Next Tuesday, it dawned on me, will be my 40th ham radio anniversary.  I was
14 years young at the time I got my novice license.  I was at the Nebraska
School for the Blind.  We had, normally, a DX60B and the SX99 for the
receiver but when I got my ticket in the mail, the DX60B, as it often was,
had to be repaired.  So we hooked up a little A T 1, which I forget now who
made it but it ran about 30 watts I think, and we fired it up on 80 meters.
My call was WN0ORO and my first contact was a guy in the same state whose
call was WN0OHO.  We became friends and hung out together on sideband for
years.  Six months later, I took my general test when the FCC came through
Omaha and passed by the skin of my teeth.  Our club station at the school
for the blind was updated to the HT37 and a the HQ180X and we were in hog
Heaven.  My novice days were super fun with a DX20 and a BC348 receiver.  I
started out with a 100 foot long wire and no tuner.  Just about 4 months
into being a novice, I got the Viking Ranger 1 and used it with the same
BC348 receiver but put up an 80 and 40 meter dipole.  Wow, what a
difference.  My mom purchased for me the H A 1 T O electronic keyer and
paddle for 75 dollars when I passed my general so I got to use the keyer for
about 3 to 4 weeks on the novice bands until my general ticket came in the
mail.  Wow, did I think I was hot bananas running the keyer as a novice,
too.  In later years, I got to be good CW buddies with W9TO who designed the
T O keyer I owned as a novice.  When I got my General, my mom generously
purchase for me at Christmas, a Drake TR4 and that was probably one of the
most popular rigs of the day, besides the less expensive Galaxy and Heath
Kit rigs.  I started working DX like crazy on 20, 15, and 10 and eventually
got a 3 element TH3 junior triband beam.  It was mounted on an 8 foot tripod
on the roof with the A R 22 rotor.  The beam was probably about 25 or 28
feet but the bands in the mid to late sixties were red hot.  Believe it or
not, I worked the bands with my Drake TR4 for the two weeks of Christmas
vacation and then got a horrible cold and my voice was so bad, my friends at
school couldn't hardly recognize me.  In fact, they always said, they never
would have believed I was sick and staying home from school for an extra
week if they hadn't heard me and how I sounded on the air.  Some of them
nick named me Squeaky and still call me that when they call me on the phone
to this day.  I was, of course, WA0ORO till about 1979 when I passed my
advanced and extra class tests and became AF0H, a dog of a call if I ever
heard one, but had it until November of 1996 when I became K0NX.  Hard to
believe I have had this call now nearly 10 years and will have to renew it
again this year for the first time.  I think ham radio has been the funnist
hobbies I could have ever gotten into.  I could see until I was 11 years old
and got interest in electronics through a TV repair friend of mine when I
was ten.  He took me on house calls and was teaching me the trade little by
little.  Then he showed me his DX60 and HQ129X and I was in love.
Unfortunately, that was about the time my father died unexpectedly and a
year later, my retinas fell apart and I was blind.  So ham radio and
electronics almost died in my life until I was on lunch break at the
Nebraska School for the blind, sitting in the lobby, and crying my eyes out
from home sickness when a guy sat down near me and started talking to me.  I
wished he would buzz off but couldn't blame him for trying to change my
feelings by talking to me until he said, Do you know anything about ham
radio?  In seconds, we were in the ham shack and he was showing me the gear.
Home sickness was gone.  That kid became my best friends for many years
until he passed away many years ago.  We spent hundreds of hours rag chewing
on the 80 meter novice bands as kids and then as generals, we talked even
more.  I have gotten into all sorts of different things as a ham but CW has
always been my favorite and I don't know why.  I DXed for many years until I
got over 300 countries and then started DXing just on 80 and 40 meters.  I
have always enjoyed contesting, too.  Now I mostly hang out on 2 meters but
when the bands pick up again, I'll fire up the rig and put up some new
antennas on the tower.  I miss the old gear but I sure love all the new
talking stuff for the blind ham that I never had before.  That vinyl tape on
the outer skirt of the VFO knob on my Drake TR4 sure would great, along with
the 100 KHz crystal calibrator, and I always ended up close to the frequency
I wanted, too.  I often think back on my novice days because I had more fun
that I ever dreamed during those months.  I've made hundreds of friends from
all over the planet, too.  So, 40 years makes me feel older at 54 years of
age but I wouldn't trade the fun I have had for thousands of hours for
anything else.  Well, sex is a close second even at my age.

73,
Phil,
K0NX

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