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THE AM BULLETIN BOARD => QSO => Topic started by: AJ1G on December 17, 2005, 03:16:02 PM



Title: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: AJ1G on December 17, 2005, 03:16:02 PM
Whenever QSOs turn to age and number of years licensed, it seems that age 14-15 seems to be the most statistically significant number that pops up. 

I am one of them - first liicensed in late 1966 at age 14 as a freshman in HS, as WB2ZPS in West Nyack, NY.  Got my general as WB2ZPS within the year, and started hanging out after school on 75 AM with a lot of the guys on this forum who were also a bunch of JNs then.  First with my PW yellowy DX-40 (That ended up as Glenn NY4NCs first rig) and then an Apache with a HB outboard modulator pair of 1625s driven by a Heath A7 mono hifi amp.

I suspect that the early teens is a common time for guys to get into the hobby as at that point in your life you start getting interested in technical stuff, have enough on the ball to jump into the hobby, and are not yet old enough to be fixated on car work and dating.  I saw the same trend in my boys, although it was the computer bug that bit in their early teens, rather than ham radio.

One of the mysteries for me from that time was a commn catch phrase (I think it was used a lot by John - WA1GOS) at the end of a QSO - "Easy on the mustard" .  I never had the nerve to ask what he meant by that.  What the heck was that about anyway?


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W2PFY on December 17, 2005, 03:46:52 PM
Let see, my first call was 20W1197 and I was unit 4. I think we could have five units in those days. I later got my very own call of 20W1254. That was from NE PA near Danville.

We built our own rigs . A guy by the name of Stonner had designed the tranceiver. Yes a home brew CB set. Later while in the US Army I got my first ham call of K3ZCH around 1962.

There is no way to explain John. I receive emails from him from time to time. He is out there somewhere :D :D :D :D :D


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1RKW on December 17, 2005, 04:46:16 PM
I was playin radio starting at the age of 7 but I wasn't a licensed ham at the time. I was tinkering with broadcast radios and walkie talkies learning how they worked and breaking them. I started building Heathkits around 11 or 12 and received Heathkit catalogs on a regular basis.  Looking through the Heathkit catalogs I always drooled over the ham gear. I couldn't afford the equipment then but could afford a CB radio.  I was about 12 years old when I got my CB license (actually it was my fathers).  This was just before the big CB craze.  He was licensed as KKS2975. I was turned off by radio because of the CB craze and I put radio down. A few years went by and one day I saw an ad in the local library from the local ham club advertising classes. The radio interest was reignited and I immediately signed up for the classes.  I was 22 at the time.  Got my ham license soon after completing the 5wpm classes.  I was licensed as KA1IHQ in January of 1982.  Several months later  I upgraded to Technician and changed my call to N1EBA. Soon after I passed 13wpm and upgraded to Advanced by passing General.  Then vanity licensing came along and I changed to the current call.  Have been licensed since 1982.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Glenn NY4NC on December 17, 2005, 09:41:54 PM
If I remember correctly, it was 1970, I was 15 years old, living in West Nyack, NY... three houses away from Chris AJ1G. Chris was a very patient elmer... before I got my novice ticket, I used to watch Chris working CW with his HW-16 and Lafayette Bug that he would setup out in his backyard on a picnic table (remember that Chris?) I Must have wanted to understand the conversation because i went out and bought the Radio Shack "learn the morse code" record album... drove my parents crazy even though my dad was a ham at the time, a technician who only operated 6 meters (W2SDI sk) My call was WN2QQP ...and as chris mentioned, my first transmitter was a DX-40 that he traded to me for a Kowa 35mm camera. Worked all over the place with that transmitter once I borrowed an swr bridge and trimmed my 40 meter dipole correctly. First receiver was a Hallicrafters S-108 that my dad bought for me at Harrison Radio in New York City. Terrible receiver for CW, no selectivity! had to use the filter in my brain!  :o ;D Before I got my ticket, I used that receiver to listen to the AM gang on 75.. WA1HLR, W3DUQ, etc...


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ed W1XAW on December 17, 2005, 09:49:05 PM
Hi:

I think it will be very interesting to read these answers.  

I became interested in radio after the old lady across the street in Bath, Maine banged on the door, sold the house to my Dad cheap with everything in it, and took off for Florida.  Upstairs in the barn I found the radio below.  After dragging it across the street and somehow getting it up to the third floor, I became a shortwave listener. I spent hours and hours listening to that thing and was completely fascinated by the concept.  I think I was about 12 and it must have been about 1976.  

The next step was the guy a I shared a paper route with offered to sell me a CB handheld for $5 which I bought and used for about a year.  In the late fall of my eight grade year I saw a sign for a radio club starting up at the Jr. High.  I attended the kick-off meeting held by George, K1GDI, then known as Mr. Szadis.  I think I thought we were going to learn to DJ.  After it sunk in that you could make contacts around the world for free I was sold.  That was 1977 and calling family out of state on the telephone was treated as a very serious event (because of the expense) .  I passed the Novice test directly after Christmas vacation when I was still 13 and received my ticket and call in early 1978 after turning fourteen.  My call was WB1GYC.  I was on the air making contacts with a borrowed HW16 in a weeks time and later that year bought an old HW7.  I built a couple antenna's including a slinky dipole that flopped around in the wind.  I traded up (?) at Hosstraders to an Eico 7drifty3 and was promptly bumped off the air as building the ps was a little beyond my skill set although I tried a couple of times.   I was the only one in the class that earned the ticket and a picture of me in the yearbook is captioned "the radio club."

I remember thinking of ham radio as magic and found it almost beyond belief that you could use a $30 radio and a morse code key to talk to folks around the world.  I think kid's today expect more from technology and the whole idea of communicating around the world is no longer magic.   I remember in college setting up packet radio demonstrations and the normal reaction of the computer geeks was "too slow."  


73 de W1XAW


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1QWT on December 18, 2005, 03:27:02 AM
Quote
When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call? 

Whelp I guess it was about 1958 that I found the book, "Marconi" at the Newtonville , MA. public library. Alfred and I set up a string with bells to signal each other and we were almost 1000 feet apart!
Then I and my family moved to Milton, MA. We had a summer place in Marshfield, MA. and I could hear strange sounds (CW) on the AM radio when tuned to a spot on the very low end of the broadcast band. Turned out to be the Coast Guard station in Marshfield with the call letters NMF.
In 1962 I got an ARC-5 receiver from a local HAM and listened in during my junior high years.
At one point most of my friends all went into Boston to the radio Lafayette radio store and bought phono transmitters that broadcast on the part 15  AM broadcast band frequencies. Ofcourse we all put strapping antennas on these and could all talk with a mile range.
In the sixties I got into CB radio. I had a real CB call and everything.  I had a Lafayette waklie first and then I had a Comstat 25B transceiver, drove around in my car mobile talking to my friends whilst we were being teenagers.
So then I went into the US Navy in 1968!
They taught me the International Code and other radio stuff at Radioman school at Bainbridge, MD.
I used to sit in the radio room onboard the USS Fulton and listen to the 27 MCS band.
Then I used to tune around 3.8 MHZ and I would hear some more interesting stuff.
When I got out of the Navy in 1971 I took my Novice test and began operating.
Had a HQ110 and a HT-40 xmtr.
I have built many Heathkits and radios out of QST. I went back to school and got an Engineering Degree which has helped me with a successful career.
Now I am fully bitten by the HAM bug and enjoy operating the vintage radios.

I love Ham radio and my fellow operators.
Merry Christmas to you and may you all have a happy New Year!



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: AJ1G on December 18, 2005, 07:04:46 AM
Geez,  Glenn - that's some memory you have there!  The HW-16 that you remember wasn't mine though.  I had just built it for the Clarkstown HS Radio Club that year when I was a senior.  Bill Brodie, the chemistry teacher, was the club advisor.  Don't know if the club continued much longer after I graduated.  Operating out on the picnic table must have either been a test of the radio after I built it, or some sort of "Field Day" operation.  I don't remember running the HW-16 at the picnic table, but do remember having my SCR-522  transmitter out there once when it was able to contact a station down in Ft. Monmouth on 2M AM  with a little 5 element  beam.  Was probably using the Scott SLRM with a converter for receiving. May have been the same "Field Day" you ae describing.

That Kowa camera served me well throughout college and for a few years afterward. Don't know what happened to the Lafayette bug.  It got lost somewhere along the way when Diane and I moved out of our first apartment in 1977.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: w1guh on December 18, 2005, 09:29:29 AM
Great topic.

First license, KN8TFH dated 4/12/60.  General came along 8/23/60...a day I'll never
 forget.  Getting my "real" license was a rite of passage that was wonderful.  I immediately went on the air (still in the novice band, though 'cuz I didn't have a VFO yet) so I could transmit...

...de K8TFH without the odious "N" !.   ;D

I was 12 when my novice came, and 13 when the general came.

First rig (blush) Gobe Chief 90A and an AR-3.  In a sense, though, it was good PR.  A friend of mine of the same age was motivated to get his license by the looks of my shack.  He thought, "Boy it doesn't take much to get on the air."


Paul

P.S.   Somebody mentioned a "homebrew CB Radio."  Reminds me of a rig I haven't thought of in a long time, the Elmac CD-10.  It was a crystal controlled 10m AM transceiver witha tunable receiver.  Elmac didn't make very many of them and it was thought to be a prototype of their first CB radio.  It was a very respected radio - it worked really well.

P.P.S.  Somebody else mentioned that technical stuff natrually proceeded cars and girls.  Yep.  It also in my case overlapped and  slightly delayed from Boy Scouts.  What I loved about ham radio stuff was your ticket gave you license to call adults by their first name and be more or less their equal, at least when it came to radio stuff.  Boy Scouts couldn't hold a candle to that.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K1MVP on December 18, 2005, 09:55:16 AM
Yep,--I remember it well,--I got interested in ham radio when I was 13 or 14 years
old, and the "bug" really did bite when I heard some guys on 40 meter AM,
on an old silvertone console back then in the mid 50`s.

One call I still remember was K1BNQ in Connecticut who ran a Globe Champ
and an SX-100, and had a real "strapping" signal here into Vermont.
I got my ticket(novice) in December of 59 as KN1MVP, and then upgraded
to general in April of 60,--AM was still "king" back then, but most guys started
on cw with a novice ticket and had a "ball" making contacts.

My first rig was a homebrew single tuber,(6V6) rig and a heathkit AR-2 receiver,
and worked around 40 states on 40 cw with this combo.
I then graduated(after I got my general) to a Harvey Wells TBS-50 with a
VF-1 vfo, and a BC-342 receiver, for AM, and man it seemed like I "had arrived"
in the "big time".
Those were the days,--"nostalgia" at its best.

                          Merry Christmas, Rene, K1MVP

P.S, My next " Equipment upgrade" in from 1962 to about 1967 was a
      Viking II, an HQ-110, to a Globe King,--which I kept for about a year
      and then back to a "moderate power" transmitter,--a DX-100.
      Didn`t care much for the GK as I was always a QRP "nut" on cw and
      liked running about 100 watts on AM.
      Then got my first slopbucket tranceiver,(a National NCX-3) in 68 while
      I was in Colorado for a couple of years, es worked all over the world with
      that rig and just a dipole.
      Ran SSB up until 95, and "came back home" to AM when I picked up a
      DX-40 and SX-99.--so here I am back on AM es having "fun" again.
      Had my fill of working DX es SSB, and "hello ur 5-9" type QSO`s.

 l               
 


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1JS on December 18, 2005, 10:18:45 AM
First year licensed:  1963
Age:  14 years old
First call:  WN1ALM
QTH:  southeastern Mass.
RX:  BC-348R
TX:  DX-60
ANT:  Long wire

upgraded to General Class in 1964, WA1ALM
built the HG-10 VFO
bought a JT-30 mic.
raised a 75 mtr dipole
met the "gang" on the air

Been having fun ever since...

Jack
W1JS
No Weare NH


Title: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1RKW on December 18, 2005, 10:28:26 AM
Quote

I used to sit in the radio room onboard the USS Fulton and listen to the 27 MCS band.


Q,
Was the USS Fulton a submarine tender.  If so, were you stationed at all in New London?  I remember the Fulton.  I believe it's been decommisioned.
Bob


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1QWT on December 18, 2005, 12:24:54 PM
Quote
Q,
Was the USS Fulton a submarine tender.  If so, were you stationed at all in New London?  I remember the Fulton.  I believe it's been decommisioned.
Bob
Yes sir the USS Fulton AS-11 was a submarine tender for Submarine Squadron 10 when I was aboard. The USS Nautilus was in this squadron and I used to bring radio messages to the Nautilus and hang out in her radio room sometimes.
The Fulton had two radio rooms. Radio two was where the transmitters were such as WRT-2's and a couple of URC-32's. It was my sea and anchor detail and general quarters station.
In Radio Central, where I stood most of my watches we had R-1051 and R390 receivers. ALso this is where all the crypto and teletype gear was.
The USS Fulton was scrapped in the early nineties and we are probably shaving with her remains.
I had a lot of great nights in the New London area. I am the webmaster for the USS Fulton Association so find out more at:
http://ussfulton.org/

Merry Christmas
Q



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1RKW on December 18, 2005, 12:30:18 PM
Small world.  I grew up in the New London area and work at the ship yard in Groton.

Did you or do you know a gent by the name of Jim Thyberg?  He was on the Fulton I thnk up until 1977. 


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: KA8WTK on December 18, 2005, 02:06:03 PM
Got my Novice in 1985 at the "young" age of 34. However, had been interested in radio since grade school. Back then we played with $10 dollar Lafayette CB walkie talkies to see how much we could get out of one.
Always had the same call.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA1GFZ on December 18, 2005, 03:28:37 PM
My mother worked on Radar modulators at raytheon during WW2 and collected a number of books on radio. ( gee maybe that is why I like PDM)
One rainy day I was looking through the basement and found her stash. I was hooked at about 8. Got legal in early '66 just before I turned 15.
As a young swl I listened to the cold war jammers and thought they were airplanes.
My first rig was spark but first tube rig was a 6v6 cyystal. End fed 66 foot with 300 ohm tv line. I owned 3725 and by the time I was on 6 months ran the legal limit into an 807. The FCC kept a close eye on us kids back then so we didn't dare run a VFO or QRO because we all knew they were parked just down the street waiting to haul us in for running 76 watts. That summer I slipped up a 15 meter dipole with one end on the tv antenna mast. Those 40 meter crystals ran hot but I got on whth a regen preselector and Q multiplier.on my GR64. I really strapped on 15. Strapped my Dad on the tV. After a while he didn't even have to yell down to the shack...just banged his shoe on the floor.
I was hard core CW back then and ran about 95% cw until I got my extra. Then when I moved back from ca.in '83 there was talk of deleting AM. So got right on.
I did run a bit of AM in '67 but cars and beaver were a much bigger attraction.
My first AM rig was a 6146 modulated by P-P 6l6s. Just sent the mod transformer to vortex Joe a few months ago for his 191.
Later I had a 4-1000A into a Rhombic facing west on 20 CW. 


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ed/KB1HYS on December 18, 2005, 05:33:30 PM
I started with an old Lafayette CB radio that my Grandfather gave me. I thought those tubes were great! 
 Had to get a license back then,  was KBMA 8925.
 I think I was the only one who ever signed with my "offcial FCC Call sign"  I was 11 at the time.
After Grandad died, I kinda lost interest in radio.   Then I picked up an old detrola am-shortwave that had been his.
I was listening to it while working in the shop.  I remember hearing clear as a bell, a fellow calling CQ from "Ripley Ohio"

He never got an answer...  but I got hooked.

Got tested and licensed...
 


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Jim, W5JO on December 18, 2005, 06:08:14 PM
1955, the great year of cursing in your T Bird or Corvette.  I didn't have either but my dad had a Zenith Transoceniac that allowed me to find numerous stations from the local police between 1650 and 1700 somewhere and foreign broadcasts.  Then I found the 75 meter ham band and I was never the same.

My mother introduced me to Gene, W5IPV who tutored me into my Novice in late 55.  KN5MDQ.  Six months or so later I took the Conditional test because the nearest FCC test was 180 miles away at age 15.  As a Novice I had an ARC 5 Receiver with the ear filter and the matching BC 3XX that I converted to crystal that fed a long wire randomly running everywhere in the yard.

With the voice priviledges came two more BC 3XXs and an old military reciever of some sort.  I worked for my parents in their cafe and chopped cotton for the money.  At 25 cents per acre, it takes a lot of calluses to afford even a 5 dollar radio that didn't even have a receiver.

