I was recently enjoying an afternoon in the shack, and while the HF bands were a bit flat that day, I still had fun looking at pictures of fellow amateurs’ stations as shown on the various ham radio websites. It’s always fun to see how various shacks are configured.
I tend to study the ergonomics of each layout, down to the vintage and models shown. Before long, I came across a picture of a guy’s re-staged novice day station. The receiver shown was far better than my trusty Hallicrafters S38, but it was this fellow’s novice transmitter that caught my eye! It was the mighty Ameco AC-1. This small-framed two-tube powerhouse featured crystal controls (novices could not use VFOs back then), two tubes (6V6 and 6L6) and plug-in coils for 80 or 40 meters–my choice (it did not cover 15). I spent my hard earned $20 on this baby, which may as well have been $2000 to this young op. Within minutes of my delivery, I had my soldering iron hot to the touch, and began building what was my very first kit project. The next day I completed the transmitter, plugged it into the AC outlet, and watched my new (and only) HF transmitter go up in smoke… a lot of very black, acrid, foul smelling smoke! My bedroom was spared the embarrassment and cost of a full-blown, working fire. I cannot recall there being actual flames, but I learned what burning insulated wire smelled like. My youthful and distressingly intrepid ego went up in smoke in that moment as well! The AC1 never fully recovered and my ego took a lot longer to be restored, such as it was for a 15 year old east coast kid.
