepatrol Archer kit from RS which I received and assembled immediately on Christmas Eve 1977.
SevenFortyOne... In my previous comment, I neglected to say how much I liked your video...Thank you ! But the best part was reading the comments from all the others whose love of "all things electronic" started with a Star Roamer.
My first was National SW-54, I was around 10. My brother replaced the 35Z5 rectifier and some caps, it worked great!
I built one of those when I was about 12 years old back in the 1960s also. Mine had a "motor boating" sound on some of the bands but I don't remember which bands. I never could find the reason, but back then there was no internet so finding answers was impossible. Of course I rechecked, many times, every solder connection and every wire I had made, but never found anything wrong.
The Knight Star Roamer was my first SW radio. I used to sit and listen while my Dad tuned his old Zenith Transoceanic to the BBC and other overseas broadcasters. I wasn't allowed to touch his radio even as my interest in SWL grew and his shrank. Finally, at the insistence of my Mom, I received a Star Roamer kit for Christmas when I was 9 years old (1964). I immediately commandeered the dining room table to begin assembly of the kit, which I completed in less than a week. I spent many hours tuning through the bands during the height of the Cold War, listening to the VOA, BBC, Radio Havana Cuba and Radio Moscow, always fascinated by the different perspectives on news and events between The East and West. I accumulated many, many QSL cards from stations all around the globe, including Radio Australia, which I religiously listen to in the early morning hours before going to school. All with a simple wire antenna I'd strung out of my second story bedroom window and back over the roof, which Mom wasn't too happy about when she found out because I'd climbed out onto the snow covered roof and attached the antenna to the chimney and then to the far end of the peak of the roof. "You could have broken your neck!" she said, but since it was already done and I'd been using it for many weeks, there wasn't anything she could do but smile when my back was turned and later tell me what a good job I'd done making do with next to nothing. LOL
Thanks for sharing your story! I remember doing lots of crazy things just to get some wire in the air when I was young too....all in the name of exploration and learning.
This radio is the first radio I built. I received it for my 8th grade graduation. It took me about 10 hours to build and it worked! I listened and listened to CB radio, Short wave, Longwave and Ham radio broadcasts. Two years later I studied and got my Novice Ham radio license as WN9KXG! 16 years old and all on my own! This radio really started me out into a new world of communications. I am now an Amateur Extra ham operator. Allied Radio was the ultimate company that gave experimenters very cool equipment to build and experiment with! Too bad they sold out to Radio Shack which started out great and progressively degraded to less and less serve the experimenter.
The Knight Kit Star Roamer was my second kit I ever built, the first was a pair of Knight Kit walkie talkies that me and a friend played with a lot. Then I built the Star Roamer and he built a Heathkit equivalent SWL receiver that was built on a PC board vs. point to point. We had a lot of fun with these until I moved from Folsom CA to Boulder CO in 1966. Then I got hooked on 1/24 scale slot cars and didnt do as much with electronics until high school when I spent half my 11th and 12th grade school days learning electronics in vocational school. After high school I went into the Navy and rode a submarine as an electronics technician for 6 years. During this time I got into audio and never looked back to RF electronics but worked as a TV and stereo repairman for awhile after the Navy. Now I am 67 and retired and still have my Star Roamer that works fine after replacing the filter capacitors and cleaning contacts and pots. I've built quite a few kits over the years including a color TV but my "first love" is definitely my Star Roamer.
Great story! Thanks for sharing
My friend, Steve and I, also built a pair of Knight Kit walkie talkies first, then the Star Roamer. Would have been around 63 and started our life long interest in ham radio. What great memories of late night DXing with the Star Roamer with my friend Steve!
@@williamvoss9264 Were those the blue plastic case 100mw 3 transistor walkie talkies? I souped them up with a 12-volt battery and a long wire SWL antenna as a base station. Completely illegal but we got a LOT more range. We had a competition for QSL cards with our shortwave radios. Those were the days!
I should add that I built the Heathkit Q-Multiplier to get some selectivity which helped a lot. Then built a homebrew RF amplifier with a FET to get some sensitivity. Made the most from a simple 5 tube SWL receiver.
@@StewartMarkley Absolutely, we bought the pack of 2 C-100's for $18.88. Wish we'd have thought of boosting the power with more voltage. We lived about 3/8 mile apart and they wouldn't quite make the trip unless we both stood under power lines. Marginal copy at best. We didn't have any 'Elmers' around to give us tips, but we sure had a ball with those radios. In hindsight, we should have tried external antennas. My first exposure to short wave/ham radio was when I dropped my Westinghouse 12 transistor AM and it must have shifted the IF and I started receiving Mississippi River boat comms. Steve and I were so intrigued by it that we decided to buy and build the Star Roamer. 25 years later we both got our ham licenses and ended up as extras. Steve (N8CTI) passed a few years ago, but I'm still involved in the hobby. (WV0SS) Thanks for triggering the memories!
