The Philip B. Petersen Collection Broadcast January 16, 1990

     Bob Dobbins was just a youngster in 1915 when he wound about 90 turns of fine wire on an empty oatmeal box, added a slide tuner, galena crystal with "catwhisker," hooked up the antenna from the barn to his bedroom and listened to nearby Morse code signals.  This was years before regular broadcasting stations were on the air.  The more he listened, the more he wanted to learn about radio.
     He joined with about ten others and started the Freehold, New Jersey Radio Club that met in the office of the Freehold Ketchup factory.
     His father was a potato farmer and electricity was not yet available on their farm.  Not even for electric lights.  Bob knew further radio development would be more difficult.  Farm folks cope with many problems and this would be just one more.
     Bob got a one-tube Armstrong Regenerative Receiver and heard long-wave Morse code stations from overseas such as Germany, France and Hawaii.  The tube required a storage battery to light the filament and with Bob's constant listening, he took the battery on weekly trips to town to have it charged, at a cost of 50 cents.
     His mother did the weekly wash on a manual washing machine that his father modified to work from a small gasoline engine.  Then Bob further modified it by adding a Model T Ford generator so that every time she did the washing, the battery got charged too.
     The farm was still without electrical power when, in 1921, Bob passed the radio examination in New York and received his call letters of 2BVJ.
     He went on the air with his "homebrew" vacuum tube transmitter using a spark coil to power the transmitter.  Bob said, "On my low power I was able to work others within 40 miles easily, but several times I reached as far as Buffalo."
     In the mid-'20s, he left the farm and started a career in aviation, made his first solo flight in March 1928, had succeeding employment with Gates Flying Circus, Hadley Field, Colonial Airlines, Curtis-Wright and American Airlines.  Old timers at Teterboro Airport remember him as "Dobbins and his Robins."  Bob held a commercial pilot's license with instrument and instructor ratings.
     During and after World War II, he had many aviation assignments - commanding officer Naval Air Station near Seattle, air officer on aircraft carrier Attu, assignments at Brunswick, Maine; Norfolk, Virginia, and other locations until he retired in 1964 as a four-striper captain.
     Among his friend and acquaintances are Jimmie Doolittle, who led the air raid over Tokyo; Eddie Rickenbacker; "Duke" Krantz of Gates Flying Circus; Casey Jones of Curtis-Wright; Admiral Spruance of Battle of Midway; and Admiral March Mitcher.
     Bob Dobbins still operates on amateur radio and regularly gets together at radio club meetings and weekly luncheons with many of his amateur radio friends.

January 16, 1991

** Broadcasts recordings preserved and presented here by Mr. Robert Buss and Mr. Bernie Ricciardi, Phil's friends and fellow Marconi Chapter 138 QCWA members **

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