Nice going Phil.  I hope you have many more years of great Ham radio.  73
Ed  K7UC
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: Wish Me Happy Birthday


> This reminiscing is fun.
>
> I got my Novice WN8NHW on July 9, 1964.  I borrowed a friend's DX-35 
> xmitter
> and worked mainly forty with xtals for 7161 and 7169; I think I had 
> another
> Crystal for 15 meters, but I didn't get on that band much.  I think it
> pretty much closed up at night during the school year, as I think 1964 was
> the bottom of a cycle.
>
> Later that year, my parents purchased a rebuilt NC-300 which replaced an 
> old
> Heathkit GR-91 which I think might have been a regenerative receiver.  The
> 300 ran circles around it.
>
> I didn't pass my Conditional until the summer of 1966 so I received my new
> call, WA8VAA in September and got a Viking Invader transmitter to use with
> the 300 receiver.
>
> By then, the upper HF bands were pretty active, I worked quite a bit on 
> 20,
> 15 and 10 just using a trap dipole.
>
> I think the most exciting moment for me was working California on 40 CW a
> few months after I got my Novice ticket.  I remember staying up pretty 
> late
> until the band was long enough for me to work them.  My antenna was only 
> 20
> feet up so it didn't hear very well under most circumstances.
>
> Steve, K8SP