Great stories all!
ON BEING A NOVICE
The amateur radio hobby has meant a great deal to me over the years. I
have been many places and made many friends worldwide over the years. It
all started for me with the Novice license granted to KN2JSP in 1954.
I had tinkered with radios by taking them apart and putting them back
together. Trying to learn how and why they worked. I had an uncle who
worked for Western Electric, then a part of the Bell system. He would
bring me surplus parts and I would try to make something from the pile of
discards.
In 1953 while in High School in Park Ridge, New Jersey I became close to a
fellow classmate who had an amateur radio license. He was Phil
K2EPD. Phil had a Globe King transmitter and a National NC-183D receiver
that I used to drool over. He was also quite good with morse code and an
excellent technician as well. I don’t know why but he encouraged me to
pursue the license. In my circle of friends in school there were a number
of licensed hams and those like me who were going down that path. We
became a pretty tight group.
The first hurdle was to learn the code. We had to do 5 wpm in those
days. For the code test we had to send and receive (no multiple choice
either) so no faking it there. I did not own a receiver with a bfo so my
method of trying to listen and copy cw was to tune in a station sending
code and hope that there was a heterodyne so that a tone was audible. I
did this with our floor console Emerson all band radio.
Well, when Phil found out how I was trying to learn code he loaned me his
Instructograph. This was a device that put out cw by reading paper tape
with holes in it for the dots and dashes. You hand cranked it, hooked up a
battery and speaker and you could copy code at whatever speed you
wanted. What a device! Thanks to this machine and Phil I passed my test.
Then came the waiting. There were no instant licenses in those days. Days
turned to weeks and I would be checking the mailbox daily for what to me
was a most important delivery of my life. Finally it came. KN2JSP. I was
ready to go on the air.
By this time I had built a Heathkit AT-1 transmitter. This used a 6L6 in
the final to put out about 12 watts. An antenna in our backyard was going
to be difficult but I did manage to put up an 80/40 meter dipole. It had
an insulator at the end of the 40 meter section so I could jumper around it
for the 80 meter portion. This was no problem since the antenna was 5 feet
off the ground. But who knew better.
I told my mom that I needed a receiver. I had some money saved but needed
a loan. She said she would finance it so off we went to Manny, Mo, and
Jack where I bought my Hallicrafters S38C. It was $49.95. I made payments
to mom but later found out that she had paid cash for the receiver and I
was just learning an early lesson in economics.
Well, antenna, transmitter and receiver in place I strapped on the bakelite
head crusher headphones. I selected one of my total of 3 crystals. Yes, we
were crystal controlled as Novices. Later on we learned how to use Ajax
cleanser and pencil leads to change our frequency but for now we were
tethered to a crystal. Now in those days you had to log everything. Or
were supposed to. I logged CQ after CQ with no takers. I still have the
logbook and chuckle when I read in the comments section “I think he heard
me” and “wow”. Finally I called Phil and had my first sked and contact
with a station 4 miles away. Non-the less it was still a thrill.
In those days we had a year to upgrade or loose the Novice ticket. This
was a daunting task for now we had to go from 5 wpm to 13 wpm in code and
learn a lot more theory. I guess that is why the novice license was so
good to many of us from that era. By getting on the air and associating
with others we learned enough to get that General ticket. Still there was
never such a thrilling day when that envelope was in the box from the FCC
with the license for KN2JSP.
So now coming up next week on 67 years in the hobby and still active!
Richard
*W7ZR* ex:5C5Z, CN2ZR, K2JSP, W6SBZ, W7KXR, K9ZIJ, W9KNF, W0KDF, W0MQU,
J68ZR, KC6ZR, PJ4/W7ZR, KH2,W7ZR, KH6/W7ZR, V31ZR, VK4AAZ, XE2DV
*Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer*
On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 1:52 PM Steve Jones <n6sj@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Gene,
> Congratulations! Great story. My 1st QSO will be 60 years ago this coming
> August 23rd, with WV6QVV Ray Olsen, who lived about 6 blocks from my
> parents' house in Sacramento.
> I had a Heathkit DX60, used 75A2, and a Gotham V-80 vertical clamped to the
> back fence. My crystal was at 7172 KHz. When Radio Moscow came on at
> 7170,
> the heterodyne blocked my receiver!
> My fingers sweated on my Ameco straight key, mounted to a piece of wood
> from
> a produce crate. Fortunately Ray's call didn't have any L's or F's in it,
> letters I was still mixing up.