Just noticed the hat. Submariner? Can't quite read it. I spent 4 years tracking subs on a DE in the 60's.
One thing I’m noticing is that I own several modern SW receivers and they are not as sensitive as these tube sets. I had a Grundig tabletop unit and a Knights receiver growing up. They sounded way better and picked up more signals than the receivers I own now. I have external antennas hooked up and your radio still works better.
That was my 1st radio too. Eventually after many years had a career as Electronics Tech Foreman with Six Flags until I retired after 39 years. Great little receiver, wish I still had it!
Just wanted to add. After returning from my service in the army signal corp. I built an "O" scope, a DVM, a color "works in the drawer" TV console, a heathkit computer and various other Radio Shack, Knight Kit products. This little gem started it all. When I was still in High School My friends dad was a Ham ( Buddy King ) and I was mesmorized by his equipment. He had the Linears and a shack full of equipment. Unfortunately I never got any further than CB radio when it was still licensed. I still remember the shades of blue given off by the tubes when he keyed up.
Great story! It's never too late to get your ham license if you're still interested in radio. Oh, and thanks for your service!
Like you my first shortwave receiver was the STAR ROAMER. I enjoyed building the kit and spent many hours tuning around.. This carried me into even more building, such as the Heatkkit SB-102. Then building receiver and transmitting converters for 2 meters and 70 cm. plus several KW amps. Who that that I still love to tinker with this stuff. Thank you Star Roamer. ND9A
That's a great story John, thanks for sharing it!
Thank you for showing me this video your father was an excellent electronics hobbyist obviously.... And I want you to know that this was my very first major electronics kit I really really wish I had that radio today but it just went to the wayside so many years ago after I went into the Air Force and now I wish I had it...... thank you for everything that this video represents and I thank your father very much for building this beautiful receiver.
I'm glad you enjoyed this video. My dad was a great guy and not a day goes by that I don't think about him.
Bill Murray AF7WM
My first SW receiver was also a Star Roamer which I got for Christmas in 1964. Still have it, though virtually unused from 1969 onwards. It works and I just recapped it from a source on the internet. There were 2 versions of the receiver, as I found, when I downloaded the manual and found some different parts shown in one manual and not the other. I got an HRO-50T1 in 1967 and a Heathkit SB-310 in 1968, both of which I still have.
I built one of these when I was 10 or 11. Was great at following the directions to build it but didn’t know a thing about radios or how they worked. As I recall, the manual pretty much assumed you knew what the various knobs and switches were for and how to use them, which I didn’t, so I was never able to fully utilize the radio. That made it really frustrating to use. Still, I lived in the Central Valley in California and remember listening to a classical music station out of Las Vegas, NV late at night which I thought was pretty slick.
My brother gave me the same radio around 1980. And I still have it. Still works
Listened to WA1HenryLR since I was a kid too on an old hallacrafters.. nice lil ol rcvr you got
The Star Roamer was my first radio too! Built the kit with my older brother in the late 60's. He was an electronics engineer at the time and I was about 16. Have many wonderful memories of staying up til 3:00 AM building that receiver! The fun, amazement, and education that followed led me into CB and then the great jump into Ham Radio. Sadly, while I was in the military (Star Roamer left at home due to ham gear taking up the space in my car when I left home)…. my niece spied the Star Roamer and sold it at a flea market without asking if I still "wanted" it. I still wanted it and still "want" it, but the radio is long gone. C'est la vie! Love your videos! Please keep making them.
Thanks , nice video. Not much on SW these days. My first radio was the Knight Kit Span master, regenerative radio ( used) in the mid 60’s . Quite sensitive. And again, no BFO.
A GE 8 Transistor SW Portable was my first receiver. Second was the Star Roamer. Bought it from a local ham for $20. BTW, you can receive CW and SSB by advancing the Sensitivity Control until it oscillates.
Thanks for the video. 73, Mike KG7M
My first radio was much simpler. I found my dads Philmore crystal radio in his room in about 1967. I was in 5th grade. I asked what it was and said it was a radio. I asked where you put the batteries? He said it doesn't use batteries. Then I asked how do you plug it in? You don't plug it in, he said. I asked well how does it work then? He told me to connect an antenna to it and it would play on thee head phone. I had an old broken off antenna from an old radio so I wrapped a wire around it and connected it to the terminal marked antenna. It did not play. I told him and he said no no not that kind of antenna. He thought a second and said connect a wire to the cold water faucet just below my bedroom window and try that. I did and it played!!!! I fell asleep listening to KOMA 1520 am and when I woke up I put the earphone to me ear and IT WAS STILL playing!!! And no batteries or electricity! I was hooked. I found my metal bed spring on my bed worked also. I built several crystal radios by the time I got to high school where I took radio and TV in votech school in 10th grade. Needless to say I love radios. Especially old ones. I am now 65 and still love collecting and building radios. I am lucky to have a lovely wife who allowed me to build a large shop building in my back yard and I have an awesome man cave in it. I have over 100 radios in my cave.
