Risky Business

I recently saw where an old acquaintance had died. For the sake of his privacy, we’ll just call him Homer.

In 1960, Homer and I shared an interest in amateur radio. He lived just across the way from Louie, radio callsign K3KYY, who ran the Dixon Bar and Grill, in DuBois PA. As underage kids, we often dropped by the Dixon Grill, where we drank free Coca-Cola and listened to Louie; always ready to talk about radio.

One evening, Louie reported that Homer had acquired some extremely high end equipment. To be honest, we didn’t know what it was, but if Louie thought it was great … we wanted to see for ourselves. We made our way across the main drag and up a side street to Homer’s second floor apartment, his radio room required another climb, to a small attic.

The radio was indeed a thing of beauty … a Collins 32S-1transmitter, as I remember.

It was the first Collins “S-Line” component that I had ever seen.  Homer proudly advised that Collins radios were undisputedly the “top of the line;” their “new” cost being a jaw dropping six hundred and twenty dollars … that’s somewhere near six-thousand dollars today.

I should note that Homer was not the wealthy man … he drove a delivery truck for Oscar Meyer, the wiener people.  For Homer, we understood, this to be an incredible acquisition. During his show and tell, he carefully warned us not mention “price” in front of his wife. His story was that he had purchased the radio used for thirty-five dollars.

Risky business for sure … and in light of his recent obituary … maybe she finally found out!