Well, Don, I am nearly as old a fart as you are.  I don't think my
history in ham radio is as interesting as many I have read here, but for
what it's worth--

My dad was a ham going back to the late 1920's, so I grew up around the
hobby.  I learned the International Morse alphabet and numbers by the time I
was 4 years old, but I didn't have the interest or concentration to do
anything with it at that time.  I enjoyed listening to him talk with his
buddies on 160 meters on Sunday mornings, and I would try to pick out
letters and the occasional word when he worked CW on 80 or 40 meters.

I went away to school at the Illinois School for the Blind (which has gone
through a couple more name changes over the years) and I took a receiver
with me--a Halicrafters
S41G--which I used mostly as a broadcast radio, but also enjoyed trying to
hear my dad occasionally.  I found that our library had the Radio Amateur's
License manual, and I began studying that.  I understand they established a 
ham club there well after I was gone.

By the time I was nine or ten, I began to get a little more serious about
getting a license.  My dad tried to teach me something about circuits, but
he really didn't have much of a clue of how to go about it.  I can
appreciate his efforts in retrospect; he would draw a mirror-image schematic
of a Colpitts oscillator, for example,and then punch out the image with a
Braille stylus.  They were too detailed for me to understand, and he did it
in the scale that it might be in a book or magazine.  But it was a valiant
effort, though frustrating to both of us.  I don't remember when I first 
encountered The Braille Technical Press and Bob Gunderson's method of verbal 
description of schematic circuit lay
out.

My dad had a good ham friend who was a friend of Donald "Russ" Farnsworth--a 
blind ham, W6TTB at that time; he later was able to get back his original 
call, W9SUV, when he moved back to Illinois.  Russ was a professional 
musician, I think.  He was a longtime ham, and during WW2 he taught code 
classes for the army.  Anyway, he later put out a set of phonograph records 
teaching Morse code in what came to be known as the "Farnsworth method," in 
which all the characters were sent at a pretty high rate (like 20 wpm) but 
the spacing between characters was what controlled the overall speed.  I was 
able to borrow a set of those records and was finally able to break through 
the "speed barrier" which a lot of people seem to experience at a little 
above 10 wpm.  Anyway, that got me on my way, and I finally got my 
Conditional Class license in 1955 when I was 11 years old--a couple of 
months shy of my twelfth birthday.

My dad bought me a used National NC-57 and later built a Heathkit Q 
multiplier to go with it.  I also had a home brew transmitter which he 
built.  It was a crystal-controlled two-stage rig with a 6L6 final with a pi 
network tuner.  It also operated AM fone with Heising modulation.  On a good 
day it would operate with a mighty 12 watts of input (which was how we 
measured power in those days). But that little rig would load up just about 
any length of wire.  I once worked a guy in Kansas on 40 CW with four feet 
of wire laying on the table.  I started with our usual 130-foot wire (which 
my dad called a longwire, but technically wasn't, I guess) and I was S9 
there.  So for a lark, I disconnected the outside antenna and just used the 
4-foot lead-in, and my signal dropped to about S7.

Well, those were my beginnings in ham radio.  I have long periods of 
inactivity, and I have been in one of those periods now for quite a while. 
I have done my share of "rag-chewing" in the past, a little DX, and was 
pretty heavily involved in NTS traffic nets for a few years in the early 
eighties.

I haven't owned a wide range of gear--A Viking ranger, which I loved; the 
Drake 4B twins; a Kenwood TS-930S;  and a TenTec 525 Argosy (the analog 
model).  I still have the Argosy, but it's in pretty sad shape.

I just renewed my license, so maybe I can reach 60 years of being licensed. 
I occasionally operate 2 meters with a TH-F6A.  I have a 50-foot tower with 
an 11-element 2-meter yagi on it and a G5RV hanging on it.  I hope to get 
back on HF some time, but climbing around on towers to fix things up is 
getting less attractive all the time.

73 to all.

