[TowerTalk] First QSO 55th Anniversary

Tue Apr 13 15:10:49 EDT 2021

Richard:

     Thanks for the note.  I never had an opportunity to use pencil lead or Ajax cleanser on a crystal.  It's something I'd like to try before my last sunspot cycle.  Just to say I did.

     I'm amazed that any of my antennas were able to get me contacts.  They all (80, 40 and 20M dipoles) were fed from the same coax at about 20 feet in the air.  (Recall that, to hold up one end of my antennas,  I used 2 pieces of EMT that were each 10 feet long.)  A true cloud warmer on 80.

     I now know that I was fortunate because my receivers (I later bought a Knight-Kit R-100A) both had BFOs so hearing Morse was not a problem.  And I just now remembered that I used a separate RX antenna, not because I had a pre-amp in line but because I couldn't afford the Dowkey T/R relay that screwed on the TX's SO-239 connector.  I just transmitted and the nearby RX antenna gladly sent the RF straight into my RX front end.  If'n the RX had been a modern rig I'm sure I would have smoked it.

     Thanks again and stay safe.

73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F

-----Original Message-----
From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Richard Zalewski
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2021 2:37 PM
To: Steve Jones <n6sj at earthlink.net>
Cc: Gene Smar <ersmar at verizon.net>; Towertalk <towertalk at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] First QSO 55th Anniversary

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 at 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 at contesting.com> On Behalf Of Gene 
> Smar via TowerTalk
> Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2021 9:13 PM
> To: towertalk at 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
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