The Thirteenth Element
by Botley’s Bulletin
There are many mysteries in amateur radio—the propagation of signals through sunspots, the fickle behavior of vacuum tubes, and how exactly Wally Frizzlebottom managed to stuff seven microphone elements into a single D-104 without violating at least three laws of physics and one local zoning ordinance.
Wally, a wiry gentleman with the beard of a Norse god and the voice of a weather-worn saxophone, has long been a fixture on 3.965MHz. His shack is a symphony of tubes, knobs, glowing meters, and the gentle thrum of circuits old enough to qualify for Social Security. But the centerpiece—the real star of the show—is his monstrous microphone, a chrome-domed relic that now houses what he lovingly calls “the core of my acoustic alchemy.”
The D-104, for the uninitiated, is a crystal microphone with the kind of bite that can slice through QRM like a Ginsu knife through a tomato. But to Wally, it was just a starting point.
“It started with one extra element,” Wally explains, tweaking a variable capacitor with the delicacy of a brain surgeon. “I wanted more warmth, you know? More presence. Something between a jazz club and an air raid siren.”
One became two. Two became five. Seven elements later, the mic was beginning to exhibit qualities normally reserved for particle accelerators. His signal had tone, presence, gravity. One operator on the Senile Net swore he could hear Wally’s heartbeat. Another said the mic had “soul.”
Naturally, Wally set his sights on the next frontier: thirteen elements.
“There’s something magical about thirteen,” he said during last Thursday’s net, his voice echoing with the depth of a cathedral and the intimacy of a midnight confession. “It’s the atomic number of aluminum, you know. The most ham-friendly of metals. Pure coincidence? I think not.”
Some hams have started calling it “audio fusion.” Others, “trans-dimensional modulation.” Skeptics claim the mic now functions as a rudimentary Hadron collider, but Wally insists it’s just “a little heavy on the desk is all.”
Of course, there have been side effects. Birds refuse to nest near his shack. The neighbor’s garage door opens every time Wally says “CQ.” One particularly dramatic SWR spike shorted out his electric toothbrush.
But still, he presses on. Element eight is scheduled for soldering this weekend—a custom-wound dynamic coil built from recycled headphones and a piece of a 1948 jukebox.
“I’ll know when I get to thirteen,” Wally says with a faraway glint in his eye. “That’ll be the perfect signal. The voice of the gods. The harmonic convergence of amateur radio and art.”
Until then, you can find him on 3.965 MHz most mornings, testing his latest configuration, his voice somewhere between velvet thunder and cosmic curiosity.
And if you hear something strange in the air—like a choir of angels modulating through a warm tube haze—you’ll know: Wally’s added another element.
Stay tuned, stay grounded, and always trust your audio instincts.