I hated K5MDQ granted in 1956, but could do nothing about it until graduating from college, I took my first job at a broadcast station in Dodge City, KS whereupon the FCC gave me W0LTM.  Following two years there, back to Oklahoma City and KOMA and received W5RXC. 


By then all my AM gear was gone and no one was on AM so I joined the SSB crowd until 1991 when a Globe King 500 fell in my lap.  Have been happily using one since.  Long live AM and the people who love it.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ed W1XAW on December 18, 2005, 06:15:00 PM
As a young swl I listened to the cold war jammers and thought they were airplanes.

That rings a bell.  I had completely forgot that noise!

73 de W1XAW


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wa2zdy on December 18, 2005, 07:48:28 PM
I had been fascinated with radio having heard CW come through the AM table radio.  I remember sitting with a morse code chart trying to figure out who I was hearing.  I never did.

Shortly after, mom and I moved to an apartment up the street from W2OJJ.  I spotted his TA33 on the EZ Way crank up tilt over tower and I presented myself at his front door.  Bill had been a telegrapher on the Lehigh Valley Railroad from 1912 until his retirement in 1959.  He's also been in the Navy as a radio op in WW2 and had been on the air with King Spark around 1914.  So I was brought into ham radio with the old school and CW.  I'm forever thankful for that.

WN2ZDY was issued to me and arrived in the mailbox on 12 Feb 1975.  I was 13.  My first rig was a 6L6 and a rock on 7123kc with a poor example of a Halliscratchers SX140.

I upgraded to General in Dec 75 but stayed on CW due to no funds for a slopbucket rig.  When I did finally get on SSB, it lasted about three weeks and I went back down the band and there I still remain.  I passed my Extra and second class telegraph w/radar and aircraft endorsements in Nov 77 at age 16.

The love affair continues to this day.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W3NP on December 18, 2005, 10:39:39 PM
I used to listen my father's Bendix with SW bands...I too thought the jammers were airplanes!! In the fall of 1959 I won a "morse code" contest in my Boy Scout troop and the ham who taught the code took me to see his station...a DX-100 and an HQ-129X...I was hooked. I passed the novice test in his living room shortly after turning 12 years old in Nov of 1959. I received my license in December of 59 and was KN3KJX.
My first TX was a Knightkit T-50 which I built myself and an S-38E which sucked for the crowded novice bands of those days. I soon upgraded to a National NC-100X, added a QF-1 and an Olsen S-meter. My first fone TX was a DX-40 with VF-1.
I dropped the N and became K3KJX in Dec of 1960 after qualifying to take the Conditonal test because at 13 years old I couldn't get to Washington DC to take the General.
My last station before going QRT for Uncle Sam in 1966 was a DX-100 and an HRO-50T. When I got out of the service in late 69 I wasn't too interested in Ham radio...got married, got a job, etc.  When I did get the bug again around 1971 I found that my license has expired and I coudn't renew it because I didn't have the then required minimum amount of operating time. I went to DC and passed the Advanced  exam and was back on the air as K3KJX again.
In 1976 I got my extra and in 1977 changed my call to W3NP. I am not sure why I did that, but it seemed like a cool thing to do at the time - these days call signs, license classes are pretty much meaningless. Even tho this is not my original call, I have held it for close to 30 years...longer than my original K3KJX.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W9GT on December 19, 2005, 10:57:41 AM
Well....I guess I'm "statistically correct"  I was first licensed in 1959 at the tender age of 14 as KN9UBF.  First rig was a home brew 6146 oscillator out of the ARRL 1957 Handbook running a Novice KW of 75 Watts input.  Receiver, believe it or not, was an old Zenith 7S363 console chassis with a little 5-tube AC-DC radio sitting along side...heterodyning in the IF for a BFO.  Actually worked pretty well.

Got my General in 1960.....when AM was still prevalent and king on the bands.  My first fone rig was a mighty Knight T-50 with a Globe screen modulator running a gigantic 20-30 watts .  Receiver was a Heathkit AR-3, which had the relative sensitivity of a cardboard box.  Anyway, I had a ball...worked all over the place on 40M AM with that rig.  Still remember the sound of those great AM KWs back then, like W3EBM in Scranton, PA (three empty beer mugs). and W9PEY in Huntington, IN who worked a ton of AM DX...........those were the days!!!

Since then, I have been K9UBF, N9GT, and now W9GT.  Dabbled in just about everything including VHF and repeaters, DXing, Contesting, lots of CW, and SSB  :(
Enjoyed this hobby immensely and really feel like I'm where I want to be with vintage nostalgia radio and AM.

73,  Jack, W9GT


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WD8BIL on December 19, 2005, 01:31:38 PM
Novice in 1969 - WN8NQN - expired while playing football
Re- Noviced in '74 - WN8BIL (2 months later the FCC dropped the "N" novice designator. I was then assigned WD8BIL)
General around 1978
Advanced in 1984
Extra 2 months before the "extra lite" intro.

I've been a Buddly all my life!!!!



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: KE1GF on December 19, 2005, 01:58:38 PM
I was first licensed as a No-Code Tech in the Spring of 1995 as N1VJF at 14 years old
I upgraded to Technician (5wpm) in the winter of 1995, same call
In the spring of 1996 I upgraded to General (13wpm), same call
During the fall of 1996 I upgraded to Advanced and received my current call KE1GF

Happy Holidays,
-Bill 'GF


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ed KB1HVS on December 19, 2005, 02:14:06 PM
Hmmm. My fathers Johnson Messenger 1, 5 channel CB rig in the early 60s The FCC tag is still on the companion mobile rig (KQA7409). He also had a Lafayette Played around with CB for quite a while but put it away when it got really silly. Learned cw in the Sea Scouts but did nothing with it. Always been a SWL. Put the cee bee rig back up out of curiosity and found that the silliness was still there years later. No code Tech in early 2002 and locode General shortly thereafter. AM was the big attraction.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ed KB1HVS on December 19, 2005, 02:15:59 PM
As a young swl I listened to the cold war jammers and thought they were airplanes.

That rings a bell.  I had completely forgot that noise!

73 de W1XAW

  Ha! Me too. Thats funny :)


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Carl WA1KPD on December 19, 2005, 02:24:44 PM
In 1963 our family moved to a new house in south central CT where the only TV stations one could get were 3 CBS and 8 ABC. So I grew up deprived of any NBC shows.

Anyway we had a TVI issue with a ham next door and being a precocious 10 year old I went to check it out. It was Bill Wolf W1ERM (SK by now I am pretty sure). I was ushered into the shack. As I recall he had all Heath gear of the Apache vintage. Green with chrome knobs. There were strange voices, all sorts of knobs to turn and meters bouncing around. I was in love.. (With the radios, not Bill)

Poor guy.  I invited myself over almost any night I saw the light on in the shack, but he was very patient about it. Ron, K1VYU lived about a mile away and became my mentor until he took off for Uncle Sam. I continued to be interested and pulled apart radios, listened on my Lafayette KT-320 that Santa brought me in 1965 but I was never focused enough to learn the code. (http://home.comcast.net/~chnord/swl.jpg)

Ron and I still live about 5 miles from each other and he got me into boatanchors. However I have eavened the score by intorducing him about 9 years ago to Hosstraders. We set together each Spring and Fall hitting the Portsmouth Brewpub for dinner Sat night.


Stayed home from school one day in the fall of 1967 with a mild cold and memorized the code. Within about three weeks  I had my speed up to 8 wpm and my electronics teacher at school gave me the test. I then waited for the license. In the meantime I put up 80 and 40 meter dipoles and purchased a used Johnson Adventurer and a crystal or two. For Christmas I got two more crystals.

I would check the mail every day for a large official 8” x 11” official looking envelope as clearly anything as important as an AMATEUR RADIO LICENSE had to have an official certificate, most likely signed by the President himself. I was so focused on that that envelope I missed the dinky little white envelope that came from the FCC. What a bummer when I saw it. However I fast overcame it and called CQ. I got a response from WA5TOR/1 (Don Hutchkins (SP?)) in Fort Devens, MA. who was in his teens. As I recall we had an uneventful QSO. About a week later, I got a big envelope in the mail from him with a long two page typed letter. It welcomed me to ham radio, gave me some constructive feedback, and included a copy of the ARRL “Operating an Amateur Radio Station.” I always thought that was a real class act from a first contact. I often wonder if he is still licensed.

In October of 68 I took the train to Boston with WA1LCP (KB5PFG) and WA1JJF to take our higher class licenses. It was a warm day and just outside of the old Custom House Building they were driving piles as we sweated through the code and tried to concentrate on the theory. On a whim I took the Advanced class also and probably got one of the last tube theory based ones. It sounded like everyone else had a transistor based one. At any rate we were just studying tube theory in electronics class that year so I lucked out and past the Advanced.

Been active on and off over the years and into restoration and boat anchors since around 97.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W3LSN on December 19, 2005, 02:31:47 PM
My interest was kindled listening to AM BC band DX in the late 60s and early 70's as a young pup. Sometime in the early 70's my parents bought me a cheap portable SW radio for Xmas and that's where I first discovered SW AM broadcast and later on 75-meter AM phone.

I spent much time SWL-ing 75-meter AM in the early to mid-70's while studying for my license. I joined my local high school ham club in Hackensack, NJ and the advisor proctored my Novice exam in those pre-VEC days. I passed and was was issued Novice callsign WN2AJM in 1975 at age 15 back when the license was a two year non-renewable ticket with a 75 watt dc input limit, but with VFO control by then allowed. My first station was a Heath DX-60B/HG-10B and Hammarlund HQ-110 receiver. I operated a lot of CW that year while continuing to SWL 75-meter AM phone including the likes of WA1HLR, WA1QIX, WA1SOV, WA1EKV, WA1OAT, Bob K1AJL (SK), Russ WA2RII and his Johnson Desk killowatt in Bernardsville, NJ, W2WME (SK), Byron W2JTP (SK), W2VJZ, WA3PUN, Jeff WA3UAN (SK), Larry W3CIC (SK), WB4AIO, K4KYV, W8VYZ and many others long gone. AM phone back then was quite maverick, and seemed to be confined to two major pockets of operation in New England, and in NY/NJ/PA, mostly on 75, but with a little activity on 160 and slightly more on 40 and 10 meters. I never heard anything AM wise on 20 or 15 in those days. There were a relatively few people scattered elsewhere, principally K4KYV and W8VYZ, but I can't remember ever hearing of AM activity from west of the Mississippi back then.

In 1976 I upgraded to General by sitting for the exam at the FCC field office at Varick Street in NYC. My callsign was changed by the FCC to my present WA2AJM. I had been collecting AM equipment for some time and I got on-air with a bastardized BC-610H which I converted to 1 KW using a pair of 833A's modulated by another pair, and SP-600. I operated on a somewhat limited basis after the FCC changed the 75-meter phone privileges for Generals down to 3850 sometime around 1980. My parents small suburban lot didn't allow for many antenna possibilities, but I used to chat on 75 with people like Joe W2WAS (SK), Mike WA2VNI, and several other NYC area hams. I always enjoyed the restoration and rebuilding aspect of radio more so than the operating, but I also spent more than half my time on 20 and 15 meter CW and logging commercial CW traffic on the maritime bands and other SWL activities.

My activities waned when I left college in 1983. I was then focused on getting my commercial licenses. I started working in broadcast engineering and hauled around my ham gear from city to city as I changed jobs every few years, but had sold off everything by the late-80s as my interests changed. Some rigs I used to own: BC-610H, Globe King 400, Globe King 500, Valiant, Ranger, Desk Kilowatt (still kicking myself for selling it in 1987), SP-600JX17, a beautiful Collins R-390A, HQ-170A, HQ-110C, & others

I used to occassionally SWL AM phone on 160 and 75 meters during the late 80s, but I lost touch with this hobby around 1990. The bug bit again last year, and I've been collecting equipment again. Bought back almost everything I used to own at 3x the price! I never upgraded past General, but lately I've gotten the urge to upgrade to Extra which I will do sometime next year.

My current lineup of equipment that I am restoring:

BC-610F (working, but still restoring the BC-614 sppech amp)
813 modulated by (2) 211's (old home brew rig from Los Alamos Natl Labs, has DeForest Radio meters...nice looking rig, probably late-40s, but needs some work)

Johnson Valiant bought from K4QS with ER audio mods (working)
SP-600JX11 (working, plan to recap it next summer)
SX-100 (currently non-functional with some shorted caps)
HQ-180AC (working)
HQ-170A (working)
HQ-110 (pristine and looks brand new)

I also own a pair of Kenwood R-5000 receivers and an Icom 728 ricebox.


73, Jim
WA2AJM
Germantown, MD


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wa2zdy on December 19, 2005, 02:57:43 PM
AJM, you must have gotten your ticket right after I got mine.  And yep, I remember Varick St all too well.  Got my General there, my Extra and the T2.  Miss Thomas was a very nice lady who ended up helping me when Gettysburg lost my Extra paperwork.  I passed that Extra in Nov 77 but my license didn't get issued until May 78.  Long story for another time . . .

Phil, I'm glad you mentioned TBS.  I haven't thought of Jim in many years.  Tender Beef Steaks - he was a butcher as I recall.  How appropriate for a call for him.  Jim was the guy who introduced me to 2m FM. 

He was visiting Mike Adelman one morning when I stopped over.  I had heard of 2m because Mike had a Gooney box but I'd never heard of repeaters.  Jim had a one channel Motorola in his trunk and it was on Greenbrook.  As he told me about the repeaters, he explained how it transmitted and received on different frequencies (obvious now  but not to a 13 yr old Novice!)  I went home that day wondering "how the repeater knew where to listen."   (Remember, I was rockbound on 40cw, I called CQ then tuned the band.  That was all I knew about differnet frequencies!)

Fun times had by all.  TBS was a good guy.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W3NP on December 19, 2005, 03:26:10 PM

I would check the mail every day for a large official 8” x 11” official looking envelope as clearly anything as important as an AMATEUR RADIO LICENSE had to have an official certificate, most likely signed buy the President himself. I was so focused on that that I messed the dinky little white envelope that came from the FCC. What a bummer when I saw it.

(http://webpages.atlanticbb.net/~w3np/images/misc/novicelicense.jpg)

One of the few things I still have from those magical days. Remember the name: C.B. Plummer??


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W3LSN on December 19, 2005, 03:40:11 PM
AJM, you must have gotten your ticket right after I got mine.  And yep, I remember Varick St all too well.  Got my General there, my Extra and the T2.  Miss Thomas was a very nice lady who ended up helping me when Gettysburg lost my Extra paperwork. 

Chris ZDY, I sat for exams at Varick Street for my General, my 3rd phone, later my PG and my T2 and the radar endorsement. Was Miss Johnson the young black lady who used to shuffle the paperwork and administer the exams?  I remember her very well too because she could send morse and once warmed us up before running the code exam for my T2.

73, Jim
WA2AJM





Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ed Nesselroad on December 19, 2005, 03:43:37 PM
1958, I think, as KN0VDD.  I was 10 at the time.  Most of our 5th grade class got tickets with the help of civilian and Air Force elmers. We had a MARS surplus station in 5th grade and a Globe Scout/SX-101 in 6th grade.  

My first personal station was a DX-35 and HQ-110.  A knife switch served to direct the 40-metro bazooka in the attic to either XMIT or RCV.  I still have the transmitter, but the receiver got traded for something else along the way.  

As often happens, other things came along and ham radio went by the wayside.  I did radio stuff in the Army -- back when we still used Morse.  Later, a ham friend with cancer asked if I'd get re-licensed to talk to him in his hospital room.  So, in 1980 I became KA0DBA and communicated nightly via repeater between Fort Collins and Denver.  My current call, N0AUB, came along when I upgraded and forgot to check the box that kept the old call.

Anyway, I got into the hobby before most folks made the transition to SSB, and have remained an AMer at heart.  Valiant/R-390 and 32V-1/R-388 are the current stations.  

Some of my greatest ham radio adventures were with a group of guys in the Denver area known as the Dummy Load Society.  Boatanchors, fests, AM, and mayhem were the rule.  I moved to Montana in 2000 and have looked for the kind of radio kinship I knew in Colorado. I'm envious of the closeness many of you still seem to share on the East Coast.

An old buzzard who still likes to keep it concise...


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wa2zdy on December 19, 2005, 03:59:53 PM
Yes Jim, that was Miss Thomas.  A very nice lady.  I had first gone for my General expecting to see Mr Finklestein (Finkleman?) from the horror stories my brother had from ten years eariler. 

Someone emailed me in the past few years that he had run into her a few years later, after the VEC system was in place, and that Miss Thomas was as nice as we remembered her and that she was working for the State Dept in NYC.

