[SCCC] Novice memories - KN6LSG
Dennis Vernacchia
n6ki73 at gmail.com
Sun Nov 15 23:33:02 EST 2020
Kurt,
I thought have thought for certain that the FCC would have assigned you
"LSD" ...not " LSG" PFX !!
;-)
N6KI
On Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 3:37 PM W6PH via SCCC <sccc at contesting.com> wrote:
> The YCCC reflector started a thread about our starts in amateur radio.
> This is the one I sent. Maybe this could start a similar thread here.
> Additionally I sent it to my kids. They wrote back that they never knew
> how I got interested in the radio hobby and enjoyed learning.
>
> 73, Kurt W6PH (Lone Pine CA) I was raised in Salinas CA. At age 12 I had
> a morning paper route and would wake up at 6 am before the papers arrived
> at 6:20 am. I would listen to all the big AM stations in the west on my
> Silvertone AA5. Hearing these distant stations that I didn't hear during
> the day fascinated me. One of my deliveries was to a house with a big
> antenna behind it (Gonset bow-tie 20m beam at 30 feet). One Sunday morning
> I was late delivering papers because they were late getting to me. W6WJM
> was waiting for his paper and I asked him about the antenna. He told me
> about ham radio and offered to help. He loaned me an Instructograph (I
> think that is what it was called) with perforated tape to make Morse code.
> There was a lever to adjust the speed. I got my speed up to 5 wpm and
> memorized the ARRL Novice license test. Art proctored the Novice test and
> I got my license in June 1955 as KN6LSG. I bought an AT-1 for $29.50 from
> Heathkit. I couldn't afford the $54.95 for the Viking Adventurer. My
> receiver was a 3-6 mc ARC-5 receiver from Sam's Surplus in Los Angeles. I
> think it was $5.95. A tuning knob was $4 and I couldn't afford that. I
> tuned the receiver by varying the BFO screw on the side of the receiver. I
> had one crystal at 3739 kc. My antenna was a random wire about 35 feet
> long and up about 15 feet. It was thrilling to make contacts with stations
> outside your town. No one called long distance back then because it was
> expensive. So making these contacts was real neat. When you called CQ,
> you logged it even if there was no answer because the FCC required it. It
> was rare to have someone call on your frequency and you tuned across the
> band from 3700 to 3750.for an answer. The QSO was RST, name, QTH, and
> address to exchange QSL's. Walter Ashe and WRL had QSL cards available at
> very cheap prices. Postage was 1 cent for the cards. I worked stations up
> and down the west coast but couldn't get beyond the Rockies. In March I
> took the Conditional exam from W6WJM (we were more than 100 miles from
> SF). I passed and became K6LSG. My next purchase was an SX-25 and VF-1.
> I headed for 20 meters. That extended my DX into Texas and Colorado. One
> morning I heard KA2OZ (Tokyo) calling CQ and on a lark I called him. I was
> stunned when he came back to me and that started my DXing. The next
> project was doing the Lew McCoy "More Power from the AT-1" modification in
> Oct 55 QST. Like everyone else I had a DPDT knife switch to change the
> antenna from transmit to receive. Before the modification I put a 25 watt
> light bulb across the contacts and got a dull glow. After the modification
> the bulb was bright. I had gone from less than 10 watts output to 25 watts
> output. I built a Lew McCoy One element rotary dipole at 20 feet for 15
> meters and started having a ball with DX. One very memorable contact was
> 4S7GE. One of the local hams was working him and I asked him (W6EFR) to
> ask the 4S7 to listen for me. Ceylon (it was called that back then) is
> about as far as you can get from California and 4S7GE came back to me and
> gave me a 449 report. (We gave real reports back then.) I ended up with
> 70 countries before I went QRO with a DX-100 in 1957. Those who are too
> young missed Cycle 19 which was absolutely fantastic in retrospect. But we
> all thought it was always going to be this way working the world with
> simple antennas and 25 watts. My first DX contest was CQWW CW in 1956 and
> my score made it into the results. I went off to the USAF Academy in 1960
> and operated the Cadet station as K0MIC until 1964. After pilot training
> in Texas I ended up in southern NJ as W2BQF and hit a lot of contests
> winning several section awards with real simple antennas. We moved to NH
> in 1975 and I became W1HMF for a short time before becoming W1PH. I became
> W6PH in 1998 in contemplation of retiring to Lone Pine. As others have
> said, there are a lot more stories to tell. Thanks for reading mine. 73,
> Kurt W6PH
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