The Star Roamer was the radio that got me interested in hamming. It was greatly underrated. For $40 it had many more features than the Hallicrafters S-120, which was a comparable radio. Specifically, it had a transformer power supply which would isolate you from being shocked, a weighted tuning dial, S-meter, and longwave band. It even had a functiuon which allowed it to be used as a code practice oscillator to learn Morse code. Probably my best shortwave DX on it was Radio New Zealand and Radio Finland. It was also possible to receive SSB, though a bit tricky. It has a regenerative IF stage, so turn up the sensitivity control until you get a background rushing sound, then very carefully try to tune in ssb. If you are lucky, you just might get something that sounds like English. Same comment applies for cw. Great radio, great vid. thanks for posting. 73. Don ex wd0chr
Sorry, I’m a newb, but what’s the deal with the antenna? Do you have it clipped to a longwire antenna or something? I always wanna buy something like this, but have no idea how to get reception.
My first radio experience (about 1966) was a KnightKit crystal kit quickly followed by a Space Spanner regen. Those both were a blast & I still have them. I got into ham radio Oct. 1969 & still going strong. Radio still fascinates me with its magic
this old rig does receive cw if the sensitivity is aligned properly. when tured to the right, an internal carrier is produced. i listened to many hours of ssb but this wasnt my first. my first was an old wooden radio that had a heavy 12 inch speaker. weighed a ton. this was back in 68. i paid 25 bucks for it and carried it home. i was hooked. i was like 13. then that old thing burned up. thats when i started bugging my mom for this radio. she finally gave in and we got one for 39.95. 10 bucks off on sale. i had a bad cold but i lay everything out on my bed and started putting it together. i felt horrible but i spent all night doing this. my mom got up to go to work. it was around 10 am, the time came to plug it in. i did and...nothing. i smelled burning. i felt the transformer and it was hot hot. i slept for a while and came back to it. i traced back all my connections and i found a wire going from ground to a pin on a tube. i clipped it and the radio came to life. i was so happy. i listened to that thing for years. it was on all the time.
i dont know whatever happened to it? im 62 and i just happened to come across one for 10 bucks in good shape and complete. its very poorly put together and has 60 cycle noise. im going to have fun rebuilding it. this thing brings back very fond memories of my mom and me calling her to come listen to some station i picked up. star roamer lives on. thanks for posting this one!
Great story, thanks for sharing!
That radio is clean kg6mn
This was my first entry into electronics as well. I believe it was Christmas 1966 when I received the Star Roamer (SWL Receiver) and WV-38AK (VOM Multimeter) kits for Christmas. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. BTW, back then we called them mega-cycles. Mega Hertz became the term a few years later. Thanks for the memories.
Great Story - thanks for sharing!
The Star Roamer was my first receiver, and when I got my Novice License (WN7CSK) I actually used it for ham radio on 80 meter CW. Thanks for the reminder there was no BFO. Operating CW was a challenge. Eventually someone figured out a gimmick capacitor (2 wires twisted together) in the IF stage to send it into oscillation. This was a terrible receiver for ham radio, although I had fun listening to Radio Havana and Radio Moscow on it.
My first SW receiver was a "Lafayette Explor-Air Mark V" Worked pretty good too! After that, the next decent receiver was a Kenwood R-2000. Got interested in Ham Radio at about age 13 or so, after learning morse code for a boy scout merit badge. Got licensed about 1972.
I just met a neighbor that has a similar story and was part of the inspiration for this video. Like you, he got into the hobby as an early teen but gave it up once he went off to college. Now that he's ready to retire he's getting back into it and remembering all the fun he had with it as a kid. thanks for sharing your story!
The Star Roamer was my first Short Wave radio. I was 14 and had talked 'Santa" into leaving the kit under the tree for me. I worked slowly and carefully assembling the kit. I was shocked that when I first turned it on that it worked! The frequency's were pretty close to the dials, and as I had no VOM or other means to tune, I left it all just as it was. I spent many many hours working my way up and down the bands. I still have the radio, but the caps are now shot and need to be replaced. A great radio for its time and price!
