Tuning your tranceiver 1950's style

What use is an F-call? In the past I've talked about the history of Amateur Radio and how as a new participant it's easy to make the same mistakes as those who came before you because you don't yet know enough to ask the right questions, or the right place to look. Recently I had a conversation on air with an Amateur who had been fascinated with the hobby since the late 1940's, so over 60 years of experience in the field. At the time we were talking about inspiration, that is, what is it that inspired him to become part of the hobby. He told of a time when he built a kit and made a transmitter and it worked. He was hooked. And while that story continues on, I'm going to go sideways to show a little of the world and how it's changed in those 60 years. We're all familiar with the idea of going from horse and cart to the automobile. Unless you've actually sat in a cart and experienced it, it's still only sort of an understanding of the change and evolution. Right now, you're likely sitting next to a radio that has a VFO on it. Probably it's got a digital display of some kind, as you turn the VFO, the display indicates what frequency you're tuned to. The pre-cursor to this is a dial with frequencies indicated and a vernier that indicated what the dial was turned to. But there was a step before that. Imagine for a moment that you have a simple receiver. Its got a dial on it that is numbered 1 to 100. You can turn the dial and change its tuning frequency. To know what actual frequency its on, you look up the dial position in a calibration book. So, 39 might be 3.582 MHz. So, you set-up your simple receiver in such a way that you've got it set to the place where you're wanting to receive. Then, you turn on your transmitter and tune it to the same place. You know you're in the right place when the simple receiver starts to squeal and then when its tuned it's howling. Then, you turn on your receiver and tune that to the same place in the same way, you hear it squeal. Now you can actually key your morse or PTT key and start transmitting. Sound's like a lot more work than what you go through today. Here's something else. The simple receiver, it's called a wave meter and it's calibrated in a laboratory. Presumably the manufacturer has a set of crystals that oscillate on the appropriate frequency and the wave meter is calibrated and logs are taken to make the dial position co-inside with a known frequency. That's what it was like in 1950 to tune your radio. And here I am with a Yaesu 857d that fits in my hand, runs across multiple bands and transmits up to 100 Watts. Perhaps that's more illustrative than a horse and cart. That's history, right there. I'm Onno, VK6FLAB