Ham Radio All Portable Discussion Zone
Sep 27, 2026 · 1 hr 39 min · 14 segments
Mike G3TSO has been licensed since 1964 and building since well before that. His philosophy is simple: find a design that does most of what you want, take it, modify it, and make it your own. It's how…
It was interesting you were talking about, you said this whole journey at some point here when you were starting to do the valves is when you started thinking about designing your own things.
And I was curious about that because not a lot of people anymore, unless you're an EE and have a job, really design stuff.
And part of it is because... there's a schematic for just about everything and you it's really hard to invent things especially these days but uh what is it about uh your you know exploration of this that that was uh where you you actually felt like you had ideas where the ideas came to you to design new things what pieces of it did you where did you explore you know what i'm saying
I think, yeah, I think, I think the main thing was that you would find designs and they didn't necessarily do what I wanted.
So what I did, well, I take someone else's design and modify it to do what I wanted.
And that was, that was really what it was about.
So I would, I would, I was a great sort of pincher of other people's designs.
And I also believe that don't redesign the wheel when it's already been designed, but take someone else's design and, turn it into something else.
And that's kind of the way it is today, even now, isn't it? I mean, I think that's a very common principle and a good thing to point out to people who are homebrewers.
Oh, I think so.
I think this is it.
You know what you want and it's what bits of design can I find that will do the various bits and then how can I roll them all together? So it's integrating them together that's probably the interesting bit because it may work and it may not work.
Right.
And so at some point, though, you designed some things and you were involved.
You probably had involvement with other people, though, right, along the way?
Yes, in fact.
I got introduced to the local radio.
I did a lot of stuff myself.
And then I was introduced to the local radio club in 1959.
And rather interesting, because the chap who ran it, I used to deliver his Sunday paper.
And I knew him as being the strange man who lived in the village who had loads of junk.
Well, I didn't realize that all that junk he'd acquired from the local television.
So having joined the club, we got invited around there to, if you like, strip old television chassis down.
and take the bits home.
And I've still got tins with nuts and bolts in from some of those TVs.
It was interesting you were talking about, you said this whole journey at some point here when you were starting to do the valves is when you started thinking about designing your own things.
And I was curious about that because not a lot of people anymore, unless you're an EE and have a job, really design stuff.
And part of it is because... there's a schematic for just about everything and you it's really hard to invent things especially these days but uh what is it about uh your you know exploration of this that that was uh where you you actually felt like you had ideas where the ideas came to you to design new things what pieces of it did you where did you explore you know what i'm saying
I think, yeah, I think, I think the main thing was that you would find designs and they didn't necessarily do what I wanted.
So what I did, well, I take someone else's design and modify it to do what I wanted.
And that was, that was really what it was about.
So I would, I would, I was a great sort of pincher of other people's designs.
And I also believe that don't redesign the wheel when it's already been designed, but take someone else's design and, turn it into something else.
And that's kind of the way it is today, even now, isn't it? I mean, I think that's a very common principle and a good thing to point out to people who are homebrewers.
Oh, I think so.
I think this is it.
You know what you want and it's what bits of design can I find that will do the various bits and then how can I roll them all together? So it's integrating them together that's probably the interesting bit because it may work and it may not work.
Right.
And so at some point, though, you designed some things and you were involved.
You probably had involvement with other people, though, right, along the way?
Yes, in fact.
I got introduced to the local radio.
I did a lot of stuff myself.
And then I was introduced to the local radio club in 1959.
And rather interesting, because the chap who ran it, I used to deliver his Sunday paper.
And I knew him as being the strange man who lived in the village who had loads of junk.
Well, I didn't realize that all that junk he'd acquired from the local television.
So having joined the club, we got invited around there to, if you like, strip old television chassis down.
and take the bits home.
And I've still got tins with nuts and bolts in from some of those TVs.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