Mike, K9AZS

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Bishop" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 1:06 AM
Subject: Re: My 40th Ham Radio Anniversary


> I've really enjoyed reading all the stories of how  people got into ham
> radio and just how long they've been in it.  So, guess it's my turn.
>
> I do have a request though.  I'm really feeling like one of those old
> farts who have been around forever, so anyone who's been around well over
> 40 years,
> please chime in and make me feel better.
>
> I got my novice when I was 14 back in 1952.  That's right, nearly 54 years
> ago.  I don't feel that old, at least not most of the time.  <grin>
>
> We had a big Zenith floor model AM radio in the livingroom and it had a
> couple of shortwave bands on it.
>
> The only ham band I could get on the thing was 20 meters phone, AM of
> course.
>
> I'd listen to guys shoot the breeze on 20 and the reception was actually
> pretty good considering what the radio was.
>
> I remember getting a braille copy of the radio amateur handbook from the
> state library in 1951 or 2.  The book was dated some time in the 1930s, so
> not
> exactly up to date.
>
> Most of the other ham-related books in nls then were from about the same
> period.
>
> Anyway, I toldd my folks I really wanted to find out more about ham radio
> and we found a blind guy in the Los Angeles area where we lived and he
> recommended a friend who was not far away from where I lived.
>
> This guy was sighted and had a classic ham shack.  It really was a small
> building totally separate from his house and crammed full of all kinds of
> transmitters
> receivers, parts, and about everything else you could think of.  You
> walked in the door and there was this wonderful smell of wire insulation,
> solder, and
> cigarette smoke.  It really was the stereotype hamshack you'd read about
> in some of the older magazines.
>
> Anyway, he started teaching me theory and the code.  He demonstrated
> things like the picture of a sine wave using solder which he bent into the
> patterns
> you'd see on an oscilloscope.
>
> He made me get my code speed up to about 13 wpm before he declared me
> ready to go and take the novice exam.
>
> In those days,all exams had to be given at the FCC district office if you
> were close enough, so I had to go to the Federal Building in downtown Los
> Angeles
> and the district engineer himself gave me the exam.
>
> Somehow I kept my nerves together and actually passed it the first time.
>
> My first rig, believe it or not, was a Viking 2 transmitter.  My folks
> were worried about me getting shocked, so insisted on getting reliable
> equipment.
> Unfortunately, the receiver we got was an old HQ120.  I didn't know much
> about such things then, but on much later inspection, the inside looked
> like it had
> spent most of its life at the bottom of the pacific ocean.  So the guts
> burned out in very short order.  It was replaced by an SX71 which was a
> fine receiver
> except for the incredible drift anywhere from 20 meters and higher.  You
> litterally couldn't hold a transmission too long or when you turned it
> over to the other
> guy you'd have to retune for him.
>
> Also, since I was a novice and limited to 75 watts, we tried everything to
> vun the viking 2 at that level, but the chirp was awful.  So the guy
> helping me set
> things up increased the power just to the point where the chirp went away.
> It was probably around 90 watts or so.  I imagine the statue of
> limitations has
> expired by now.  <grin>
>
> Anyway, I went back to the FCC and saw the district enginerr again on
> Christmas vacation of 1952 and passed the general.
>
> My Elmer had me copying 18 wpm for a five-minute stretch the night before
> I went in, so managed to pass it again.
>
>
> My antennas were pretty sad affairs as I didn't know a whole lot about
> antennas then but eventually I gut up a 10-meter beam on a short tower
> attached to
> the back of the house.  I also got on 40 and 15 which was quite exciting
> as I was on for the first weekend that phone operation was allowed on 40
> back in
> 1953.
>
>
> I got on 2 meters with an old Gonset communicator and had a lot of fun
> with that.  You could also fry eggs on top of the thing it got so hot.
> But, it was all lots
> of fun.
>
> And, I studied with a group of guys on 10 meters in 1970 and got my
> advanced.  We'd bat things around at night after the band closed.
>
> Finally, in about 1981 or so I decided to see if I could study
> independently and actually pass the extra.  My only disapointment was that
> by that time you had
> to use a volunteer examiner if you were blind since they wouldn't give you
> the exam in the office anymore.
>
> I passed that so got all my band edges back as I really did want that low
> end of cw again.
>
> Anyway, I'm not as active as I'd like to be and don't climb around on
> steep roofs much or towers either, but do hope to get back on HF soon.  It
> will be 90
> percent cw, but I will go to SSB if I can ever find the mic.  <grin>
>
> Don  W6SMB   (same call all this time)
>