I have made a deal with Donald Berry. He will come in on Saturday mornings and look after the young kids who are radio hobbyists.
Even with only the two stations, it has become something of popular interest among our young boys. Picking up Gatewell on a crystal set is something of a feat given that their signal output is fleapower like our own. The next step is leaning on parents to provide the means to build a one valve set. It does not matter that there is probably the latest mains set in the lounge, one dial tuning, five, six, seven valves, maybe even more. Listening on a set that one has built oneself is just so much better even if the signal is close to being lost in the background noise. Shushing siblings, adjusting the reaction to the very edge of feedback. Triumph! And endless oportunities to experiment with a better earth, better antennas, wires to the tops of nearby trees.
The next step is Gatewell on a loudspeaker. A relative’s cast-off horn speaker if one is lucky otherwise it’s added to the pestering Mom and Pop. A small speaker with a matching transformer, an audio transformer, another valve. Some who are a little older prefer the more complex reflex route where the one valve is radio-frequency amplifier, detector, and audio amplifier. Quite an achievement if you can get it to work properly.
It has made sense to cater to the hobbyists. I stock a lot of the things they need, coil formers, winding wire, crystal detectors, fahnstock clips, base-board valve sockets, and will order anything else for them if necessary. Simple electronic and radio circuits appear in a variety of magazines. Popular Mechanics always has a page. Even the children’s magazine brought in by the local Methodist Church has a new circuit each month. Don’t ask me why. The simple one-valver seems to be capable of endless variations. Enthusiasts are led to build, dismantle, and build anew in a continued quest for the electronic Holy Grail. It’s a harmless addiction.
The problem was that too many of these kids were coming in asking for help to get their sets going and I cannot refuse a kid. Neither can I charge a kid. It might be something as simple as them not realising that having valve pins numbered clockwise from below means that they number anti-clockwise from above when using a base-board socket. At other times the fault could be something unexpectedly ridiculous. Naturally, I would fix the fault for them but it all took time.
This is where Donald will come in. He is not just a radio enthusiast. He is an obsessive. Donald is a cousin of Frank and Wendall. They have grazing land some miles out to hold the stock that they buy. There is a house on the land and their slaughterhouse is there. With no large abattoire in the valley, each butcher must buy, hold, and slaughter his own stock. Donald is stockman and slaughterman for Frank and Wendall and lives on their holdings. He does this job well. They tried having Donald come in to serve in the shop on Fridays which is their busy day and made difficult by one of them being away on country deliveries. It didn’t work.
Donald is a really nice guy, and bright, but his obsession intruded. A butcher may not need as much patter as a barber but he does need to be someone with whom a woman customer can talk, exchange pleasantries, and, if necessary, ask for suggestions when guests are expected. He is selling more than meat. A visit to his shop must be a more pleasant experience than a visit to his rival’s. Donald could not understand that the average woman is not the least bit interested in his hobby: has no idea what a condenser or a grid-leak is. He would turn every conversation into a monologue on his latest construction project and was totally unable to see that it was only a woman’s politeness that stopped her from walking out. I had a college friend with the same problem only his monomania was model airplanes. Again, a really nice guy but people tended to avoid him. Asperger’s syndrome it was called—or will be called. Donald had to be given work in the back of shop away from the public.
But for my purpose he is perfect. A super enthusiast among enthusiasts, an expert. If there is the least fault, the least imperfection, he will not be content until perfection is achieved. Nothing will be too much trouble for him. He will come into town on our Saturday half-day when the boys are free from school. He will leave my gear and workbench in a tidier condition than what I leave them myself. And he will do it all for love.