My first was also a Star Roamer as well in the sixties
I owned a Star Roamer in 1968 when I was 17 years old. The high point of ownership was the day US Navy men from the USS Pueblo were being held in Cuba after being caught and detained by North Korea accused of spying. The radio broadcast was from Radio Havana beamed towards the US. The captured US Navy Men were being forced to say we were spying on North Korea and we citizens of the United States should tell our leaders to admit our activities. I still have black and white photo taken by the local newspaper reporter who used my story and photo in the local newspaper. It was a great radio and I was amazed at all the Russian radio jamming that was occurring worldwide. I guess our side was doing some 'jamming' as well but of course we were the good guys so it was ok!
Great story - thanks for sharing!
kool old radio still works awesome
My first real radio is the one you saw in my video- the Hallicrafters SX-42. My father gave it to me when I turned 15, and he bought it brand new at age 15. A true family heirloom, it was discovered to be one of the first 100 to come off the Hallicrafters assembly line. I love the radio.
That radio is a keeper. The real value is the heritage and story behind it. The low production # is icing on the cake. Stuff like that is priceless because of its history and what it means to you. Great story - thanks for sharing it!
SevenFortyOne yes, it’s always going to be my favorite. Someday, if my son ever gets into the hobby, it will be his. But right now, he discredits anything “old”.
A nice radio with great memories, sitting there doing what your dad did turning the knobs as you are now. It has good sound, better than a lot of new ones.
Its definitely not Chinese junk like we have today.
In the sixties, most radios had shortwave bands which I was attracted to listen as all the bands were filled with numerous stations. Oh boy, the first radio? I cannot precisely identify it. There were old tube radios at home, some of them were made from bakelite. The first radio that I remember was a German Nordmende radio from the 50s with numerous lettering on each band referring to cities around the world.
The shortwave bands aren't what they used to be. That Nordmende sounds like it was a pretty nice radio. My local radio museum has a few nice examples of radios like that from that era.
My "first" radio I received when I was six - a "Valiant" six transistor radio. The knight is cool! Never had one to check out. Would have been neat if there was a "BFO" on it so you could listen to sideband. Always good to have at least one "space heater" on the bench. Take care! BTW.. Snowing here as I type.
Space heaters are always nice this time of year. We got some snow today two...about 2 inches or so.
You do not need a BFO in this receiver. Play some with the selectivity knob (AvC off) and then you can create a beat frequency, adjustable with the bandspread knob
My first radio was a Radio Shack DX-160, (I know you're probably laughing) that my mom & dad bought for my 14th birthday. lol It actually was a pretty good rig. I had a 60 foot long wire antenna strung between a mast on the corner of the house (with a pulley and counterweight), and the other end to a tree. And a 6 foot ground rod pounded into the ground. I used to do a lot of SWL, at various hours. I think I accumulated QSL cards from a few of the stations I heard, remember the SINPO code?
My mom & dad also bought me one of those Radio Shack Science Fair 200 in 1 or 300 in one electronics learning sets, I used to have fun making the electronics circuits.
Nothing wrong with a DX-160...especially when you are 14 years old. Great story!
1947 sears Silvertone had to retube and recap got it 1961
my first real radio was a Baofeng. Lol. I dont have it anymore but I now have like 6 or 7 HT's and a brand new FT-70D
Nothing wrong with a Baofeng....as long as you don't transmit with it :)...hey, whatever works right? It got your foot in the door and now you have some pretty nice radios to fool with.
Well now like I said I have my license, and I have two good Yaesu HT's. One even does Fusion :3
The Star Roamer was my first shortwave radio, thank you for the trip down Memory Lane with this great video! One comment you made is that it only receives AM. This is not totally true. It *IS* possible to receive SSB and CW by turning up the Sensitivity control until it breaks into oscillation, and then very carefully adjusting the frequency until you get an audible tone on CW, or essentially a "zero beat" for SSB. That being said, the frequency stability is so poor on this simple radio that you will likely need to constantly be adjusting the frequency to keep the signal intelligible for more than a few seconds at a time, especially on the higher bands/frequencies. In practice, you'll likely find it not worth the trouble to ever use it for SSB or CW. Still fun though!
PS-I like the looks of that radio. Very similar to a Heathkit, but with much nicer looking cabinet and dial colors. I think your filter caps might be ok- that definitely was him from plasma and/or lighting. I have a neighbor with an old plasma that at times decimated my AM bands.
Yeah - my old plasma TV sure does create a racket. I'm waiting for it to die so I have an excuse to replace it. We just don't watch that much TV in the first place though...
SevenFortyOne I think just about any high def tv gives off crazy RF. I used to worry about failed filter caps, till I started hearing that same buzz on my Grundig. I don’t think it will ever leave the broadcast band, unfortunately.
Knight Kit Span Master
4 tubes
Does this have ssb ?
No
nice radio :D
Lovely video thanks for sharing. My first radio here in UK in 1981 was radioshack 2 channel cb 27/81 hand held followed by a Amstrad CB901 (40 channels, fm) with fairy light signal meter.