About

My name is Dave Whaley and I have been addicted to radio for over 50 years.

I started my addiction with a crystal radio back in the mid-60’s. My father bought me a “Get Smart” secret pen crystal radio. I was 9 or 10 years old.

The cool thing was I did not need batteries and the antenna I connected to was the finger stop on the Rotary telephone in my room. I could hear all over the USA (I could hear every station at the same time because there was little selectivity). Several years later I got a set of Radio Shack Walkie Talkies and found CB people. A short while later I upgraded to a Radio Shack Walkie Talkie Base Station.

When I was going church we had a matching class (7th grade Church/7th grade school) classes and I met a CBer and ham radio enthusiast who became my Elmer. We used to talk on the CB at night and then my cousin was selling his base CB unit which I bought, a Polycomm Pro.

I met a friend of my Elmer named Dave who was a ham operator and he lent me a Hallicrafters S-38E short wave receiver to listen for a while. I discovered Short Wave, CB, ham radio, long distance broadcast band stations. What a wonderful world! I was introduced to the loacl ham club , The Elgin Amateur Radio Society. I learned morse code and passed my Novice test through this club.