Hi Phil and all.

Thanks for the intersting stories.  I feel like I know you all a little 
better now.

My story started back in 1973, when I was at the home of some friends of my 
parents, and the man of the house cured my  typical 13 year old boredom by 
bringing out a portable shortwave receiver for me to listen to while 
everyone else visited in the other room, and just like that, I was hooked 
for life.

In the next few months, I saved every bit of money that I could and in 
April of 1974, I set out to buy my own shortwave receiver.  I had my eye on 
a 4 band portable that Radio Shack sold, but my mother wisely talked me 
into stopping at another radio shop across town that dealt in used 
equipment, and talked me into foregoing the Radio Shack portable for a 
Halicrafters S20R.  It's kind of surprising, that my mother, probably the 
least technical person I could think of, managed to see the value in that 
dusty old tube receiver and talked me into buying it.  I paid $42.50 for it 
and ran it for 22 years!

Well, anyway, it didn't take me long to figure out that if I used the BFO, 
I could turn the "Donald Duck chatter" into intelligible voices and I 
started listening in on the ham bands and keeping a log of what I heard, 
and as you can imagine, it didn't take me very long before I wanted to talk 
back.

I took all kinds of books out of the library at school, but the one thing I 
was having a really hard time with was learning the code.  It was partly 
that I had just convinced myself that it was difficult, therefore it was 
difficult.

In the fall of 1978, I started college at Syracuse University, and as I was 
walking across the quad, having just registered for classes, I heard the 
familiar sound of CW, and decided to follow my ears and see where it was 
coming from.  I found a Heath SB102 on a table outside one of the 
Engineering buildings cranking its little heart out, and several members of 
the S.U. Amateur Radio Club were out there signing up new members for the 
club and advertising the Novice Class that was being given.  I got my 
Novice license on December 28, 1978, and actually got on the air with a 
Heath HW16 and an HG10B VFO the following December.

I remember my first QSO very clearly.  I was then KA2DQA, and I worked 
KA1DNZ.  It was on 40 meters, just as the International Broadcasters were 
shifting into high gear, and five minutes into the QSO, my mother yelled up 
that supper was ready.  My code was rusty, the band conditions were 
terrible and I was stressed at having to rush through the QSO so I could 
get downstairs.  It was a disaster.

I glared at the radio every time I walked past it for the next several days 
until I received the QSL card with kind words of encouragement.  It's 
probably a good thing he sent it, because I'm not sure I would have ever 
gone back at it again.  But, I did, and the next time was somehow easier.

I have known lots of changes in technology, and lots of dear friends in ham 
radio.  Boredom left me when I was 13 years old, and I've never known it again.

I laughed out loud when I read about the rigs with the 100 kHz calibrators, 
because I remember those days.  I had one of the Radio Shack P-box kits for 
a 100 kHz calibrator that ran on 3 AA batteries.

For those who are rolling their eyes at all this nostalgia, I apologize, 
but only half heartedly.  After all, what is ham radio, if not to 
communicate something of importance to our fellow hams.  Mostly, what I 
hear being communicated is who we are and how we live, and I find richness 
in the experiences of each of us.

73 to all de Lou K2LKK



Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
Home e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Work e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753