Yes indeed, fond memories.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K3ZS on December 19, 2005, 04:30:34 PM
I got my "C.B. Plummer" license in 1958, age 13 and the call was KN3EZS, the same year my parents bought the green Impala ragtop shown in my avatar.  This was in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  My elmer was John Llopes, W3GJF at the A.G. Radio store in the Jenkinstown area.  They had novice classes weekly.  John cleaned out his basement and gave all the parts to me.  I still have some of it.   At the same age I went to the Philadelphia customs house, with two other novice friends to try out the General exam.  We never expected to pass, but I was the only one of us who actually passed, much to my surprise I became K3EZS.  11 meters was still a ham band at the time.   10M AM was the local band, with many hams running homebrew 5 to 10W mobiles powered from the car radios vibrator power supplies and simple receiving converters powered the same way.  Because of the hams success with mobile 10M AM, I believe that is why 11 meters became CB.  I built and installed my 10M mobile when I was 14 into my dad's 1955 Ponitiac.  It became the car I used when I started driving.  The mobile transmitter circuit was described to me over the air on 10M AM and I drew the schematic on the back page of the log book.  I have no idea where the circuit came from.

My first rig was a Globe Chiief 90 and a Hallicrafters Sky Buddy.  After getting the General I added the WRL screen modulator and Heath VF-1 VFO.  Later traded the Sky Buddy for an NC-183.  I still have the NC-183, but gave away all the AM transmitters I have had over the years.  I I wIsh I still had them.  I changed the call a few years ago when the license requirements were made much easier and the the orginal K calls lost their uniquness.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K1MVP on December 19, 2005, 07:36:36 PM
(http://www.brucehowes.com/K1MVP/K1MVP.jpg)

Hope this "pix" comes out ok,--this is urs truly as a much younger cw op
back about 1963, with a DX-35, VF-1 vfo, and a halliscrathcers S-40B
working some "rare dx".
                               73`s, and Merry Christmas to all
 
P.S, the first contact I ever made, as I recall was KN1LEW in Massachusetts
       on 40 cw with my homebrew 6V6 xtal controlled and my "fist"
       was shaking like a leaf when he came back to my CQ.
       that was 46 years ago today,12/19/59,--time DOES fly by.   


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W2JBL on December 20, 2005, 12:28:20 AM
     at age 12 in 1968 i started to operate 80CW under dad's supervision with a DX60 and HR10B. his call was W2GOW. when he was not looking i would switch on the "HIFI" BC348, plug in an Argonne AR-54 mic, go up to 3870 or 3885 AM and work WA1HLR, W3DUQ and WB2YPE. Timtron was not impressed with my audio, Bill was cool and Bacon made fun of me (ok- i deserved it!) after two years some local hams eventually heard this and tipped off my father. it was hard to tell though, because i had my 3rd BA voice at 13. this resulted in my being issued WN2OMH in June 1970. i upgraded to general and WA2OMH in 1971. then one night in 1986 somebody informed me i was not listed in the callbook. a quick check of my license showed it was expired, YIKES! a hasty renewall was mailed and i landed KD2XA for better or worse. 


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Steve - WB3HUZ on December 20, 2005, 12:08:08 PM
My bio is available here.

http://www.qrz.com/callsign/WB3HUZ


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: w1guh on December 20, 2005, 12:13:49 PM
"He enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology "

What course? (number)


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA1GFZ on December 20, 2005, 12:31:21 PM
.--  -. .---- --.  ..-  ....  -.. .  .--  -. .---- --. ..-. --..  Bet we worked back in '66 


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wb1aij on December 20, 2005, 12:59:06 PM
  My Ham career started out as a bootleg operation. I learned Morse Code by looking at the characters on paper and sounding them on a buzzer. Then I started listening to the 40 meter band and copying QSOs. I did not know any Hams or of any clubs and did not how to go about getting a license. I built a 15 watt xmitter  (CW only) with a sweep tube on an inverted bread pan and put up an invisible dipole at my parents house, made up a set of novice call letters and was on the air. I stayed with CW thinking it would be harder to be detected. My first QSO was on 40 meters to New Haven from Plainville , Ct. and that was a thrill. My next contact was Corbin Kentuckey and I was in Heaven.My original call was WN2ACW until someone questioned why I had a "2" call and lived in Connecticut. I did not know the answer to this so I did a little digging and found I needed a "1" call. So I switched to WN1ACW. I didn't know about call books so I was surprised when someone told me my call belonged to someone in New Hampshire or Maine. This all happened in the middle sixties. After school and Marine Corp service and a few years chasing skirts I looked back to radio getting my general license in 1976. I will never forget my bootleg days; they were the most exciting, going down to the cold cellar in my parents house late at night and sending my mysterious invisible signals out into the cold, dark night over great distances undetected and making a long distance contact. Those were the best days & I wish I could recapture that feeling of excitement today.

Bob
WB1AIJ


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wa2zdy on December 20, 2005, 02:49:32 PM
My bio is available here.

http://www.qrz.com/callsign/WB3HUZ

Oh my goodness, I just about choked . . .


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Carl WA1KPD on December 20, 2005, 06:56:06 PM
My bio is available here.

http://www.qrz.com/callsign/WB3HUZ


Ahh I think he is a slacker!


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1UX on December 21, 2005, 08:20:14 AM
Neat thread, Chris!
Great to read all the various stories!
Yes, the thrill of old time radio, the aroma of the woodstove, the smell of cooking, op temp genuine 'murrican condensers, the glow of the #47's.........

I was 13 crossing the Atlantic on an English ship when I wandered up to the radio shack, and the R.O. took kindly to this kid, instead of  chasing me out - the sound of CW blasting out of the shack onto the deck, 1500 miles from any land, was mind blowing! He let me in, sat me down at a spare (Marconi!) receiver and let me tune around - first time I heard hams, from both side of the pond!

That fall my uncle gave me his old Crosley All-Wave receiver (no cabinet), I set it up with a hunk o'wire and started copying hams on 75 and 40 - so I "borrowed" a small  spark gap from my JHS physics lab, hooked it up with an old key, and started teaching myself the code. Man, that spark sounded super in the old Crosley, covered the whole HF spectrum!!! This was in an NYC apartment building, and sho'nuff, it was taking out all the radios and TV's, so I got found out pretty soon! One guy in particular steered me onto getting my ticket, so after a couple of months of sparking it, I put together a xtal controlled 6V6, got an NC57, threw a wire out of the 15th floor window, and started bootin' on 40! It was FUN!

I went for my novice at 14 and it's been downhill ever since!   :D

74
Al UX


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA1GFZ on December 21, 2005, 12:44:13 PM
Ah the fear of the man that first boot transmission shaking like your first hot date.

"just like running a red light"  J.G.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K1JJ on December 21, 2005, 01:08:37 PM
Various Ham Events - some important and some not so.... ;D


Sept 1962: Saw a Tribander on a house roof and thought I will have one someday, whatever it was for.

Nov 1963: Built HB one tube SW receiver with 67 1/2 V battery. It never worked.

Nov 1964: Put $1 deposit on Globe Scout at local ham store.  Brought in $3 per week from paper route.

Dec 1964: Received novice WN1DGK, age 12.

Dec 1964: Called CQ 3716 kc on Gotham Vertical for 3 days - no answers.

Mar 1965:  Failed Conditional test - remember that license ?

June 1965: Passed General in Boston with Ed Hare, W1RFI. Now WA1DGK.

June 1965: Bought Apache with SB-10. Got beat up on ssb. Met the JN AMers on 3885.

July 1965: Chuck, WA1EKV [with his father] shows up at my house for a friendly visit.

May, 1966: Bought 170' of telescoping mast at ham store. Tried to put up -  collapsed.

June 1972: License expired - Passed  Novice > Extra in one sitting -  issued WA1SEJ.

Aug 1972:  Got back WA1DGK

June 1978:  Issued K1JJ in first gate - 13th choice.

Dec 2005: Put up Gotham vertical and called CQ for 3 days - no answers.



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W3NP on December 21, 2005, 01:41:55 PM

Dec 2005: Put up Gotham vertical and called CQ for 3 days - no answers.

I wonder how many young JN's spent their hard earned paper route money or talked their father's into buying them a Gotham vertical after reading those inpressive (to a JN) ad's in the ham mags?
....and then were sorely disappointed when the thing didn't work for crap with the 4' foot ground rod ground. If I recall, the ad didn't go into much detail about a ground system.

My friend back then (and still is), Gary K3OMI bought a Gotham V80 vertical and mounted it in the inside corner of his parents house when the flue joined the house....all brick by the way. The antenna was about 4 inches from the brick. Then he attached the feedline to the little base loading coil with the little clip and the shield to a 4' ground rod and fired up his DX-20 for some real DX!!!  ;D

You can imagine how impressed he was with the perfomance of his new multiband wonder antenna, surrounded by brick on 2 sides and no ground!!

On the other hand, my elmer sold me a WW2 tank antenna base insulator and enough screw together antenna sections to make a FB ground plane for 20 meters with 4 guy/radials up on my father's roof at about 30'. Did great on 20 CW with my DX-40 and even worked a CN8 in Morroco on fone with it.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K1JJ on December 21, 2005, 02:04:25 PM
My friend back then (and still is), Gary K3OMI bought a Gotham V80 vertical and mounted it in the inside corner of his parents house when the flue joined the house....all brick by the way. The antenna was about 4 inches from the brick. Then he attached the feedline to the little base loading coil with the little clip and the shield to a 4' ground rod and fired up his DX-20 for some real DX!!!  ;D
You can imagine how impressed he was with the perfomance of his new multiband wonder antenna, surrounded by brick on 2 sides and no ground!!

 ;D ;D ;D

You've basically described my first antenna, Dave.

I could only afford 3' of RG/8 coax [didn't know about 58/u]  so the vertical stood 6" away from the house. The coax went thru my bedroom window to the back of the DX-20. It sat on a galvanized pipe, no radials. No swr bridge to adj the match. Could have been 10:1 for all I knew.  If that wasn't enuff, I had attached a bare wire to the very top of the 18' whip and ran it to the ice covered roof as support in case of a hurricane. Direct short to ground at a high impedance point.

After calling CQ for three days, I stopped putting them in my log, as it was filling up. A local General class listened for me while on the telephone and couldn't even hear me the next town over... gawd.

I took it back to the ham store and the guy who sold it axed me what I was doing with that piece of crap. [He forgot the sale]   He showed me how to make a coax pigtail and dipole. I climbed up the trees the next day in a snow storm and was working WN8's, WN9's that same winter night on 80M CW. I was blown away. The OM kept telling me to go to bed. He finally came in and pulled the plug outa the wall. I got scared thinking the FCC would cite me for not signing off correctly.

I then calculated I'd need about 200+ crystals to cover the whole 80/40M/15M novice bands. Figgered that was a bad idea. So I convinced the ham store to sell me a Ranger. My Novice buddies couldn't figure out where I suddenly got all the new crystals.

Magic days, indeed.  Always think of those days when the wx gets cold.

T


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WD8BIL on December 21, 2005, 03:44:25 PM
My first antenna was the Hy Gain 18V vertical ground mounted. No radials at first, coil taped for 40 meters.
Griefkit SWR bridge said 2:1. Worked OK but not much outside Ohio. Then my mentor from a few doors down (WA8MXU: sk) came over one day and tutored me on the art of radials.
The thing actually started working FB but the S38C couldn't handle the mass of stations answering my CQ.
After more tutoring I added a Q multiplier to the old Hellasmashers and its been uphill ever since.

Course there's the time one of the neighborhood kids grabbed hold of the vertical while I was transmitting !!!!!  ;D ;D :o :o


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ian VK3KRI on December 21, 2005, 05:40:14 PM

As a lad I remember tuning backwards and forwards across the SW bands with the Hitachi portable my dad bought back from Japan. Once I workd out that hams were only on certain bit of the dial, and they were using this SSB stuff I  built an external bfo and I could actually here them talking!

Eventually in '78 I realised that I had read the '77 ARRL HB from front to back enough times that I might actually pass the theory test. So after waiting for the twice yearly examinations to roll arround , in 1979 at the age of 17 I sat and passed the written exam  (none of that multiple choice stuff back then) and after some weeks wait for the result got my 'Z' call - VK3YRR. 
'Z' calls had a suffix starting with Z, until they ran out and started allocating 'Y' and 'X'. Z calls or 'Limited licencees' had same priveleges as full calls , but only above 50 Mhz due to no CW.

I only had that call for 3 or 4 years before I upgraded , but I have considered trying to get it back as I always think of it as my 'real' call, probably because it was what I had in my formulative years of Radio. I was almost a celebrity back then, the only kid in school with a ham licence ... 

                                                        Ian VK3KRI


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Tom WA3KLR on December 21, 2005, 05:58:16 PM
First licensed as WN3KLR, June 1968 - 16 years old.
 
Upgraded to General one year later.

Upgraded to Advanced one year after that.

Bought a Newtronics 4BTV 40 - 10 meter vertical in 1972 from Stan Burghardt while stationed in North Dakota.  Still in use today on 20, 15 and 10 meters.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Glenn NY4NC on December 21, 2005, 06:53:09 PM
That reminds me.... who was that guy... "Joe the boot" or was it "john the boot" ? or something like that?

Anyone know what I'm talking about??  ???



My Ham career started out as a bootleg operation.Bob
WB1AIJ


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Steve - WB3HUZ on December 21, 2005, 08:12:41 PM
Ron Boot, a.k.a. Nasty Ronny.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: KB2WIG on December 21, 2005, 08:19:01 PM
Ron Boot?????


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: IWI on December 21, 2005, 09:07:57 PM
Hey Chris,
You and I got licensed at the same time, and the same age.
I was also a pubic 14 in 1966.
Got my ticket in the summer of 66, novice. My original call was WN1GSP. I wonder if we ever worked on 40.
My first rig was a homebrew Conar cw transmitter. Receiver was a Lafayette shortwave receiver.
My novice expired in 1967 before I took the technician test, so I ended up with a new call. I still have it today:WA1IWI.
After all these years I still spend most of my time on 40. But I hope to get my 75 meter dipole back up sometime soon.
Lance- IWI
 


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Glenn NY4NC on December 21, 2005, 09:33:25 PM
Thats it!!!.. Ron the Boot!!!


Ron Boot, a.k.a. Nasty Ronny.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: AJ1G on December 22, 2005, 07:41:02 AM
Lance  (IWI) - doubt we worked on 30.  I had only one or two crystals that worked on the 40 meter novice band and the foreign BC station QRM was awful up there.  Spent most of my time as WN2ZPS on 3727 and 3740, whcih were the two 80M crystals that the DX-40 came with.  3740 was the Eastern Area Slow Net frequency, I was fairly active on it, and eventually even had an NCS gig there.  As a novice, I didn't dare use the VF-1 that I had along with the DX-40.  It did get me in trouble later as a General.  I called a DX station on the low end of 20 CW during a DX contest, and a few weeks later an envelope from the FCC showed up in the mail at our house with a big "NOTICE OF VIOLATION" or something similar on it.  Shook up my Mom so much that she went up to my high school and had me called out of class to explain what it was all about.  Apparently I was about 2 kc low out of the band.  I sent back a mea-culpa letter saying I was just a young JN with a poorly calibrated VFO, and promised it would never happen again, and that was that....

Glenn, NY4NC - did I pass that VF-1 on to you with the DX-40?  I imagine I most likely would have.  A lot of the radio stuff that I had at my folks got cleaned out by my Dad (with my OK) while I was at college and relatively inactive in ham radio.  Steve Stutman, now KL7JT, thinks that some of it ended up in a shed at his folks place down on Town Line Road.  It may still be there, along with a lot of his old stiff. One of these days we need to open that time capsule.

Al-W1UX - you are right, this indeed has been a fun thread.  Nice to hear all the JN stories during the Christmas season!  On this date 39 years ago, I was checking the mailbox for my novice ticket to arrive.  I had my DX-40 and Scott SLRM all ready to go, and had visions of a CW filled Christmas break dancing in my head.  Every day of the break, I hopefully waited and waited..would it be here today? And then,....nothing.  It finally showed up on January 4th, 1967, on our first day back at school after the break, and WN2ZPS was on the air!


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: w1guh on December 22, 2005, 09:38:49 AM
"and the foreign BC station QRM was awful up there."

There was that, and also...

VVV VVV VVV DE NSS NSS NSS W W W  (repeated over and over.)

Always had a nice signal into Michigan.

And the VF-1 and violations.  Ah, yes.

I borrowed one and it obviously needed work...

I got a collect call one night for K8TFH (good thing it was me who answered the phone!) from the UP.  After I refused the charges, he picked them up.  He was a ham who had heard me somewhere around 6500. He chewed me out for 1) Out-of band, and 2) not accepting the charges.  I thanked him for the information.

