[TowerTalk] Nye Tuners

[Stan Griffiths]

>I talked by phone to a man at Nye saying he is Mr. Nye , who at the time
>was building some straight keys.  Asked him to make some more of his
>elect. keyer paddles, but don't know if he will.  Nice to talk directly to
>the maker/owner in this day of "If you are green-eyed, press 8, if you
>like sugar in ur coffee, press 9 . . . . . . ."
>de K4VUD


Several years ago (late 1980s), I was a Field Sales Engineer for Tektronix
and my territory included all of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and
Alaska.  I only sold Spectrum Analyzers and TDR units so that is why the
territory was so large.

Anyway, I actually paid a sales call on Nye since I also had a small ham
radio store and I had swept one of Nye's low pass filters and found it did
not make the claimed specifications for attenuation, cut-off frequency, etc.
I thought they needed something to test their production line output.  When
I got there, I talked to "Mr. Nye" but it was Bill Nye JUNIOR and I was
expecting to talk with Bill Nye Senior who was on vacation at the time.  The
junior Bill Nye was not a licensed ham at that time and was getting ready to
take over the business from his old man at some undefined future point.  He
did not seem to be at all interested in the filter sweep demonstration I had
planned for him with my Tek Spectrum Analyzer and Tracking Generator and
insisted that they "spot check a filter every so often with borrowed
equipment and nothing ever changes" so they did not need their own test
equipment.  His total lack of interest in anything I had to say or show him
was pretty amazing to me.  So I packed up and never placed another order for
filters with Nye.  Their keys seemed pretty good, however.

I think the "Mr. Nye" you now talk with is the junior Mr. Nye and I believe
he now has a ham ticket.  You might check a data base somewhere to see.  My
guess is that he is 40-50 years old now.  I think the senior Mr. Nye has
passed away some years ago.

I also think the Nye antenna tuners that enjoy such a good reputation were
designed and built by the senior Mr. Nye and any current production units
are copies of the original senior Nye designs so they should be just as good
if the junior Nr. Nye is good at copying.

I am only about 90% sure of the accuracy of the above story . . .  The parts
I am not certain of are Bill Nye Junior's age, whether or not he has a ham
ticket, and whether or not Bill Nye Senior is a silent key.  (I could swear
I remember a note in QST some years ago announcing Bill Nye Senior as a
silent key.)

Stan  w7ni@teleport.com


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