Happy anniversary Phil!  I recall my novice days very fondly as 
well.  Unlike you, I didn't wait for my ticket to arrive as I was 
living on an air force base in Alaska with my step father.  For some 
reason it took six months for my ticket to get to me.  A ham friend 
was away on a weather recon flight, so I bootlegged his call.  I was 
found out when he returned and talked to the fellow I had worked on 
80 CW.  I only did it that once, but it was pretty exciting.  My 
first setup was a DX35 and a borrowed NC120 to parallel 80/40 dipoles 
also up about 20 feet.  That was in late 1956 when the mother of all 
sunspot cycle was building.

73,

Dave


At 09:33 AM 4/25/2010, you wrote:
>At about 3:15 PM central time 44 years ago today, I received my novice call
>sign of WN0ORO and running as fast as I could go to the ham shack we had at
>the Nebraska school for the blind, I burst through the door and told a
>friend of mine, and a couple of other guys sitting around the receiver, to
>move over because I was getting on the air.  They didn't believe me at first
>but it didn't take them long.  I called my first, on the air CQ, as WN0ORO/0
>because we did not have a station club call sign at the school at that time.
>I was on 37 15 KHz and the guy who answered me was WN0OHO in York Nebraska.
>We became close friends over the years and worked each other as novices, and
>later as generals, for many years on 80 and 75 meters.  The transmitter I
>used was an AT1 running 30 watts input with a dipole on the roof of the
>school up about 30 feet.  Our DX60 was in the shop for repair.  My receiver
>I used that day was the SX99 and I spent, from then on, every minute of my
>lunch breaks, after school hours, and after supper hours, in the ham shack
>and on the air.  I had my novice for 7 months before my general ticket came
>in the mail.  At home, I first started out with a DX20 which ran 10 watts
>output to a 100 foot long wire with no tuner up 30 feet.  I had a BC 345
>receiver at home.  Eventually I got a Viking Ranger 1 for my transmitter but
>for Christmas in 1966, after passing my general, my mother generously
>purchased me a Drake TR4 receiver which I ran for about the next 5 years.
>Those were some of the most enjoyable ham radio years I ever experienced, 44
>years ago today.
>
>Phil.
>K0NX
>AF0H
>WA0ORO
>WN0ORO