It was the summer of 1968 and I was about 15 years old.  I'd had my general 
a little over a year, as I recall, and my Uncle Fred drove up from Wichita 
Kansas to pick me and my ham gear up.  I was going down to his house in the 
country for a couple of weeks.  I had 200 feet of 14 gage wire, some 
insulators, and a hundred feet of RG58 coax that I brought along with my 
Drake TR4.  Another uncle, after arriving in Wichita, told me he had a 
couple of 30 foot telephone poles not being used on his acreage and he would 
pull them down with his tractor so I could use them at Uncle Fred's for 
antenna supports.  Not only did he pull them down, but he trucked them over 
and he and my Uncle put them up for me.  I showed them how the antennas went 
together and shortly I had an 80 and 40 meter flat top dipole up about 25 
feet.  My best ham buddy at the time was Lynn, WA0ODH, and he lived about 
250 miles north of where I was in Wichita.  He was probably my first contact 
from Kansas.  We talked till noon on 3892, the Nebraska net frequency, but 
then the band closed down and we were repeating every thing we said on phone 
so we stayed on that frequency, and went to CW.  We talked for another hour 
until the band died all together.  Yet, CW still works when sideband can't 
even get through.

Phil.
K0NX