[SCCC] Novice memories - KN6LSG

[Jennifer Selbrede]

Great story!  I always knew you were legendary.

Jennifer
K6ZED

On Sun, Nov 15, 2020 at 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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