K4BSN

William H. Black

Silent Key 11/8/2009


Grayson, GA

KF4KDG

Lynette Black


This is my first ham station, put together shortly after we were married, at 1639 Charles Street, Richmond, Va. It consisted of a Harvey-Wells transmitter and a Hammerlund HQ-140-X receiver. This was back when many TV sets had 21 MHz I.F.s and I heard from many of the neighbors - this was an apartment complex. I have never recovered from the morning when I called CQ 15 meters using an antenna in my attic, and my call was answered by ON5NV, Otto Leath. W4HSD was also on with me. Shortly before moving out of the apartment I traded the Harvey-Wells in for a Viking II.
This is a picture of my station when we lived in Puerto Rico in the mid-60's. I was working with Cornell University at the Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory, The station consists of a Central Electronica 100V, a Drake 2A, and I built the grounded grid linear shown in the upper left. While in Puerto Rico, I held the call KP4COO. Shortly after I went to there, Sam Harris, W1FJZ came down and we enjoyed many moonbounce activities using the 1000 ft. dish.

Grayson Observatory - Radio & Optical Telescopes



Mon, 12 Sep 2005 16:36:44 -0400
To: W4BXI@aol.com

John:

    Finally got most of the toys in my observatory back on line. Took this shot last night with my 4 inch apochromatic refractor and the Meade LPI computerized imaging system. This kind of shot, always difficult when shooting a bright moon, will be improved as soon as I get a handle on managing the contrast controls. The power here, 150X, is like looking at the lunar surface from 1600 miles out. Some day, when I get everything all figured out, I'll be able to do all the image processing with the Autostar Imaging software.
  
                     Bill, K4BSN



















The single scope (white body) is the scope I had in my observatory before the Meade 12" was installed.




The double scope consists of two refractors -
 the one on the left is an apochromat, an expensive ultra quality lens for imaging,
the larger one on the right is a RFT (rich field telescope) a short focal length refractor used with a long focal length eyepiece ( 31mm, costs $620 ),
but the scope provides absolutely stunning views of the sky, particularly diffuse objects, like the Orion nebula.
They are small enough to mount on the same tripod/drive system, and the tripods have been mounted on wheels which enable them to be moved and parked when not in use.