April 18, 2009. On the way out to see my grandson in Camp Hill, PA, I stopped by Uncle Ed's place to drop off a couple of car tires and to see Ed and his shack.
"The OLD MAN" relaxing in his favorite, comfortable chair, ready to spin some yarns and do some voice impersonations on 75 meters. Looking over his shoulder, can be seen his Collins 75A-4 receivers, a spare Globe King transmitter and at the far right, part of his main transmitter .
The powerful "voice of Harrisburg" is via a pair of 813's and the monster modulation transformer is the heart of Ed's audio system. The Viking Ranger provides 10 watts of RF drive to the 813's. Using "old school" building techniques, the 2000 volt supply sits open on the floor of the shack.
Ed's friend Bob, W8SU, supplied the QSL card and the following photo showing Ed's 813 transmitter as it appeared in the 1977 CQ magazine. The transmitter was built by W3CIC.
Just like other guys, Ed has some spare equipment that needs a little work and is off to the side.
Everyone who knows Ed is aware that he performs the Amos & Andy program on short wave station WBCQ. Ed does ALL the voices. To make the show authentic, Ed has obtained original transcripts, on microfilm from the National Archives in Washington, DC.
Photo at left is Ed preparing to use his microfilm reader and printer to print off an original program transcript from April 25, 1938. Photo in the middle is the actual program transcript. (click on the transcript two times). Photo at right is Ed's Radio Ad for the Amos 'N' Andy radio show.
The letter below is from Freeman Gosden, one of the two originators and voices of Amos & Andy, who told Ed that: "Your Andy is by far the best" !! That's an amazing endorsement of Ed's voice skills.
Here is Ed's studio where he performs all the Amos & Andy voices and puts his program on tape for mailing to the short wave station WBCQ in Maine.
Ed's big signal comes from several antennas on phone poles with steps.
Ed's friend Bob, W8SU, supplied the following photo and news clipping of Ed, who was the male vocalist with the famous Wayne King Orchestra. Ed, known as the "Golden Voice" provided special event radio broadcasts for remembering Wayne King's birthday. (Note: on some computers, if you click twice on the Wayne King news article it will enlarge).
Ed also trained "CANDY" the World's Champion Singing Dog. Famous enough to appear on national television.
As we departed our visit with ED, my son Scott took this photo of the two "old buzzard" hams: Ken W2DTC and Ed WA3PUN.
