Hi Phil, That's one of the finest pieces on this pastime I've run across in
years, thank you ______So Much for all you are and all you do! I've
forwarded what you said to a number of folks giving you the adequate
credits. You're a trooper, thanks, dd.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 4:21 PM
Subject: Remember When
>I had an interesting experience recently. Over 40 years ago,
> after passing my general at 14 years of age, I discovered 15 and
> 10 meters. The bands were so good in the mid to late sixties, I
> spent most of my operating time on the higher bands. I got
> interested in all the activity, at that time, on the 15 meter
> novice band. In fact, I often worked novices on every band where
> they had privileges. 15 meters was loaded, back then, with lots
> of novices and I even started something I called the WWN or
> Worldwide Novice Net. I got check ins from all over the country,
> too. during this time, I ran across a ham in New York. We had a
> long rag chew and became friends and started meeting several times
> a week during the summers when school was out. During school, we
> scheduled on weekends. He only had, as I recall, a single 15
> meter crystal so I always new where to find him. Time passed,
> and we lost track of each other. Recently, I received an email.
> This guy was asking me if I used to be WA0ORO back in Omaha,
> Nebraska and if I remembers Chas, WN2CBX. It was the same guy,
> now living in Florida, and retired and taking care of his mother
> who live a few blocks away. We have been exchanging emails since
> then and hopefully we'll get to have an on air contact eventually.
> 40 years, or a little longer, have passed but it seemed like
> yesterday when I recalled all those contacts we had on 15 meters.
> I well remember growing up around older hams who did such things,
> that is, they made friends on the radio by establishing regular
> weekly contacts. Oh, I know it is out of style now due to cell
> phones, digital voice over internet phone connections, echo link,
> and a variety of other ways of keeping in touch. Perhaps those
> ways are even easier, for that matter, but there was something
> special about agreeing to regular on air scheduled contacts that
> really seemed to make the hobby grow. I made literally dozens of
> friends this way and about on every band, too, including CW and
> side band. Sometimes even Amplitude Modulation for that matter.
> Is it just me, or has the hobby change that much? I used to stay
> up on Friday nights, after getting home from the Nebraska school
> for the blind, until 4 o'clock on Saturday mornings, if not
> later, because I had a schedule with a small town Nebraska cop
> who got off duty at about that time. We worked each other for
> weeks at that same early hour time. Another friend, long dead
> now, and I got our novices about the same time. He lived 45 miles
> from me but we decided, as novices, to set schedules at exactly
> midnight on 37 46 KHz. We did that all during our novice days but
> eventually switched to side band. We did it nightly during the
> summer and on weekends when school was in session. It didn't take
> us long to attract a number of other teenage hams all over the
> Mid-west. It was not uncommon for 8 to 12 states to all be on
> frequency, all teens, and often we talked all night until the sun
> came up. This literally went on for years. Occasionally, I still
> run across one or two of these guys on the bands. some are big DX
> operators while some only get on the air occasionally. As a young
> teenager, I was literally quite shy. I found carrying on a
> conversation with people difficult at best. When I got my novice
> license, I suddenly wanted to talk and I wanted to talk to as many
> people as I could. My code speed jumped to 25 words per minute
> within a few short weeks. I worked mostly 80 and 40 with a 100
> foot long wire and no tuner. My DX20, into a dummy load, put out
> 10 watts. I worked about 36 states in about 4 months until I got
> a Viking Ranger 1 and a friend helped me put up an 80 and 40 meter
> dipole at about 35 feet. I got up to 41 states before I passed my
> general six months into the hobby. We established traffic nets
> for novices, worked crossed band with generals who went to the
> phone band and transmitted on SSB and listened to us transmit CW
> in the novice band and man did we think that was hot stuff. I
> really miss the novice days and those early general class days
> working people all over the world on a couple of inverted V wires
> hanging up on the roof. I eventually went to rotary antennas and
> found that I had more and more fun, and newer things to try, the
> bigger the antenna. When I got married and was broke most of the
> time, I ran a QRP rig running 2 watts and a ground mounted
> vertical. I found that equally as fun after working over 600
> stations and all 50 states, including 14 countries, plus Alaska
> and Hawaii both on 40 CW. With digital and satellite
> communications, internet node connections, VHF modes, line of
> sight modes, moon bounce, amateur television, and dozens of other
> things to try, Wayne Green of 73 magazine could never have been as
> wrong a few years ago when he said to Art Bell on Coast To Coast
> nothing new had been created in 50 years of ham radio since single
> side band. I guess he forgot all the other modes now available to
> hams. This guy who contacted me recently after 40 years? When I
> confirmed it was me, he dialed up my location on the net and saw
> my house, told me its color, described my son's house in the
> backyard, and my son's pickup and trailer parked in the long
> driveway. I think Wayne Green lost it when he started that UFO
> net on 75 meters back in the sixties. Remember how fun it was
> just to get QSL cards in the mail? I stop collecting decades ago
> but now I wish I had kept them all. Shoot, I even worked the
> county hunters nets and began trying to achieve that award. Talk
> about QSL cards. Then there were the side band and CW traffic
> nets as well as all those overseas phone patches from soldiers
> out in the Pacific islands and MARS contact and phone patches from
> Vietnam. Who ever said the hobby was boring. I used to keep one
> of my wrapped McDonald hamburgers laying on top of the back of my
> Drake TR4 final amplifier cage as I operated just to keep it warm.
>
> Phil.
> K0NX
> AF0H
> WA0ORO
> WN0ORO
>
>
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