A little while later I got a letter from the FCC.  They had gotten a violation notice from Canada which they forwared to me with a comment that I should take care of it.  But this was not, actually, an actionable FCC violation.  They were sending the Canadian violation along only as an advisory notice.

Not to mention all the OO "QSL's" I got for 7450 (2x3725).


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Glenn NY4NC on December 22, 2005, 09:53:54 AM
Dec 2005: Put up Gotham vertical and called CQ for 3 days - no answers.
I wonder how many young JN's spent their hard earned paper route money or talked their father's into buying them a Gotham vertical after reading those inpressive (to a JN) ad's in the ham mags?
....and then were sorely disappointed when the thing didn't work for crap with the 4' foot ground rod ground. If I recall, the ad didn't go into much detail about a ground system.



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA1GFZ on December 22, 2005, 10:17:10 AM
hey gotham verticals work. I was down the beach in the 60s a few doors down from my place and I noticed a vertical antenna in a yard beside a rental cottage. Then on a second pass I heard SSB signals from inside the house. A few hours later I spotted a guy and asked him about it. It was a gotham with 25 feet of RG17 strapped to a pipe in the ground. When he learned I was also a ham I was invited in. He was a rich kid with a Drake TR4 (or maybe TR3?). Over the next few days we worked tons of DX. I don't remember who he was but that little vertical was a ball.
1963 ripped apart old radios for parts and built crystal sets. learned of spark
1964 built tube projects from a kit my parents bought me 1 6J5, 2 6SJ7s
1965 My first Heath Kit GR64
1966 Pass License test WN1GFZ Boot 6V6GT goes legal. Solder joint on feed line opes and send CQ for many days.
build Q multiplier kit and homebrew Regen preselector. Tuning a signal was like Dr. Zarkoff flying Flash Gordon's space ship.
1967 Pass general try AM but PW and no source of strap components.
Return to CW.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K1JJ on December 22, 2005, 11:17:48 AM
hey gotham verticals work.

Sure they do!  Just depends upon how they are installed.  A JN installation is not quite the goods.

Take for instance a mobile whip on a car. I'm betting that a Gotham 18' vertical sitting in the clear with 20 ground radials is at least 5 db better on 75M.  And a good mobile is only 15-20db down from a dipole at 60' for longer distance contacts.

I once parked my HB bugcatcher Blazer outside the shack in the field. I put on a KW of AM and switched between the dipole and this mobile ant. The guys on 75M saw 15-20db max difference.  So, as you say, the Gotham can't be that bad, IF installed correctly...  not like my 1964 debacle.

Speaking of Gotham... a friend once purchased their 2el 20M quad. He took it out of the box and started assembling. He realized it was such a piece of crap that he used the poles for dipole antenna supports for years after that. Didn't even bother. Never saw life as a quad...  ::)

T


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA3VJB on December 22, 2005, 11:54:25 AM
I had one of those Goth-am (rhymes with profanity) verticals too. The thing that cheesed me was the surprise $12 shipping on what had become a $24 antenna by the time I ordered in 1973.  Seems the sections of alumnium tubing were oversize for Railway Express (REA, green trucks with red label, rival to UPS and Post Office), and there was no disclosure law in the ad that said they could ship COLLECT.  Out came Mom's checkbook, boy was I pissed.

I must have really let them have it. Didn't save my letter (carbon paper was expensive, and my old Underwood typewriter poked holes in the paper when you used it) "We wish you had asked about the shipping cost before writing such a bitter letter" said the response, which offered only to refund my $24 if I returned the antenna at my expense. You can see how that added up.

Cheap airwound coil with a cliplead and wire pigtail, none of which was weatherproof. And yeah, they vaguely mentioned something about improved performance with ground radials, but I went to the roof of the garage for the base, and had a midsection support at the peak of the two-story house. A few radials laid on the roof of the garage didn't seem to make much difference, and I've been on real dipoles ever since.

I think Ben Waple signed my license; will have to dig it up.  WN4DKG, and you had to change your calls if you changed call districts, so I became WN3VJB. Came in right as they legalized VFOs for Novices, and still have the Novice rig, the Collins 32V2, which became my introduction and endoctrination to AM.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Steve W8TOW on December 22, 2005, 12:02:24 PM
First as WN9TOW Lafayette, Indiana in 1974, March I believe...
I had saved about $400 with my paper route, my dad, not a ham, wanted me to
have a "store bought" rig. In Korea, he was exposed to Collins stuff, and really wanted
me to get a "S-LIne" til he saw the $$!

SO, my next choice was a Drake C line, but after visiting a couple of radio stores in nearby
Indianapolis (Vansickles Radio and Graham Electronics, and even the Heathkit store) we/I was
talked into a TENTEC Triton...great on cw, a compromise of ssb...but
thank goodness for yardsales.
a year later I got my general ticket, and WB9TOW for a call.
Shortly afterwards, my dad found a 51J2 at a yard sale for $35!
she worked FB, and lead me to AM, along with an article in March 1977 CQ Mag,
"No Harry, AM isn't Dead".
I shelled out $30 for a Viking I & VFO at a hamfest in Logansport IN that month and
was on AM til about 1985. I came back to AM in 1997....and sure don't plan on leaving!
One note, one of my first radio stores to go into was that of VanSickle's in Indianapolis...
he was quite a operator and homebrewer in his day... several pix of his shack are in Radio and
QST before WWII....He met us at the door, but I wasn't smart enough then to know who
he was!
73 steve


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: AB3L on December 22, 2005, 08:37:25 PM
I was WN3OBC back in about 1969, I'll have to check for sure. 40M with a GR-64 and a Globe Scout 65A to a dipole. The 64 was side stepped buy a HR-10B.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1GFH on December 22, 2005, 09:54:08 PM
It was on the maiden voyage of the Titanic from Liverpool to New York when I wandered into the Marconi Operator's room and heard the clicks and buzzing of the spark transmitters....

No, wait. That was movie.

It was around 1963. At about 10 years old, I got very interested in radio. My earliest memory is "dxing" the broadcast band with an old tube Zenith on a snowy winter day when school was cancelled due to a New England blizzard.  I knew vaguely that there was such a thing as a "radio ham" but figured such people were untouchable gods. I'd watch old movies on TV for glimpses of radio operators and transmitters.  When I found a copy of QST on the local newsstand, I was floored. A whole magazine "Entirely Devoted To Amateur Radio" -- incredible! I read EVERY INCH even if I didn't understand what I was reading and studied the ads in the back pages like Bible passages.

A year or two later I badgered the old man with cut-out Radio Shack ads for the Hallicrafters S119 Sky Buddy II being offered at close-out prices. $29.95 later, and I was the pround owner of a shortwave receiver. The SW bands were magic. All those foreign lands at my fingertips, just like the ads said they'd be! I thought the Cold War jammers were airplanes. Later I thought they were diathermy machines. I must admit I am still confused about what they were.

I bought an AMECO code study course with an LP record, an ARRL license manual, and a cheap straight key. I saved up enough for an Ameco AC-1 kit and slapped it together in a day or two. (It never worked on the air) But a "no elmer" situation proved too much for me, I couldn't fathom the code to save my life. Drifted into CB radio for a year or two, and then into the jaws of adolescence, where radio had no place among girls, music and cars.

Fast forward to the late 1970's and the height of the CB radio trucker craze. I mentioned to a co-worker that I was considering buying a CB radio. "You don't want that" he said, "ham radio is so much better". For the first time, I had a bonafide Elmer - and he was my own age. I quickly got up to speed enough to pass the General first time out during a memorable test (then held at the FCC Office in the Custom House in Boston). I got my callsign a few weeks later: WB1GFH. First rig was a used National NCX-3, and I worked 80 and 40 meter CW exclusively for about 5 years. Then I started hearing these strange hetrodynes on 75 meters. I switched the mode on the receiver to AM, and was shocked to hear a man (WA1HLR) belching into the mike. Yet, I couldn't tear my ears away. Wow, what a cool signal, what a great sound. It spurred my interest in AM.

Ah yes, but it really all began in 1963. Lo, those many years ago, on that frigid snowy day with the Zenith. I wonder how many people associate snow and cold winter weather with ham radio?


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Glenn NY4NC on December 22, 2005, 10:29:35 PM
Chris;

Not a VF1, you gave me some sort of converted military VFO...As near as I can remember, it was a modified ARC-5 mounted to a 19" rack panel....

Glenn, NY4NC - did I pass that VF-1 on to you with the DX-40?  I imagine I most likely would have.  A lot of the radio stuff that I had at my folks got cleaned out by my Dad (with my OK) while I was at college and relatively inactive in ham radio.  Steve Stutman, now KL7JT, thinks that some of it ended up in a shed at his folks place down on Town Line Road.  It may still be there, along with a lot of his old stiff. One of these days we need to open that time capsule.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Bacon, WA3WDR on December 26, 2005, 01:40:00 AM
I was 13, and I called my little 1620 KHz suppressor modulated 6AU6 ECO "WREB" (my initials, REB).  Later the transmitter became a screen modulated 6V6, with crystal control! As I recall, I had a 6S4 oscillator driving the 6V6.  It started out as Radio Garage, because it was located in my neighbor's garage that they let me use.  Then it became 9XR Radio Atlantic when I brought it up into my room, and then 10XR Radio Atlantic when I discovered that 9XR belonged to Rwanda.  From age 13 to 15 I also bootlegged a friend's CB call, KKD1735, and my screwey transmitter built from parts from Lafayette had a crystal that put me about halfway between channel 11 and the RC channel above it.  The FCC showed up one night, but fortunately I had lent my crystal to a friend and I wasn't on the air.  The FCC guy wound up busting my friend across the street, who was using another one of my 6AU6 suppressor modulated transmitters that had drifted up to about 1650 KHz.  Oh, the trouble I caused...  The FCC inspector then came back and said that he knew that I was doing illegal broadcasting, and suggested that I get a ham license.  (Fortunately the guy who had my crystal had technical problems and couldn't get on the air that night.)

Then when I was 16, I became WB2YPE. Then I became WA3WDR in 1973 when I lived in Pennsylvania.  In fact WB2YPE had recently expired at that time.  I may have been able to keep the call at that time, but I didn't think so.  WB2YPE has been re-issued.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wa2zdy on December 26, 2005, 01:03:50 PM
. . .  Lo, those many years ago, on that frigid snowy day with the Zenith. I wonder how many people associate snow and cold winter weather with ham radio?

My brother still calls me whenever snow is forecast and says "tonight will be good for some CW on 80."  I don't even need to see the forecast, I know that means snow is on the way.

Sadly  I hate snow and cold anymore but I humour him and get to sounding all excited about it for him too.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WD8BIL on December 27, 2005, 08:36:49 AM
Quote
The FCC showed up one night,

AHH Yes ..... the FCC guy !!!

A friend and I bootlegged on 1550KHZ with a Viking 1. I replaced the 10 meter coil with quite a few extra turns and got it to pop a 60 watt light bulb. We then connected to a wire ant. between our houses (about 140 ft) and were on the air as WBNJ (We're Bud n' Joe) playing all the hits on his RCA mono record player. No Mixing board. Mic (model 55 Elvis mic) was placed in front of the spreaker.

One day Joe was OTA and I was coming home from school. I saw "THE VEHICLE" 4 blocks from Joe's house and heading his way. Fortunatly I beat it to his house and when they drove down the street we were out front playing catch. From then on we had one guy on the air the other in the attic (3 story 2 family dwelling) on lookout.

They came by 3 more times in the next 2 weeks but never busted us.

And the transmitter ?????? Well..... it does the lion's share at WD8BIL.
Yup ..... the infamous Viking Bud !!!!!




Title: Your first
Post by: WA3VJB on December 27, 2005, 09:35:35 AM
Thanks Buddly for the round of True Confessions.

If you want to include THAT sort of on-air action, I'll have to disclose that a schoolchum of mine, way back when, decided we ought to try getting on the ham bands as WA4VEH.

The call was not taken, and we had observed how to carry out a QSO.

Origin of the call sign descended from the fact we had been shortwave listeners for a few years, and Haiti was among the stations we used to listen to, and make fun of for their propaganda.

Their call sign was 4VEH.

So on the air we went, using I think a pair of Heathkit SB-301/401, 20 meters, until someone looked us up on the Callbook and decided we were boots since the block of calls around us made them suspicious.







Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WD8BIL on December 27, 2005, 10:25:15 AM
Bootlegging the Ham Bands.

Great title for a new thread !!!!

One of the original partners of Dentron Radio still gets an occasional QSL card from some distant ham he never worked. Just for ol' time sakes !!!
 


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA1HZK on December 27, 2005, 11:20:13 AM
Bootlegging 40 meters with a single crystal 6AQ5 in high school. Got licensed in 1966 with my friend Dean, WA1HSD. We got a ride to Reading MA. and took the train to North Station to the Federal Building to take our tests. That made me WN1HZK & Dean WN1HSD. We went back & did the same thing for General & then again for Advanced. Incentive licensing really pissed me off when people just started to memorize the tests and all of the people around me that did not know the correct end of a screwdriver became "Extras" At that point I stopped the rat race. I'm still 100% AM with 100% restored or home built equipment. I know this story is like looking into a mirror to most of you guys. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. That's Christmas and New Year not the Wal Mart "Holidays" Keep up the battle. It's an honor to hang with you guys.
Keith
WA1HZK


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1QWT on December 27, 2005, 05:22:12 PM
Oh boy since we are "coming clean" I should mention my days as a disc jokey on a local pirate station.
The guy down the street, who latter turned out to be my brother in law, was into hobby broadcasting. So his technical friend built him a  nice 60 watt AM transmitter. He put it in his attic  and connected it to a long wire. He ran the audio cables down to his playroom in his parents house to where his audio stuff and records where. His made up call letters were WCDR (his initials) and he operated on 820 KCS.
I remember it well even though I was only 13. "This is WCDR where you'll hear plenty on 820", we announced.
Pretty good range as you could hear it in all the surronding towns. I remember getting my father to drive me around listening to it on the car radio to see how far it could be heard.
Quote
The FCC showed up one night,
Well in our case it was the daytime. I was walking home from school and there it was parked across the street from this guys house. The dreaded, FCC van!
Yep it was a grey van with government writing on it and a loop antenna on the roof.
I ran home and hid under my bed shaking like a leaf.
I found out later that the kid down the street wasn't home so the transmitter wasn't on the air. I don't know how they found it unless they found it a day or two earlier and decided to come back with the requisite paper work.
The FCC guys told his mother that the 3rd harmonic was interferring with the Marine band and the ships were hearing him a 100 miles at sea. Anyway when he got home from school his mother told him that some nice gentlemen from the "Federal Government Radio Agency" came by and said that his little broadcast transmitter was illegal and that he should never, ever turn it on again. They took all the tubes out of it and left.

Well that put an end to that.
The guy down the street grew up to become a big deal attorney in the Justice Departartment. I guess he decided it was more fun catching other people break the law. Ofcourse this was 30 some odd years ago.



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W9LBB on December 27, 2005, 05:48:09 PM
Oh, MAN!!!   GREAT thread! :)

Coming clean...   I have to guess in was Christmas night, 1958...  and strictly bootleg.

Dad bought me a shiny new Hallicrafters S-120, a better radio than my old Knight Kit
Span Master regenerative.

On 80 meters the S-120 was the receiver, and with the regeneration turned up all
the way I put a key in the antenna lead of the Span Master. A two word per minute
CQ went out, using the callsign W9TGM, which had been lifted from the kiddie lit
book DANNY DUNN AND THE HOMEWORK MACHINE!   ;)

It actually WORKED...  I managed to pester a guy three blocks away (WA9CZR) into
answering!   

Ah...   THOSE were the days!


73's,

Tom, W9LBB


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W4WSZ on December 28, 2005, 09:22:24 AM
Received my call (W4WSZ) in 1951...............age 16

In the early 60's while with Collins Radio I was issued W5IBD

After returning to 4 land,  I was able to get my original call.

54 wonderful years in this great hobby........what a trip

73 and Happy New Year to all

Bob, W4WSZ
AM'ing over 50 years






Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1JS on December 28, 2005, 01:34:31 PM
Speaking of boots...,

Anyone remember the infamous W1NXZ, Bob from Beverly??

 ??? ??? ???

I have 3 contacts with "Bob" in my log in July of 1966.



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA1GFZ on December 29, 2005, 10:57:29 AM
I remember NXZ..............................1966 next year will be 40 for me
no wonder the basement is full!
not too old to rock and roll..................


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Bacon, WA3WDR on December 30, 2005, 01:16:02 AM
Yep!  Back in the 60s, I remember EKV Chuck introducing NXZ, who then proceeded to make a transmission on CW!


