Hi Phil,

Wow!  Reading what you wrote brings back a lot of memories.  My 40th will 
come in September 2008.  I started with WN7KXR, then got WA7QVP when I let 
that novice license lapse for a month or so and then in 1976 got K7RX which 
you may note is made up of the suffix of the old novice call.

I remember well those older radios and how hot the bands were in the 60's. 
I can remember laying in bed at night with my S-40's headphones on my head 
listening to the VK's and ZL's and faunching at the bit to get my general 
and work them.

Thanks for the memories and congratulations on year 40.  Very 73.
--------------------
Kevin :)
Amateur Radio:  K7RX

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2006 20:39
Subject: My 40th Ham Radio Anniversary


> 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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