When were you first on the air, how old were you, and your first call?

[AJ1G]

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?

[W2PFY]

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

[W1RKW]

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.

[Glenn NY4NC]

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!  Before I got my ticket, I used that receiver to listen to the AM gang on 75.. WA1HLR, W3DUQ, etc...

[Ed W1XAW]

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

[W1QWT]

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!

[AJ1G]

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.

[w1guh]

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" !.   

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.

[K1MVP]

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               
 

[W1JS]

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

[W1RKW]

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

[W1QWT]

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

[W1RKW]

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. 

[KA8WTK]

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.

[WA1GFZ]

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. 

[Ed/KB1HYS]

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...
 

[Jim, W5JO]

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.

[Ed W1XAW]

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

[wa2zdy]

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.

[W3NP]

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.

[W9GT]

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

[WD8BIL]

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!!!!

[KE1GF]

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

[Ed KB1HVS]

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.

[Ed KB1HVS]

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