Laughing...Makes me think of going back to physical antennas on the roof and putting my wife up there for improved reception cause otherwise, I get very little when I get home from work...more like nothing but complaints about what has broken while I was gone...

I thought it was more the "active tuning" part you objected to ;)

Problem was, there is nothing much in the way of "Fine Tuning"...lift a foot, move your free hand?

"What was frustrating back then is when the reception would improve Only When You Were Touching the Antenna!!!...let go...no station..."

That's because your body is a remarkable radio tuner with both capacitance- and impedance-based abilities (an L network for those into this kind of thing).

Yes they were simpler times, and creative...

Haha, that dingy is a hot rod!

You know what? My first sweetheart, Kimberly, used to do that all around the neighborhood with her dog. She'd use a wagon (no snow). This was about 1971 and she lived at her grandmother's home with her teenage mom (stigma probably back then) and was the wittiest little girl. I was her neighbor and fellow troublemaker until 3rd grade. Simpler times...Thanks for remind me.

Only when I had a female passenger! Laughing

See!...you invented the First Fractal antenna.

What was frustrating back then is when the reception would improve Only When You Were Touching the Antenna!!!...let go...no station...

When watching SCTV back in the day the reception was challenging that I when I got pissed off and bent that antenna . Lo and behold when I reattached the scrunched up wire the picture was as good as it gets. I should have patent it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal...
As for the Yankee cruise control "idle hands are the devils workshop"

I am sure you did more than that but the coat hanger...Worked...to get a UHF station in the old days...one of us had to sit in the right spot holding the coat hanger antenna...Don't even remember what the station was or the show.

I was always taking stuff apart but rarely got it back together...laughing

PS...I sat close to the front which kept the bow down. Once the coast was clear and compass trued...you didn't have to tend the "Stiff" tiller.
We called that a Yankee auto pilot!

That is funny and clever, the dog biscuit that is.
Yours is just clever. That dingy must have flow , holy crapolli.
Did you gave to put weight in the front to keep from flipping? Nobody but nobody was going to beat Carl to the fishing spot.
The most clever thing I did back in those days was resurrect a black and white "portable" TV
( must have weighed 50 lbs ) with an antenna made out of a clothes hanger for my bedroom.