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W9LBB on December 30, 2005, 06:02:21 PM
Yep!  Back in the 60s, I remember EKV Chuck introducing NXZ, who then proceeded to make a transmission on CW!

Anyone around the Chicago area in the 1950s and 60s remembers the (legit) commercial station WIND (560 KHz, and still there). Every news broadcast was preceeded by someone on a hand key and code practice oscillator hammering out CQ CQ CQ !

THAT was the first code I learned!   :)


An update on my earlier entry...   this time, the LEGAL stuff.   ;)

In late 1963 I became WN9LGD. That ran out and there was a laps before WA9QMB (took me a while to get to 13 WPM), and we did a lot of operation at Chicago Vocational High School's club station, W9LBB. During that time (1966) upgraded to Extra for purely selfish reasons; I was still crystal controlled, and Incentive Licensing's division of 40 CW would have rendered useless my BEST DXing rock, 7006.5 KHz!

A year or so later I wound up as the Trustee of WA9YCK (City College of Chicago, Southeast Campus Radio Club).

After moving to a college in northern Wisconsin (and installing a Galaxy V in my dorm room closet!) I tried to work CW Sweepstakes with the absolute WORST CW contesting call in history, WA9QMB/9 !  Shortly thereafter, the first of the (no $20.00 fee) Vanity Call schemes kicked in. Remembering the Sweepstakes fiasco, I applied for and got K9TA (my initials). W9TA was available, but back then the W two letter guys were like Greek Gods to me and most other folks; it would have been presumptuous of me to take such an august callsign.

K9TA also turned out to be a rotten CW call; no matter HOW good your fist and careful your spacing, folks kept coming back to K9K !!!  That resulted in one of two reactions...

"Gee, how'd you get THAT funny call", or "You're a damned bootlegger! I'm calling Grand Island RIGHT NOW"!

Several years ago I got tired of it...   my old high school club call, W9LBB, had become available. That's one that just sort of ROLLS off of a Vibroplex, and besides that I decided that a call that got so many electronics techs and engineers started DESERVED to stay on the air. Besides, over the years I'd kept in touch with my old Elmer (I hate that term!!!), Bob Beattie, W9OIB (SK), who taught me basic electronics and who had administered the Novice exam to me. It made him feel good that the old callsign was still out there and active.

The call has been recognized on the air and answered by several fellow graduates of old Chicago Vocational. ;)


73's,

Mr. T., W9LBB


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: nq5t on December 31, 2005, 10:40:35 AM
1959 at the age of 14.  KN5VCM, with a DX-40, BC-455 and one 7198 crystal.

(http://home1.gte.net/nq5t/kn5vcm.jpg)

My how time flies when you're having fun  :-)



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: w1guh on January 03, 2006, 12:52:50 PM

re: Gotham antennas....

Then there was the Gotham "Tri-Band Beam".  It was three dipoles on one boom.  A friend got one...didn't work too well.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Todd, KA1KAQ on January 06, 2006, 02:57:21 PM
Great thread, it's always interesting to see where folks came from.

First licensed as KA1KAQ in March of 1983 at 22, although I was first interested back in the mid 70s when I was 14-15. Actually did some operating then at W1BD’s Field Day stations with one of the 'younger' (probably 35-40) old guys acting as control op. Talk about being thrilled and petrified at the same time. Unfortunately, the local club was still controlled by a few old fudds who didn't seem too keen on newbies to the point that I signed up for a novice class they offered and arrived at the Berlin Armory to find nothing but darkness. With only enough change in my pocket for one phone call, I decided to call one of the guys supposed to teach the class, instead of calling to get a ride back home. I was sure that I'd just gotten the time wrong. He answered and said "Oh, that - well, we only had you and one other kid sign up, so we decided to cancel the class". Nice of them to call and tell me. I had a 5 mile walk home to think about it.

First QSO as KA1KAQ was a with 'another country' (Canada, ha!), I remember being nervous and sending a lot of di-di-di-di-di-di-dits. Girlfriend of the day was there and decided to wait downstairs. After what seemed like 20 minutes or so, I proudly went down to brag about my first contact, only to have her say "20 minutes? Try 2 hours!". Guess I really was nervous (and slow).  :D

Had a blast working CW the first year or so and decided to climb the license ladder in order, so as to have a copy of each. Got my tech in '84, General in '85, and Advanced in '86. Then a new girlfriend/job/other life issues put the brakes on my operating for a while and I wasn't active again until the late 80s. First AM transmitter was a kw-class rig I found in an antique shop with some other stuff. Think I made my first AM contact with it to uncle Eddy, WA3PUN and some of the other guys out that way, including some 8-Lander "at the bottom of Lake Huron". Used to talk with W2WLR 'Watertown's Little Radio' whose signal made the trip over to my location loud and clear. Picked up a $40 32V-2 in the early 90s after a gridshort in the big rig (no spares) and used that until '95 when something went west and it began simulcasting on three frequencies. By then I had moved, gotten married, changed jobs a few times, gotten unmarried and so on. Other than one AM appearance to talk with WA2PJP from the Vermont EOC during a lull on the night of 9/11/2001, I haven't been on the air beyond listening on 40-75-160 AM and some SSB on the gay 6 meter band. Every time I think I'm close, something called Life interferes.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Bacon, WA3WDR on June 15, 2007, 01:54:21 PM
     at age 12 in 1968 i started to operate 80CW under dad's supervision with a DX60 and HR10B. his call was W2GOW. when he was not looking i would switch on the "HIFI" BC348, plug in an Argonne AR-54 mic, go up to 3870 or 3885 AM and work WA1HLR, W3DUQ and WB2YPE. Timtron was not impressed with my audio, Bill was cool and Bacon made fun of me (ok- i deserved it!) after two years some local hams eventually heard this and tipped off my father.
Did I do that?  Actually I'm sorry.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W8IXY on June 15, 2007, 03:27:02 PM
Hello everyone,

For me, I had been fooling with radios since before I could walk.....say what you will, but my parents confirmed that I'd fiddle with several of their radios as a 10 month old infant.  Was fiddling with crystal sets by kindergarten, built my first "plate modulated" transmitter out of an old radio by age 10.  Got my novice at age 13, in 1960, as KN8VPL.  First QSO was with a DX-20 and an S-38.  I still remember his call...VE3CTU.  Tech at 14, general at 15.  By general time I had a DX-100B and an HQ-110.  First Phone at 17, Advanced at 22.  I am still K8VPL, still love AM and 10 meters.  All, that led to a successful career as a professional radio/TV broadcaster, on both sides of the microphone. 

73
Ted  K8VPL.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wa2dtw on June 15, 2007, 05:05:55 PM
First licensed January 1959, about 6 weeks before my 12th birthday.  My novice call was WV2DTW.  Later that year upgraded to general.   Subsequent upgrades and move to "3" land, but decided to keep WA2DTW.
73
Steve


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wa2dtw on June 15, 2007, 05:07:05 PM
PS- just before 12th birthday, was on 2 meter AM using an SCR-522.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: N3DRB The Derb on June 15, 2007, 07:16:19 PM
1982, at 19 I guess, and I was one of the youngest hams around the scene in Baltimore. EVERYONE was older than me, usually by several decades. KA3LMJ.

I tried to get my ticket in the early 70's growing up in Bham AL but the morse code teacher  at the BARC classes ( Birmingham Amatuer Radio Club) , met at he Red Cross BUilding downtown) told everyone loudly that the last thing ham radio needed was more kids. Laughed in my face with his buddies, all 60+ year old men. Told me to call my parents to come get me, that he would not teach me code. 1977 I think. I was 14. My mom and dad thought I had done something bad and refused to take me back.

That grumpy old bastard is the reason I hate code so much. Every guy that says shit about how great CW is and how it somehow upholds the hobby, I remember that guy. I think of that cruelty, and then I think about how the #*&#^%@ couldnt keep me off the air, and couldnt keep me off of HF.

I dont think anyone on here realizes just how much sheer pleasure I get from seeing morse code die. I wish I could find that old mans grave one day so I can take a big fat piss on it. Only a heartless scumbag would tell a 14 year old kid no and publicly humiliate him in front of strangers.







Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: N4JOY on June 15, 2007, 09:45:19 PM
Right on with the age -- I was 16 when first licensed.  I built my first HF rig at age 8... okay, it was actually a wooden box with painted dials and a meter so I could play "radio" like my ham father.  I even coiled up some wire in the box to make it look more realistic.  My father soon gave me a radio shack receiver kit -- took me less time to build that than my wooden radio!

Chris, N4JOY


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WU2D on June 15, 2007, 10:30:36 PM
I saw the Boys First Book of Radio and Electronics by Morgan in our brand new middle school library so that was 7th grade. I never looked back. That must have been around 1970.

My elmer was Ed Krenceski, WB2ASK (later NR2B) my after school babysitters husband. He was a professional technician for the college, a big polish guy with a temper and you did not go near his gear for fear of annihilation. He was an SSB net guy and had his shack right next to the kitchen. He also did civil defense communications for the town in our brand new ultra-modern underground fallout shelter which he equipped with Clegg Zeus 6/2 AM and Galaxy SSB gear. He hated CW and had no use for miltary or older gear and would not dream of using AM on the low bands, although he ran a 2M AM net every week. He was an expert at phone patching on the low bands ( a lost art)and hooked me up to my folks when I was at college right from my mobile!

So he shaped me because everything he did, I did the opposite!

Mike WU2D


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1GFH on June 15, 2007, 11:04:53 PM
...the morse code teacher  at the BARC classes told everyone loudly that the last thing ham radio needed was more kids. Laughed in my face with his buddies, all 60+ year old men. Told me to call my parents to come get me, that he would not teach me code. 1977 I think.

Wow, Derb, that sux. Compared to you, I had a Disneyland experience. I SWL'ed as a kid, bought Ameco code records, but could not get the hang of 5 WPM. Couldn't find an Elmer in my hick NH town, and by the time high school came around, I got interested in other stuff. In 1976, I was working the night shift at Hewlett Packard in Waltham, MA, building PC board subassy's for their medical gear. I became pals with a co-worker, George, WA1NTA. The building had a stockroom you could go and get spare parts from. It was kept well stocked with every value cap, resistor, semiconductor, inductor, term strip, rf connector, coax, solder, etc. ever made. A lot of small items followed us home. That year the CB craze hit, and my wife bought me a CB radio for the car for xmas. George saw it and began goading me to get my ham ticket.   During supper breaks he drilled me with CW practice. For some reason, this time, CW came easy, and I quickly got to 15 wpm. There was no published test question pool at the time, you just took the ARRL license manual and studied the various topics for whatever class of license you wanted. One late winter day we went up the stairs to the FCC office at the Custom House in Boston, and at that time I passed the General and got WB1GFH. I would have liked to take a sending test, since I enjoyed sending, but they had discontinued doing that. George immediately loaned me an old Heathkit (an SB-102 I think) and I only worked CW for a number of years, hanging in the 80 and 40m cw portions.



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ed KB1HVS on June 16, 2007, 02:58:01 PM
1982, at 19 I guess, and I was one of the youngest hams around the scene in Baltimore. EVERYONE was older than me, usually by several decades. KA3LMJ.

I tried to get my ticket in the early 70's growing up in Bham AL but the morse code teacher  at the BARC classes ( Birmingham Amatuer Radio Club) , met at he Red Cross BUilding downtown) told everyone loudly that the last thing ham radio needed was more kids. Laughed in my face with his buddies, all 60+ year old men. Told me to call my parents to come get me, that he would not teach me code. 1977 I think. I was 14. My mom and dad thought I had done something bad and refused to take me back.

That grumpy old bastard is the reason I hate code so much. Every guy that says shit about how great CW is and how it somehow upholds the hobby, I remember that guy. I think of that cruelty, and then I think about how the #*&#^%@ couldnt keep me off the air, and couldnt keep me off of HF.

I dont think anyone on here realizes just how much sheer pleasure I get from seeing morse code die. I wish I could find that old mans grave one day so I can take a big fat piss on it. Only a heartless scumbag would tell a 14 year old kid no and publicly humiliate him in front of strangers.







 Ha Ha. Man that really sucks. Im surprised you stuck with it after that experience. Maybe you should fire up in the CW part of the bands (on phone) and tell them how you eally feel! ;D ;D


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1EUJ on June 16, 2007, 06:00:32 PM
Just bought a house, now i can FINALLY get onto HF, after more than a decade of waiting and working it at other peoples stations. So I'll be more than an electronic presence! AHA!

First on the air during the early fall of 1996, I think. I must have been 15. Call was N1XZB (ick!). All FM 2 meters, except during Field Day, when I ran 20 meter SSB and kicked A$$!

Nothing like your experience Derb, but I recall being a young ham, and visiting the local clubs. Got ignored alot - I think there was even one club where I think NOBODY acknowleged I was there - like a freaking ghost! I can understand a little, with there being such a large difference between what a new/young ham is interested in as opposed to a older one. BUT - You HAVE to show some hospitality for new hams! I finally found a nice club, but it was many miles away, and I had to have Pop drive me out there. I had to give it up, the REAL old man was tired after work. Soon other interests took my attention...

When I took over a radio club, I made it PRIORITY #2 to introduce any new members to everybody else, learn their background, and keep in contact with them/help them reach their goals. I occasionally failed, I'll have to admit, but it was near the top of my list.


David Goncalves
W1EUJ


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: N3DRB The Derb on June 16, 2007, 06:13:58 PM
I cant comment more on it. Every time I think of it I start thinking things better left unsaid.

Lets just say that it is with EXTREME DELIGHT that I have lived to have seen the day where CW has been shown the door.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: Ed-VA3ES on June 16, 2007, 07:22:47 PM
I first got interested in radio, at the beginning of 1964.  I was 13 years old.   A friend had a disused CB walkie-talkie, which he gave to me.  It was a decent one, a superhet type with a reasonable front end.  With the antenna extended, I could hear all sorts of people talking all day long. Back in 1964, the CB bands were like the 2M FM bands were in the ‘70’s; packed with people and courteous.  It was an eye-opener.   Suddenly, I had this interest in radio and electronics!  I started buying every magazine and book I could find on electronics.  I read Popular Electronics and Electronics Illustrated religiously, along with the other popular magazines (Radio-TV Experimenter, etc.).   I read about ham radio in these magazines, and was totally fascinated by this!  The more I read about ham radio, the more hooked I got.

Another friend owned a multi-band short-wave radio, and whenever I visited him after school, I’d listen to the short-wave bands, fascinated by the sounds of “airplanes”, and other weird sounds. And hams!  The radio covered the 75M band, and frequently, I’d listen in to the “Green Mountain Net”.  There was one local ham,  Johnny  Miller VE2TA, who lived close by and he would just blast in!  He said he was running a  “Johnson Ranger”. I thought that rig must be the most powerful transmitter made!   Also heard the usual GMN stalwarts, including W1ZYZ, and many others!

At home, I had no radio.  One day, my mother complained about the reception of the local station, CJAD.  Now CJAD ran 50KW and could be heard everywhere.  I guess the orientation of the radio was such, that the radio’s position placed it in a null.  Being the big radio expert  (NOT!), I offered to look at the radio.  I took the back off, and found nothing amiss, (not that I would know), and decided to change the antenna, which I had decided was “too small”.  I snipped off the large flat coil antenna, and twisted on the snipped wires, about 100 feet of telephone wire.   Turned the radio on and…  well, the broadcast band was gone!  Ooops!   But in it’s stead was short wave!!!!!!!    The very first thing I heard coming out of the speaker, was “CQ 75, CQ 75…”  I had read enough about ham radio by this time to understand what I was hearing! I literally fell off my chair!   Suffice to say, that my mother didn’t get that radio back for months!
I also owned a tape recorder, and taped everything! And I mean everything. This was about 1965 by then, and you can imagine who was active on 75 then.  Everybody!  W2OY, W3PHL, W3YAM, W3DUQ  (hi Bill!), WA1EKV, and many others.  I recorded them all.  (Unfortunately, a radio studio accident in 1970 destroyed that recording, an act I will regret forever!)

I had no Elmer then, and had to study all on my own.  So, I bought all the requisite books, and studied them.   Barely knowing anything, I booked my first exam.  Mr. Mike will remember the old Department of Transport office, at Sherbrooke Street East.   The examiner was Charlie Carrier, VE2CZ. “No Fingers” Carrier they called him, because he had lost all his fingers in some long-ago accident.  Back then, you had to pass the CW test first.   Of course, I blew it big-time.