> 73,
> Steve
> N6SJ
> ex-WV6SVY
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TowerTalk <towertalk-bounces@contesting.com> On Behalf Of Gene Smar
> via TowerTalk
> Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2021 9:13 PM
> To: towertalk@contesting.com
> Subject: [TowerTalk] First QSO 55th Anniversary
>
> Gents:
>
> April 11 was the 55th anniversary of my first QSO. I was 14 at the
> time. It was Easter Monday 1966 and I had spent all weekend trying to get
> a
> silly antenna from Pop Electronics working on 80 and 40 meters. The
> antenna
> was two sections of EMT mechanically coupled together (that was the first
> problem) and then connecting to two sets of guy wires at the top that were
> supposed to bring the array into resonance on 80 and 40 M. I think I used
> a
> Coke bottle (remember them?) as a base insulator but used a heavy cardboard
> mailing tube to "insulate" the first couple of feet of EMT from the
> mounting
> bracket that was lag bolted into the back yard wooden fence. I tried to
> solder the coax center conductor to the base of the EMT (second big
> problem.) I also bolted the twisted coax shield to an aluminum clothes
> line
> prop (not sure how many of you even know what that is) that I had
> "borrowed"
> from my mother and driven into the dirt aside of the Coke bottle.
>
> I won't bore you with details of my first two pages of logbook
> entries.
> Suffice it so say that they were filled with identical entries of "CQ"
> followed by "NO QSO," all on the same 7 MC freq of my sole 40M Novice band
> crystal.
>
> On that Monday morning (a school holiday) I decided to reconfigure the
> antenna materials into a single 40M dipole. As our house lot was about 70
> feet deep, it fit perfectly North-to-South. I used the EMT to support the
> "hot" end of the dipole but the shield-connected end of the insulated house
> wire had to touch the peak of the roof and lie on the asphalt shingles.
> This is important.
>
> I managed to jump the four feet off the roof onto the front porch roof
> and into my bedroom window safely and ran down to the kitchen where I had
> set up my Knight-Kit T-60/R55A station. I tuned up the T-60 (no SWR bridge
> yet so I was hoping I could get the thing to load properly) and started to
> call "CQ" again. In between transmit attempts I tuned around my crystal
> freq with the R-55A, listening for replies.
>
> After the third "CQ" (I logged every one of them), I heard my callsign
> coming back to me. Due to my excitement I missed the callsign of the other
> station so I sent "QRZ?" (not bad for a Novice!) and heard my callsign
> coming back again. This time I heard ".DE VE2AOU K." I am quite sure I
> stopped breathing for a few seconds before I shouted, to anyone and to no
> one in particular, "I'M TALKING TO CANADA!"
>
> I continued with the QSO, shakily copying what information I could
> from
> this obviously experienced and kind foreign Ham who deigned to talk with an
> American Novice and sent him my street address and town so I could make it
> easier for him to send his QSL card. (QRZ.COM was just a glimmer in
> N7IKQ's
> eyes at the time, I'm quite sure. And the Callbook was something I'd have
> to save up for for quite a long time.)
>
> Remember that wire draped over our roof shingles? At this point in
> the
> QSO I heard my mother, who had been cleaning in our second floor bedrooms,
> yell down to me, "What are you doing down there?" Obviously, I couldn't
> disrupt my contact with a foreign Ham; I kept asking for his mailing
> address
> at about 5 WPM. That's when the power to my station failed and the
> equipment panels went dark. My mother had come into my shack (her kitchen)
> and literally pulled the plug on my first QSO. Apparently my 60 Watts of
> Novice-frequency RF was finding its way into the second floor light fixture
> from the antenna wire only feet away on the other side of the ceiling and
> causing the ten-Watt bulb to blink on and off with my Morse transmissions.
> If I recall her words correctly, I believe she said something like, "You're
> gonna blow up the house."
>
> I explained to her that it was just me sending signals to my first Ham
> contact - he was in CANADA, Mom! I told her I could fix the problem (I had
> hoped.) I found a 25 Watt bulb and installed it in place of the 10-Watter.
> I replugged my station into the wall outlet and did a quick "VVV VVV VVV DE
> WN3EWV" to prove to my mother - and to myself - that my theory of "the
> antenna wires are too close to the bulb" was correct.
>
> A Happy Ending: About a week later I received a QSL card from Ron
> Trew
> VE2AOU. It included my full Novice callsign but misspelled first name, a
> "?" for the surname and no house number in the address. It took me only
> two
> seconds to realize that one of my Elmer's (and I've forgotten his callsign
> after all these years) had worked at the local post office (18218) and
> recognized me as the likely Novice. He made sure I got the card.
>
> I added dipole wires for 80M and 20M to that initial 40M set and had a
> blast on the bands from home for a few years until I went away to college.
> (My first DX was on that 20M wire - G3GHB.) Four years later I graduated
> from college with a BSEE and continued my Hamming with my first Drake
> station (TR-3CW.) Since then I've enjoyed many, but certainly not all,
> aspects that our fine hobby has to offer. I've made friends along the way
> and learned quite a bit of esoterica that has helped me professionally.
> (Like sunspots can wreak havoc with the electric grid or that 900 MHz and
> 2.7 GHz signals ordinarily don't travel very far.)
>
>
> 73 de
> Gene Smar AD3F
> Rockville, MD
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|