“Humph!  OK, let’s try the theory, and see what you can do.”    I didn’t.  It was miserable.  I literally didn’t know anything.  Frustrated, Charlie opened up a drawer, took out a copy of  The Radio Amateurs Handbook, slammed it on the table and told me “Take this… go home and study, and come back when you know something!”.  I wouldn’t come back for four years…  (high-school, girls, drugs, and  teen-age fun got in the way).  Meanwhile I studied electronics, built up a tiny Pierce oscillator, with a crystal I ordered from International Crystal:  3885 kc, natch!   I used that as my calibrator.   In 1966, I worked and purchased a Trio 9R59, which was identical to the Lafayette HE30.    I still own that receiver!  I hooked up the oscillator to my 40-foot long wire, and managed to “work” a friend   about ½ mile away!  I was impressed!   

Someone I knew, had a Heath AT-1 for sale, so I bought it.  Why not? I already had a crystal!   Yes, I was a boot!  On CW no less!  Managed to work one person,   Dana, WA1HUM!   Boy, I was shaking like a leaf!

In 1969. I went back, this time thoroughly prepared. I had studied various books, and spent 6 months copying W1AW bulletins at 18WPM. Boy was I ready!  I passed and chose VE2BAQ out of the available calls list.

I bought my buddy Howard, VE2AED’s DX-100, and never looked back!



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: k4kyv on June 17, 2007, 06:45:03 PM
August 1959, age 17, same call as now except for the "N" in the prefix for the first 3 months.  Never held a CB call or operated any CB.  Started out as SWL.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WU2D on June 17, 2007, 08:53:55 PM
Old farts and young kids - that was our club when I was first getting into ham radio. Field day was a classic. The old guys knew about antennas and setting up the rigs and they arranged the generator (WW2 jeep trailer genny) and we operated on top of a big hill that one of the farmer hams had on his land.

We guyed ladders and strung longwires down the hill.

The high school kids were used to operate CW on 40M and 80M mostly, the old farts operated 40 and 75M SSB and we had a 20 something hippie college professor (the only person between 18 and 70 except for my elmer Ed who was in his late 40's) who had a new fangled FT-101. That was the first rice box I ever saw and he operated on the higher bands. 

Our old timers treasured the kids - we were the only hope for them that ham radio would live on.

Mike WU2D



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: wa2zdy on June 18, 2007, 09:11:04 PM
Can't remember if I posted here already or not.   I was WN2ZDY for 11 month starting at age 13 in Jan 1975.   General that December and Extra in Nov 77.

I was under the tutelage of an old railroad telegrapher who'd been hamming since 1912.   Considering what a pain in the ass I was, Bill Little W2OJJ had patience I didn't deserve.    And I had exactly the opposite experience Derb had and for that reason came to love CW.  And while the clubs weren't the kindest places for a kid, the Novice bands of 1975 were packed with teenagers.   It worked out well.

What an asshole you ran into and that's a real shame.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W3RSW on June 20, 2007, 08:59:45 AM
Yeah, this thread is so long now I can't remember if I posted in it either; I think we fill out one of these about once per year.  But, Hey!  Hello to all new to the mode or net since then. Glad to have you.

So here's something similar to what was written a week or so ago.
1970 WN8FRZ, 800 S. Chestnut st, Clarksburg, WV, JN and what fun it was.
1970 WB8FRZ,  ditto, Advanced
1972 WB8FRZ, Charleston, WV. Boy, those were the days...
1974 WA3YPI, Rt. 1, box 90 (later 200) Gaines, Pa. (close to US Rt. 6, NYS border)
1997 W3RSW, Rt. 1, box 92 (later 124 Maple Lake) Bridgeport, Wv

I guess my "Elmer" was pretty much everone in the Mountaineer Ama. R. Club, Fairmont, WV. 
Clarksburg's club had been pretty much defunct at that time, at least as far as training new hams goes. Anyway several at that club loaned (DX-35) me equipment or gave stuff to me outright (ARC5, etc.)  Tore a lot of it up and rebuilt into 'ham' equipment.  W8JM was probably the most influential and gracious of the bunch. He was definitely the avuncular type, very active in many facits of hamdom, ARRL SCM, etc. Sadly, he passed away a few years later.  No CB in my background even though it came out in '57. (?)

    Had various electronics and optics courses in college, Marietta, Ohio, physics minor, petroleum engineering major but my father and I had been builders of audio and receiving equipment for many years prior. First radio was a knight kit crystal set, circa 1954, next was an Ocean Hopper. I recently downloaded PDFs of the instruction booklets for those rigs and that sure brought back a ton of memories. Solid solder, paste, big iron, joints that looked like sand piles. And, ahhh, the smell of soldering.  Nothing like it these days what with multicore so tiny you need a mag. glass.
    I could receive only one station on the crystal set, WPDX, a country music station at that time... "Cherokee Sue" was the DJ, and found out later it was the wife of the station owner.

Alluded to in an earlier posting, I started seriously listening again to AM in the early 80's, using the 'stereo' phones on a RS portable of all things. Walked all over the woods and mountains behind my farm listening to the boys. Couldn't believe what I was missing all those years. So I fired up the TR7 into a 4x1 and was 'shamed' into full plate modulation by HLR. Built up the handbook 6146 modulator, 120 watts into the reduced voltage 4x1...   got shamed again and built up decent 811 iron into an 813 and have enjoyed it ever since.   I'm currently building up a pair of 813's x 813's a la K1JJ.  Probably will use 572-B's as mod's first since changes other than more plate voltage are minimal.   Also enjoy using the 75a2a/ 32v2 combo and Junkston Ranger too.

 Well TMI, and hope no one's fallen asleep.  I should really print out the whole thread. Great Reference to who we converse with.  Ain't this fun or what?


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W8EJO on June 20, 2007, 06:13:38 PM
1959

Age 12

KN8WVI

Rock bound DX-40
Heath AR-3

15 was wide open back then. One of my first QSO's was a JA on 15. That hooked me for life.

My Elmer was my older brother W9NTO. He was KN8HDU back then. He was a lot smarter than me when it came to electronics. He had his own TV/Radio repair biz at age 14 in 1957, 1958.





Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K1MVP on June 20, 2007, 11:38:26 PM
K1MVP circa 1963 as a "new" General, with a DX-35 and S40B, (operator age, just turned 21).
and #2 pix 1964 with a homebrew pair of 6L6`s with an SX-99, The "good ol days"


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WQ9E on June 21, 2007, 10:04:57 AM
This is an interesting thread.  For me I was first licensed as WN5NSC in Gulfport, MS in 1974.  Starter rig was a Johnson Valiant and a Hallicrafters SX-62A feeding a 40 meter inverted vee; completely manual T/R switching using an outboard rotary switch and I used the hummmmm from the plate transformer as my keying monitor.  After a couple of weeks I acquired an SX-101A so I no longer had to deal with a 40 meter novice band occupying about 1/8 inch of dial space.  I must admit my first "contact" as a novice was out of band.  The Valiant came with two "rocks", one in the low end of 40 meters and the other near the high end of the phone band and I used those along with the procedure in the Valiant manual to calibrate the VFO.  Of course one of the crystals had been moved so when I thought I was on 7115 I actually was just below 7100 and a helpful ham quickly (and nicely) informed me of this.  The biggest problem was trying to use the vee for the 80 meter "slow net".  I am surprised loaded to the 75 watt novice limit I could be heard by the net but it worked.  Knowing what I know today about Valiant meter shunt calibration there is no telling about my actual power input.

After a few months as a novice I traveled to the New Orleans FCC field office and got my general and moved up to an SB-102 but stayed mostly on CW.  I received the RF deck out of a Johnson Desk KW in trade for the Valiant.  I still have the SB-102 and recreating my Valiant/SX-101A novice station got me started in boat anchors in 1994.  Now some 150 pieces of vintage gear later I finally have a complete and operating Desk KW along with the Viking 500 big brother to my Valiant.

Rodger WQ9E


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1UJR on June 21, 2007, 10:25:15 AM
K1MVP circa 1963 as a "new" General, with a DX-35 and S40B, (operator age, just turned 21).
and #2 pix 1964 with a homebrew pair of 6L6`s with an SX-99, The "good ol days"


Hey Rene, love that "flat top" haircut, just got one myself, nothing better for summer!


My radio story began when I was 12 and received a Radio Shack DX-160 (or was it a DX-150?) shortwave receiver for Christmas. I had been building numerous Radio Shack "Science Fair" kits (remember the red plastic perfboard?) over the last few years, keeping a eye on the fancy Radio Shack shortwave radios, so the DX-160 was a dream come true! My father, who worked in road construction at the time, used to bring home large rolls of wire from blasting caps. I used this wire to construct the large antenna arrays. As I had no real input for antenna design, and the nearest Radio Shack store was over 50 miles away, I had to experiment. I was fortunate that my parents lived in the country, so I had plenty of natural antenna supports. My favorite was an old, gnarled apple tree about 150 feet from the house. The blasting cap wire was not stranded, but solid and did not have much give, it was noted for breaking and becoming chopped up by the lawnmower.

Despite the antenna problems, I did mange to become an avid SWL, and spent many late nights listening to many of the cold war powerhouse stations.
Of course, as a Johnny Novice SWL, I sent out QSL card requests to nearly every station which I heard. You can imagine my fathers’ chagrin and concern, especially as a retired military officer, when I received a letter and QSL card from Radio Moscow during the Cold War. Just a few years ago my folks sent up my old log books and QSL cards which they had stowed away. It was quite an experience to go back through my logbook and read my notes about various stations, especially interesting to see how I had used the DX-160's crude logging scale to record station presets, "3 small marks past 7.0", having little idea of mega/kilo cycles at the time.

I really wanted to become a ham, but as we lived out in the country, well before the days of the Internet, I did not know who to speak with. Then as time went on I discovered girls and cars and my radio interests went by the wayside for nearly 20 years. I was in my early 30s when my interest turned back to radio, and I purchased a Japan Radio Corp NRD-535 to listen in on shortwave. Soon after I began to pursue the dream I had 20 years earlier of becoming a ham. After picking up a license study guide at Radio Shack, I sent letters off to the various local radio clubs about license testing. The Lancaster Amateur Radio Club was the only one to answer, and we were off.

I first licensed as KB2VKJ in July 1995, and thanks to the efforts of Dick W2UJR, became Advanced license holder KG2IC in August of the same year, and Amateur Extra class in 1999. As a newly minted ham, I really wanted to learn, and thankfully many of the "old timers" were more than happy to help. I found a good mentor in W2UJR. His ham shack was something that had to be seen to be appreciated. I can still vividly recall the first time that I visited. I was still a JN, not yet having HF privileges, or the boat-anchor bug. Dick was a firm believer in open wire feed-lines, and used homemade acrylic insulators between the wires. I noticed little neon bulbs carefully secured to each feedline in the shack; he would later explain that the RF would cause the neon gas in the bulb to glow indicating RF output. I adopted the neon bulb concept in my shack, it is ideal for checking for balance on the feedlines.

My fascination with the AM side of radio also began quite early. My first real radio was old RCA tube console that had been abandoned in the basement. I managed to get this into my bedroom, and with some tinkering get it working. I would wait until my parents were asleep and then listen in to the early hours of the morning. I especially recall listening to WBZ in Boston. For some reason this AM station fascinated me, for I was amazed that I could get the news and local information for a someplace as far away as Boston, MA. Many late nights were spent listening to Larry Glick and his call in program on WBZ. That was how I first caught the magic of radio!   

I moved to Portland, Maine in January of 2001 and hence replaced the KG2IC call with a suitable old buzzard "W1" call to reflect the call district.
To honor my elmer, W2UJR, I took the "UJR" suffix.

73 Bruce W1UJR


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W8EJO on June 21, 2007, 02:53:13 PM
I first

My fascination with the AM side of radio began quite early. My first real radio was old RCA tube console that had been abandoned in the basement. I managed to get this into my bedroom, and with some tinkering get it working. I would wait until my parents were asleep and then listen in to the early hours of the morning. I especially recall listening to WBZ in Boston. For some reason this AM station fascinated me, for I was amazed that I could get the news and local information for a someplace as far away as Boston, MA.

73 Bruce W1UJR


Bruce

Your recollections call to mind my own. (I'm a bit older than you but
 don't hold that against me.)

My pre-ham days were spent (back in 1957, 1958) DXing the MW broradcast band from our home near Cleveland, OH.

My most vivid memories are those of late night listening to WLAC, Nashville, TN and the famous John R.

John R was a white man who sounded like a black man & played real blues (then known as R&B). I loved  listening to the likes of BB King, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Slim Harpo, Lightning Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, and many, many others. I still love that music today. Somehow my 11 year old brain knew it was listning to great original American music because I sure preferred it to top 40 radio of the day.

[WLAC is an old AM station from back in the day when stations could choose their own call letters. WLS in Chicago was owned by Sears Roebuck & stood for Worlds's Largest Store. WLAC was a commercial enterprise of The Life And Casualty Insurace Company.]

Terry
W8EJO


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W1GFH on June 21, 2007, 03:27:42 PM
Quote
I especially recall listening to WBZ in Boston. For some reason this AM station fascinated me, for I was amazed that I could get the news and local information for a someplace as far away as Boston, MA. Many late nights were spent listening to Larry Glick and his call in program on WBZ.

'BZ was a great station with a kickass signal. For a while it was the #1 Top40 rock and roll station in New England.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W9GT on June 21, 2007, 03:43:00 PM
I used to really enjoy listening to WBZ clear out here in "fly-over" country.  Also loved WLS, CKLW, and XERF with Wolfman Jack.  Who could forget those great AM signals that really sounded super on the car radio and played all the great old Mo-Town and Doo-Wop stuff, as well as the Beach Boys and the surf scene tunes.  Ah....the summer of '63....remember it well! I was all of 18 and an old-timer ham of 4 years by that time.

73,  Jack, W9GT


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K7EK on April 04, 2011, 11:47:15 PM
I was licensed in 1967 in Northern Upper Michigan as WN8DFQ,  at the age of 14.
My first rig was a Heathkit DX60B transmitter & HR10B receiver.
Several years later,  I moved to Washington State and became WN7NTF.
I upgraded to General Class and became WA7NTF. I've change callsigns several times
since then (from WA7NTF to W7NTF, and then from W7NTF to K7EK).

Best regards,

Gary, K7EK


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W8ACR on April 05, 2011, 01:02:40 AM
I was first licensed in August 1975 at age 17 as WN8WAH. I was living in Canton, Ohio.  I became interested in ham radio at about age 7 when my neighbor W8ACR, Cecil Lamb, let me talk to someone in Nogales Ariz. The QSO was on ten meter AM using a Ranger 1 barefoot. I was dumbfounded and utterly fascinated. Got my general ticket in 1978. I have held the following calls at various times: WN8WAH, WB8WAH, KA7BFF, KF8DL, AA8AD. When Cecil became a SK, I applied for his call sign through the vanity callsign program. I have also operated as TZ5RS from Bamako, Mali in 1995. My first station was a DX-60B and an HQ-110A-VHF. I currently work AM exclusively although I also enjoy CW. I do not currently own a sideband rig, and have not really worked much sideband, although I did kinda enjoy SSB when I had my KWS-1.

Ron W8ACR


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WQ9E on April 05, 2011, 09:27:23 AM
I received my novice ticket (WN5NSC) at the age of 14 in February of 1975 while living in Gulfport, MS.  I took the test before Christmas but this was during the peak of the CB craze when the FCC was still issuing paper for CB so licensing was slow.  I got my novice transmitter for Christmas 1974 and spent a lot of time tuning it up into a two bulb dummy load while awaiting the envelope from Gettysburg.

I became aware of the Morse code several years earlier while playing with a Sharp table radio that my brother had sent home from Vietnam during his time there in 1967/68.  For my 11'th birthday I received a Radio Shack Science Fair Globe Patrol 3 transistor regen kit.  For my next birthday I received a Knightkit Star Roamer.  I still have both so early on someone could have predicted I would be a collector of vintage gear.

My novice transmitter was a Johnson Valiant and for the first week a Hallicrafters SX-62A.  After the first week I changed to a much more usable SX-101 receiver.  Shortly thereafter I upgraded to a General ticket and a Heathkit SB-102.  The Valiant was traded for the RF deck out of a Desk KW which was later traded for my first Rohn 25 tower.  I think I only operated AM once with the Valiant since there was little AM activity then and I mostly used the SB-102 for CW.

In 1994 I decided to recreate my novice setup and the Valiant/SX-101 was my return to vintage gear.  I had picked up a NC-183D when the Lafayette chain went out of business many years before and the local owner also sold off some of his ham gear.  Now most of my operation is on AM and CW using mostly vintage gear.  I spend more time restoring than operating but lately I have had little time for either.  Our 7 year old daughter continues to be interested in all things scientific including radio so I have a very good reason to start spending a little more time restoring gear.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W2XR on April 05, 2011, 10:03:27 AM
My introduction to ham radio was via Frank Gropen, WB2SJJ. He is the ham that gave me my very first on-air demonstration of amateur radio, back in the summer of 1967. I was 13 years old at the time, and he was about 16 as I recall. That singular event made an enormous lasting impression on me, although I did not obtain my Novice class license until May of 1970. I rode my bike the 4 mile distance from my folks house to his QTH; my Mom and his parents were good friends, and the invitation was extended by his Mom for "Bruce to come over and see Frank's ham radio set-up. He would probably enjoy it, and Frank would like to show it to him".

Things were never the same for me since that day, which I can still see like it was yesterday. Talk about a life-changing event. All I had wanted to do since visiting his shack that one time was to become a ham.

I remember him running a Viking Ranger, and an older National HRO receiver. The QSO I had witnessed at his QTH was most probably on either 75 or 40 meter AM, and he contacted a station in New Jersey, whom he obviously was friendly with. Even now, nearly 44 years later, I can recall the quality and clarity of the audio from the other station; I thought it was like listening to an AM broadcast station. For some preconceived reason, I had assumed amateur radio audio would sound like "walkie-talkie" quality, as that was really the only communications equipment I had been exposed to previously.

Frank generously  loaned a Knight Kit R-55A receiver to me, along with an Ameco Novice Class Licence Study Guide.

In May of 1970, at the age of 16, I received my Novice class license, with the call of WN2OGS (WN2 Oily, Greasy, and Slimey). The rig I was running at the time was a Heath RX-1 Mohawk receiver, and an Apache transmitter. I still have that same Apache to this day. A few months later I made the trip to the FCC field office in New York City, and passed my General, and became WA2OGS. Once I upgraded to General, I picked up an SB-10 SSB adaptor for the Apache.

73,

Bruce


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: KM1H on April 05, 2011, 10:44:27 AM
KN2QJM, 1955, Valley Stream, LI, NY.

Got interested by listening to hams on my grandparents old Zenith and Silvertones from about 11 or 12, built a regen in 1954 and learned CW with that.

Joined the Navy in 59, became an ET, went to National Radio in 63 and the rest is history ::)

Carl


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: k4kyv on April 05, 2011, 01:28:14 PM
I was first licensed the summer of 1959, at age 17 between grades 11 and 12. Given my Novice test in June, my ticket arrived in August. Upgraded to General in November that year, and to Extra in 1963. Always held the same call sign, except for the "N" in novice days.

I first became interested in amateur radio at age 11, when I began listening to short wave on our ancient broadcast radio that had one extra band for "foreign stations". I discovered that amateur radio still existed, after having read a poorly written encyclopaedia article that misled me to believe that amateur radio had been eliminated for good during WW2.  I had no mentors; no nearby acquaintances had a clue about ham radio, so I gleaned all my knowledge from books and magazines. I was inadvertently introduced to "vintage" radio from the outset, since most of what literature I could get my hands on was long outdated. My first attempt to build a transmitter used a Model T Ford spark coil purchased from Montgomery Wards, powered by an electric train transformer. My best DX was about 250 feet, but I got knocked flat on my arse plenty of times tinkering with that thing.

When I became aware that to become licensed one needed to learn the code, I tried to teach myself using a dot/dash chart, key and buzzer, but it simply didn't work.  At first my receiver had no BFO, so I couldn't decipher any CW heard over the air. Finally, I built a BFO for the receiver and the high school physics teacher let me borrow over the summer some old WW2 Signal Corps code training records (78 rpm) that I had stumbled across while helping him tidy up the storage room, and within weeks I was ready to take my Novice test. For the previous 5 or 6 years I had been an avid SWL, only rarely listening to the regular broadcast band, and I never had a lot of interest in what was on TV after my parents finally bought one.

My first receiver was a 1938 vintage four-band American Bosch floor model broadcast receiver with longwave and short wave, complete with a single RF stage and separate set of shielded coils for each band. I ripped the power supply off the chassis and rebuilt it as an external unit, and used the vacant space to install my home brew BFO for CW. The transmitter was a single 807 driven by a 6AG7 crystal oscillator, running about 30 watts input using the power supply salvaged from another old broadcast receiver. Inspired by the depression-era radio books and magazines I had managed to acquire before they went to the trash, I always built my own stuff, and couldn't really see the point to running store-bought equipment even if I could have afforded it. My first attempt at AM was in the winter of 1960, when I cathode modulated my CW rig, running about 10 watts output with maybe 20% highly distorted modulation.

Over the years I kept on improving my homebrew transmitters, and to this day have always run AM and a little CW, having never even owned a SSB rig, unless you count the little Radio Shack 10m AM/FM/SSB transceiver, essentially a modified CB rig, I picked up on sale 10 years ago and I have used fewer than a dozen times.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: w5omr on April 05, 2011, 03:38:30 PM
I was birthed on the 2nd of December, of 1958... about 3 weeks late.  I wasn't around yet, but I'm told I was the most talked about non-born child by my Dad/W5OMR and his friends on 40m, at the time ;-).  Sometime shortly thereafter, I'm sure some "goo-goo gah-gah's" emanated from my vocal chords and made it out over the air.  Over the years, unintentional (as well as intentional) sounds were also uttered by me.  Along about 8 years old, for a merit-badge in Cub Scouts, I learned the Morse Code.  Dad was the teacher, of course, and he built up a code practice oscillator with a J-38 key on a piece of 1x6" plank.  Got the merit badge in what was called a record amount of time. CW was instilled at a young age.

In 1983, I made my way back to The Republic of Texas from the hell that is Southern California, and very soon after that started "Ham Radio" classes, paid for by Dad.  I dug out the old J-38, built up another little oscillator (with help) and started learning the code, again.  Also, we re-built (with newer pieces) another 'Crystal" set, with a coil of wire wound around a paper-towel roll, detected by a galena diode and amplified by a small transistor, driving a pair of headphones.  That 9v battery to amplify the audio must have lasted some 5 years.

The classes started 2 weeks later and I'd been practicing on CW again.  After the end of the second session, I told the Instructor I wanted to take the novice test.  All I had to learn was the frequency range on the different bands that allowed novices.  The test was multiple guess, and not like the "Write an essay, and draw a schematic diagram" tests that Dad took in the mid/late 1930's.

The 5wpm CW test was aced, 2 questions were missed on the written, and 6 weeks after the 16th of February, 1984, Novice class license KA5THB was issued to me.  I went to one more class after that, but the purpose was to get licensed and I had.  No more time for classes... there were CONTACTS to be made!  ;-)

The initial rig was a hand-me-down National NCX-3.  That thing had Zero CW off-set.  So, we set up a separate receiver, and a Dow-key T/R relay.  The receiver?  Heathkit Comanche, one of the mobile Heathkit twins.  The transmitter was the Cheyenne. First contact was, of course, W5OMR/Ed (my Dad) on his 'new' (at the time) TS-120S.

After a week or so of not-so-successful CW operation, the best CW advice I'd ever been given was imparted by Dad... he said "do you listen to how you sound?"  I stared back with a blank stare as if to say "...what do you mean?"  He said, "you're losing contacts because no one can understand what you're saying.  Send code into a tape recorder and listen to yourself".  Holy Crap, I was horrible!  Worked on that for a week, got "clean" and sure enough, the contacts were numerous.  I graduated to a Speed-X bug.  Took a while to get -that- thing tamed down, but the Speed sure increased! It was about a month later, some guy in East Texas mailed me a computer print-out from his Vic-20, or Commodore-64 with a CW program on it... reading out perfect CW as sent by me on the Speed-X bug.  By Field Day of 1984, I had built my speed up to around 15~18wpm.  Working Corn-tester style CW had me up to 25wpm by the end of Field Day! 

September of 1984 was the last time the FCC came to San Antonio.  Brooks Air Force Base had a huge auditorium that had absolutely HORRIBLE acoustics!  An I sounded like a 5, with the echo.  That, plus I 'froze'.  Only passed 5 questions on the test!  I FAILED the 13wpm test!  :o  After that, I settled down, and for the written test, aced the General exam and walked out with an upgrade from Novice to Technician.  6 months later, at a Hamfest in Austin, TX, I signed up for the testing session at their first Volunteer Examination effort.  I hadn't studied for the Advanced class, but my main goal was to get my General class ticket.  The testers started with the 20wpm code test, and of course, I aced it, wearing headphones.  No crappy acoustics, THERE!  I had my General Class!

I got involved in the traffic nets, still working mostly CW, started a 40m daytime Slow-speed net, in the novice band and was having a ball.  Later, I got a 'loaner' rig, a Swan 350C from Randy/(then)WA1GZV (now N5RL) and was tuning around 75m and heard K5SWK/Otis, W5FAP/Alton, W5FAO/Noel and W5HQJ/Gene.  I called Dad in.  Said "don't you know these guys?" and the reunion was on. :-)  These were the folks who knew me on 40m back before I was born!  The AM bug bit, and bit hard!

In 1986, with the assistance of John/W5MEU, John/WA5BXO and I traveled together to Ft. Worth, TX to visit Dan/W5BU and that's when and where I got "The Titanic" (later named so by Otis/K5SWK because of the many "learning lessons" that had the rig down more than it was up).  When John and I were setting the transmitter up (originally a pair of 250TH's modulated by a pair of 811A's), and had it on the air, Dad poked his head in the shack and said "that thing's got TVI".   ::)  we neutralized the final and it was 'better', but there were still issues.  Keeping the thing down to only 500w DC input made it better.  I was 'on the air'!

Sometime about August of 1988, a young man that befriended Dad when I was in SoCal, Danny (then N5CED) and I went to the San Antonio Radio Club testing session at the San Antonio Library and we upgraded to Advanced class.
I had reached the same level of license class that Dad held.  He never went higher, because he was around back in the day of radio silence.  He was there when 40m was -only- CW, after WWII.  He was there when 11m was a Ham Band, and said of it "they gave away the best DX band the hams ever had, and gave it to the citizens who've polluted it beyond repair!"  That was my dad, alright ;-)

30 September of 1988, my Dad, W5OMR became a silent key.  I kinda lost my mind for a while.
(in the style of Forrest Gump) ...and that's all I have to say about that.

It was September of 1992 when Randy/(still)WA1GV (now N5RL), Jerry/KG5KJ(?)(now s/k) and I went to the Red Cross building where the San Antonio Radio Club had setup a Testing session, and we all earned our extra Class licenses.

In November of 1999, utilizing the "Vanity Callsign Program" and after much deliberation and discussion with some of Dad's old friends, permission was granted by mom for me to go ahead and get W5OMR as a callsign, with the proviso that 'while you are your dad's son, "Ol' Man River" was your dad's phonetics.  Phonetics personify the person, and you're not him."  To date, I still don't use those phonetics.  41 years prior, everyone on 40m knew me as the son of Ol' Man River.

I've now had W5OMR as my callsign for almost 12 years.  My licensed ham career started in 1984, but I've been around this stuff since before I was born!

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! ;-)

73 = Best RegardS
-Geoff/W5OMR (ex-KA5THB)

(ps:  it was under KA5THB that I first worked WA1HLR, some many, MANY years ago!)


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K2PG on April 05, 2011, 05:21:23 PM
I was 15 years old when I was first licensed. My call was WN2HMH, later WA2HMH. I used a one tube wonder, a 65 watt DC input transmitter built from plans in Popular Electronics magazine. That transmitter took FT-243 crystals (the HC-6/U crystals would heat up too much in that rig), used a 6HB5 sweep tube, and chirped like a canary. It was horrible...but I made quite a few contacts on 40 meters with that thing. I probably still have it buried under a pile of stuff somewhere at my place in New Jersey.

I remember pestering my father to take me to Lafayette Radio in Plainfield, NJ, where I got some of the parts for that transmitter. The guy behind the counter was a royal pain in the ass...he always insisted on a customer having an exact stock number before he would get what you needed. Once I put the transmitter together, I remember loading it into a dummy load...a 75 watt light bulb. It used cathode keying and a relay inside the chassis kept a very dangerous 600 volts off the key terminals. The transmitter sounded like an old-fashioned mechanical typewriter when I keyed it on CW.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K1DEU on April 05, 2011, 05:38:07 PM
   What memories Phil. Well my mom kept asking me why I kept those FT-243 xtals in (HER) freezer. Until I cleaned the old WW2 Mold off them internally and mudifyed my DX-35 Oskilator running a lot less xtal I. Some I had to discard for excessive chirp   73 John K1DEU


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K5UJ on April 05, 2011, 07:56:42 PM
When I was 10 in 1967 I got a pair of toy 35 mw cb channel 14 walkie talkies for either my birthday or Christmas, I can't remember which.  They came from Marshall Field's and my mom made a point of telling me they were not cheap but I don't know how much they cost.  Field's probably marked them up.  They had an on-off switch and spring loaded push to talk button switch on the side but no squelch, just AF gain pot.  Telescoping antenna.   Within 24 hours I think they were broken, but I clearly remember pulling the plastic back off one and looking at the component side of the phenolic pc board and wondering how all those odd looking things inside sent and received radio voice.   This was in Park Forest IL.  The public library had QST and ARRL books but they were all incomprehensible to me, however the photos of shacks, antennas, and the article titles seemed very impressive.   I had some friends who messed around with CB radios so I did that too but back then everyone lived in continual fear of the FCC because they actually went out and canned people.  So that got old, and a few friends of mine got novice licenses.  Well, I had to get one too.  This was a few years later, around 1970 or 1971 because there had been a model rocketry interlude in there that lasted a few years. 

It seemed every ham in those days was fat, bald and scary with some kind of tobacco going, usually a cigar or cigarette.   One of the guys who helped me get started smoked hand rolled cigarettes made with Half and Half.  Maybe that was a Chicago thing.   The cigar might be unlit but that did not matter, the owner of it would chew on it.   I tried teaching myself the code but I went at it all wrong.   I remember going to this one guy I somehow knew was a ham, who ran a TV repair shop.   He was one of the cigar smokers.  "Sure kid, I'll give ya a ham test, but ya gotta know the code.  I need to find out if you're ready to take the test."   He pulled a practice key and phone book out from under the counter.  "Okay, send some code to me out of the phone book.  Start here."  I was completely unprepared for this and I guess I blew it, because he stopped me right away.  "Okay, spend a few more months working on the code.  Come back then."   

That intimidated me for about a year but I finally got a copy of Learning the Radiotelegraph Code, the ARRL book (which I still have) and discovered you firstly learn all the dit characters, then all the dahs, and so on.  You don't learn them from A to Z.   Revelation!   I had a code practice oscillator and key and I would spend an hour or two every night at our dining room table with a tape recorder sending, recording and playing back the code the next day.   It took a month to get through A to Z and 0 to 9.    I forget what I read to learn about radio, but I think it might have been a combination of the License Manual, an Ameco book, and the ARRL book How to Become a Radio Amateur.   I finally took the novice test from another guy, K9RPX (SK) and passed it.  I think it was in two separate examinations.  You had to pass the 5 wpm cw test and then the FCC would send the 25 or 50 multiple guess test and you'd take that.   That was in June 1972.  I was WN9JTC.   My first QSO was with a ham in Sedalia MO.  That's all I remember about it.  It was on either 40 or 80.   I was so excited (I think it only lasted about 5 minutes) that I ran outside afterwards.  All I ever operated were those two bands because my gear was so crappy it did not work well higher up.   My first rig was either a busted DX35 or a homebrew 15 w. cw rig that someone else built and I got at a flea market.   There is now this novice nostalgia movement, but why anyone wants to fondly remember their novice days is beyond me.

For around the first 8 years I was licensed I only operated the low bands and cw because of my gear, and I still pretty much stick with the low bands today.   Everything just seems to work better and be easier on the low bands.   You don't need a tower and a beam to work a bunch of guys.  So while I could not afford very good gear, I could afford to get better licenses because studying and books and the $8 exam fee were not that expensive.  So every year I upgraded and by 1975 I was an Extra.    I operated 100% CW back then, and it was a lot of fun because times were slower compared to now, and CW did not seem so "low tech" like it does today.  Also, there were a hell of a lot more CW ops. I was an Official Bulletin Station, an Official Relay Station, and something else (not an OO), and regularly ran traffic between the Fifth Region Net and Mississippi in the NTS.  By then my family had moved to Mississippi and I was WB5KUJ.   I asked for and received K5UJ in 1977. 

This all may sound nice and nostalgic but there was a lot back then that sucked.   There is something new hams have to understand--there was no internet back then.   There were hams with connections and grapevines who were in the know, and there were kids like me in the sticks working in a vacuum.    Your information conduits were books, club meetings, and sending letters to the ARRL TIS and hoping for a reply.   I got a Knight Kit T-60 at a hamfest in Memphis and somewhere got a HA-5 VFO.  I ran the T-60 driven by the HA-5.   I got a CMOS code keyer cheap somewhere, they were new in the 70s, and connected it to the T-60.  PHFFFFSH!  there went the key.  I had no idea the T-60 was cathode keyed with around 90 volts on the key jack!   Who knew the T-60 was a buzz saw of spurs?  I got a very scary formal FCC warning notice of a second harmonic on 7 MHz from the T-60.  Yikes!   I was using a coax fed inverted V. and knife switch TR switch.   ARRL TIS tells me make a matching network and put it between the rig and antenna.   Somewhere, maybe via Army MARS I get an ARC5 and use the inductor and one of the caps to make a L network, my first one, and use it to tune a random wire all of 10 feet off the ground, (what, it's supposed to be higher up?) but no more FCC warnings!   No knob on the cap either; i adjust it by puttting my hand on the shaft to move it, and use the V for rx antenna for QSK.   Ant. wire is transformer wire.  At one point, Army MARS gave me a BEE CEE  SIX TEN.    It is gigantic!  I was so in the dark, I had no idea what to do with it.   Eventually someone came and took it off my hands, I think for nothing.  How do you find out what to do with a BC610 when you are a kid in high school somewhere in Mississippi on an 8 party line?   And we had just gotten land line service a few years earlier.   So, today, in one day, I can learn more from resources on the internet, than I could learn in five years back then.   If you want to learn about radio, now is way better than then.

Rob   


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA2ROC on April 06, 2011, 08:52:33 AM
My first encounter with amateur radio was in the basement of a neighbor, Mac McLeod W2CIT (SK). He let me talk to someone, can't remember who or where they were, but I still remember the racks and racks of equipment he had, way back in about 1956 or so, up on Long Island.

Then in about 1960 or so, I ran into a couple of competing newspaper delivery kids in my town, John Miller WA2MUA and Rick Harrison WA2ODI (SK) and one of their friends John Larmon (can't remember his call)  They were all novices or generals then and Dave Larmon, John's dad, had administered the novice test to all of them.  If they could do it, so could I.  I studied, listened to other hams on a borrowed on a Philmore CR5-AC and passed my novice easily.  I was WV2ROC. 

Dave also had a beautiful Heathkit Apache and Mohawk that he built, and I said to my self, "I just gotta have equipment like that someday".

Dave lent me a Johnson Adventurer and a few crystals and I got a National NC-60 "Special" for my first novice station.  Had a ball on 7.062 and studied for the General.  Went into NYC to 641 Washington Street, put up with the cigar smoke and passed the general on the first try.  I was then WA2ROC.

Did some more hamming at home, built a Lafayette KT-390 Starflite transmitter and traded the NC-60 for a new-in-the crate BC-342.  Did some 10 meter AM on my bike with a Lafayette HE-50 in a trailer with an 8' whip.  Graduated high school in 1964, attended State U. Farmingdale and went to work at IBM in NYC.  Built a Heath 80 meter monobander and HP-23 supply and then got drafted.

Basic training at Ft Gordon GA, and went to school as a 35L avionics equipment specialist.  Changed my call to WB4WCO since I lived in GA.  Took the new Advanced test and was able to get a 2X2 call, KJ4IN.  Taught at the school for another year and sent to Viet Nam and those crazy Army folks actually made me do the job for which I was trained.  What were they thinking?  I used a Collins 618-T to work hams in the South Pacific, which was highly illegal.

Came home, worked 22 years for IBM in RTP, NC and did a lot of hamming on 40 CW.  Got into RC airplanes, changed jobs to Unitrode Integrated Circuits that got bought by TI and 5 years ago decided to get my old call back as a vanity.  I was back to WA2ROC.  I wanted to get back with the guys I grew up with and bought that same Apache-Mohawk combo that my Elmer had.  None of the other guys took any interest in getting back together, so I set out collecting a few more vintage radios.  I have one of the KT-390 transmitters, a nice KWM2-A and a Hallicrafters SX-111.

75 meter AM, 20 meter SSB, and 40 AM on the Starflite. 

And now you know the rest of the story!


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W2DU on April 06, 2011, 01:57:20 PM
I was born in 1919, and my Dad was building radios for family and friends beginning in 1922 when I was three. I was fascinated watching him build them, and at six I built my first one-tube radio using a UV-200 detector, with the inductor wound on a Mother's Oats box. At seven I wound another coil, smaller than the first, and began hearing 'thump', 'thump'. My Dad said those thumps were code signals transmitted by radio amateurs. So he showed me how to make the receiver regenerative so I could actually hear the tones of the code. Dad gave me a copy of the code, which I memorized. He then got me a buzzer so I could learn to send. I kept on with the code, listening to hams on cw for days on end until I could understand what they were saying. That sparked my desire to respond to them, so I studied for the exam, and was ready to take it when I was nine in 1928, the first year I became an ARRL member.

The problem was that the nearest FCC office was in Detroit, 150 miles away, and my Mother didn't feel able to drive that far. I wasn't then aware of the conditional license that could be obtained without needing to go to an FCC office, so my desire to become a ham had to be sidelined.

However, 1n 1933, when I was 14, an article in the paper said an FCC examiner would be at the Bay City Post Office, 40 miles away. My Mother drove me there, and as I was sitting in the back of the room wearing pants buckled at the knee, the FCC examiner came back to where I was sitting and told me I should wait outside the room while my Dad took the exam. When I told him it was I who was going to take the exam, and that my Dad wasn't even here, he gave me a pessimistic look and returned to his desk.

Of course the code test came first, after which the examiner checked them over, saying so and so passed, so and so failed, etc. After a few of these he said, "Who is Walter Maxwell?" I sheepishly raised my hand, for I didn't know what error I might have committed. He then displayed an incredulous look, and then said, "This is the only perfect code copy in the entire group." This of course, was because I had spent the previous seven years working on it.

I then took and passed the written portion, which at that time required writing essay answers to the questions and drawing diagrams of various rx and tx circuits, Hartley and Colpitts osc circuits, etc., which I passed. and received the call W8KHK, which son Rick now has.

My first rig was a '210 osc feeding an open-wire line to a 40m dipole. My receiver was a two-tube, 201A regen detector and a 201A audio amp. Had lot's of fun  working 40 cw. There's lots more to tell, but at some later time.

Walt, W2DU


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W5COA on April 06, 2011, 03:10:12 PM
Howdy All,

This has been very interesting reading, and my story will be recognized as bits and pieces of lots of others.

I was born in 1941, and during 1949, my dad brought a BC224 receiver with him during a move. We set it up in a garage with a dirt floor about 1952 and with headphones on, and a piece of wire strung around the rafters, I logged whatever I could hear and decipher.

My teenage years found me fixing radios and televisions, but with no one to tutor me, I didn't get my license until 1960 at the age of 19. This was during a period when the FCC was giving re-issues for General Class, and I received W5COA.

I built my first transmitter using a pair of 813's push-pull-link-coupled in the final modulated by a pair of 810's in class B. Heck, if I was going to build something, I might as well go all the way to begin with. Unfortunately, I gave this station away prior to a move later on.

With family and job, my operating over the years was spotty, but I maintained my call sign, upgrading to Extra in the early 1970's.

Several years ago, while staying at my farm and feeling lonesome, I realized that ham radio would provide some company on those long, dark winter nights. So, now, I am back on the air, and enjoying operating some radio gear that I could only drool over way back in the 1950's, including a Globe King 500B/C and a Hallicrafters SX101A.

So, look for me on 75 and 40, and hope meet up with you.

73,

Jim W5COA



Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W4AAB on April 06, 2011, 11:05:58 PM
Original call, WN4AUX, summer of 1972(age 19) Athens, Alabama. Transmitter Ameco AC-1 (lost about 5 years later) and a Drake 2-A receiver. Was portable 4 at technical college with rig I built (6AG7 driving an 807) with the instructor's SP-600-JX6. Dipoles at both stations. Got my General and changed from WN to WA in 1973 until I got the vanity call in 1999. First exposure to ham radio was listening to a transistor SW receiver at my cousin's house Christmas 1968. Heard W4ZWE and several others on 7295(BTW, Boyd is back in north Alabama after 13 years in the Panhandle of TX).I heard Don K4KYV on my Aiwa SW radio in 1971.Great memories!!
                                                                Joe W4AAB


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: k4kyv on April 06, 2011, 11:13:07 PM
   Ant. wire is transformer wire. 

When I was a kid just starting to play with  radio, I used to bug the guys at filling stations for the crapped out automobile  ignition coils they had thrown in the trash barrel.  To me, each one of those things was almost as good as a pot of gold. I had discovered that they contained a piece of enamelled wire, about 100 ft. long, that made up the primary.  I would take a hammer and bust open the hard rubber case, then remove the shielding and tar, and unwind the wire off the coil then discard the rest.  That wire was good for antennas and winding coils.  I didn't use the traditional Quaker's or Mother's Oats boxes, but the core from a toilet paper roll made a good coil form.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K3ZS on April 07, 2011, 02:39:41 PM
This is always an interesting topic to revive.   I first saw and talked on a ham station sometime around 1956.    I can't remember the name or call but I think he had a desktop KW and a Collins receiver.   The antenna was a cubical quad and I think it was for 15M only.    A friend was a neighbor and we went to check out ham radio.   I remember he was on SSB and he contacted a ham in Africa who was working on a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor.    Later in 1958 I went to Novice classes at the AG Radio store in Jenkintown PA, run by my mentor (they weren't called elmers then), John Llopes W3GJF.   A few months later I passed my General at age 13 at the Federal Customs house in Phildadelphia.    My call was KN3EZS, then K3EZS and the first rig was a 1930's Hallicrafters Sky Buddy (S-19?) and a Globe Chief.   Shortly after getting the General, the receiver was changed to a used NC-183, a screen modulator and Heath VF-1 VFO added to the Globe Chief.  Most phone activity for me was local on 10M AM, our High School and several hams among the students and teachers.  I remained active on CW until the 1970's when I got an SSB transceiver.
I still have the NC-183 and have recently added a plate modulated Globe Chief back to my AM station.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: w1vtp on April 07, 2011, 03:33:15 PM
Gosh, does that bring back memories!  My aunt Martha got me interested.  I would go from high school to her house to wait for a ride home after my dad got through work. She was quite the amateur radio socialite.  She had a Harvey Wells TBS 50D for a TX and a Hallicrafters SX-28 RX. As a novice, she used to do a lot of SWL'ing on the AM 75 meter band and used to correspond with her friends via mail.  I used to listen to her listening to her "friends" on 75 meters and was finally hooked.

So we both went to Boston and I got my novice in the spring of 1952 at the tender age of 15 and at the same time aunt Martha got tested for her general.  Later on that year I took my General at a hamfest and passed the test.  I started out with a Hallicrafters S38B RX and a homebrewed TX using wooden sticks and getting parts out of old radios - with the exception of the 150 mmfd variable cap that I actually bought for the tank circuit. ( http://www.pastimeprojects.com/transmitterkits.html )   The S38B really stunk as a RX so I bought a Hammarlund SP-100 - what a difference!  I continued with that combo until I bought the Eldico TR-1 and had that transmitter well into my ham experience. It later was rebuilt into my home brewed PP 813 transmitter.

Here are some shots of Station Activities from 1952 QST. I really miss that section in todays QST's. The first one was where my aunt Martha WN1UET is mentioned. She is again mentioned in the July QST and finally I'm mentioned in the December '52 QST as passing my General.

It's a great hobby. In my case, I got my current job of almost 50 years because I have my Ham ticket.

Al


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: K9PNP on April 07, 2011, 05:46:41 PM
KN9PNP in 1958 at age 13.  W9AVO (SK) gave me the Novice exam at his shack.  Remember he had a mint Super Pro.  Got into radio because my dad was a commo chief in a AAA batallion in WWII and had some of his old references.  Also listened to 'short wave' on an Philco 40-165 floor model receiver which belonged to my grandparents and which I still have.  Original rig DX-40 and S-85.  Been a long time.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: WA1GFZ on April 07, 2011, 08:57:44 PM
Some pictures of my General shack in '67. GR64 on the right was novice RX with HB preselector and Q multiplier. Rig screen modulated 6146. GE Clock on VF1 sits next to my bed today. I got my novice call WN1GFZ in 'early '66. Got my first bad shock on that oil tank. Leaning on it and adjusting the volume control of an all american 5 outside the case with no knobs.
I used Morton Salt for my first coil form. I was into LSI at an early age.


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: W2XR on April 07, 2011, 09:43:13 PM
Some pictures of my General shack in '67. GR64 on the right was novice RX with HB preselector and Q multiplier. Rig screen modulated 6146. GE Clock on VF1 sits next to my bed today. I got my novice call WN1GFZ in 'early '66. Got my first bad shock on that oil tank. Leaning on it and adjusting the volume control of an all american 5 outside the case with no knobs.
I used Morton Salt for my first coil form. I was into LSI at an early age.

Hey Frank!

Those are some great photos of your earliest days in the hobby. I sure wish I had some similar photographs of me operating my first station as WN2OGS in 1970, but alas, they were never taken. Surprising too, as my Dad was a pretty avid photographer (with his Rolleicord camera) and he chronicled nearly all of the our family's activities since day one. I suspect that although he was a strong advocate and proponent of my getting involved with amateur radio, to the point of loaning me the cash so I could buy my first rig (the used Apache and the Mohawk I acquired in late 1969), he was also more than mildly annoyed at times with my obsession with the hobby.

And the TVI complaints didn't exactly endear it to him either.

73,

Bruce


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: N0WVA on April 08, 2011, 06:19:21 AM
I must have been 19 or 20, never changed my call. 1993.

 When I was still in grade school, my brother brought home an old Air Chief shortwave receiver that he got from his high school teacher along with a ton of old Electronic Illustrated magazines.They were going to end up in the dump. The radio had no cabinet, but it still worked! He didn't show much interest in it, but I did. My dad didn't like it because all the wiring lost its insulation, he said it was going to burn down the house, but I still used it. With no BFO sometimes I would hear an AMer or two, mostly SSB and CW, and reading the EI magazines I knew I needed a BFO.
 About the same time I talked mom into buying me a CB, I must have been around 12. Also had a 100mw walkie which was fun to talk around the farm on. I sent in one of those postcards for free catalogs to Heathkit, from Electronics Illustrated 1965 year , I bet the folks at Heath got a laugh over that one. But the catalogs came! I talked mom in to buying a CW kit on closeout from Heath, she finally cut the check, but they sent it back, they had sold out. Mom tore it up and I didn't get anything. I did get a CPO from Heath my freshman year and learned CW. It was the only Heathkit I got to build.
 My parents did let me join the Electronics Book Club, which I still have tons of those books today. I also bought lots of books from Lindsay Publications. I had the most fun  reading about those old radio projects. Thats when I found an old radio with a tube laying in a ditch in a field, must have been my grandpas old receiver. It was a triode and it worked in a crude regen I built in my bedroom. I used my sisters old wooden shoebox for a workbench, everything was just tacked together. I got it working on the BCB, and about jumped for joy when I removed some turns and heard 80 meter SSB clear as a bell.
 I made my first ever transmissions on a two transistor homebrew CW rig, but that was a bootleg session which I wont go into any more detail. Lets just say you get more proficient with CW rather quickly when you are in an actual QSO!


Title: Re: When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?
Post by: SM6OID on April 08, 2011, 07:25:43 AM
Hi!

I was born in may -67, ever since that technical stuff has always been in focus. Got my licence in early -83, before that I had already been on the air for at least a year, from our clubstation. My first TX was a classic 6AG7 osc with a 807 as PA. With 560 V on the plate it wasn't too bad.  :)   RX was a BC-312-D, antenna was a dipole for 40 meters. Operated 80 and 40 cw. Then, after some time, another 807 was added to boost the output.

Later I bought an ICOM IC-740 and a used 3 element Yagi for 20-15-10, worked mostly 15 m CW and some 10 SSB, later also 40 m and 160 m CW.

For a period of time a had a CW transmitter for 20 m, three tubes, 6AG7 OSC + buffer + 813 PA, worked nice until the plate transformer started to smell bad....

Currently I operate a UK/RT-320 (use google) it's a Brittish shortwave manpack transciver 2-30 MHz, AM, USB and CW, output is 3 or 30 W PEP into crappy wire antennas and a lot of local noise.

Looking for a house to buy, then I will start "The PA Project" using one QBL5/3500, hopefully 5 kV on the plate and drawing at least 1 Amp...   ;D  We will see, have to find a nice transformer, the one I had is gone.
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