Tom,

I saw my first ham stations, a DX60 and the HQ129X receiver over at a 
friend's house whose older brother repaired televisions and was into ham 
radio when I was age ten.  No, actually, I was about 7 the first station I 
saw but I didn't understand what it was for even though the guys there tried 
explaining it to me.  At age ten, I wanted to go into electronics after my 
friend's brother let me watch him in his work room and took me on house 
calls to repair televisions.  But a few months later, my father died 
unexpectedly and six months after that, my retinas began shredding into tiny 
pieces.  I've had about 30 operations and medical procedures in my 62 years 
and about 15 of those were on my eyes and almost all of those were before I 
turned 12.  It was at the school for the blind I discovered they had a ham 
stations and wouldn't you know it, another DX60 transmitter.  I dove head 
first into learning the code and in less than a week, had all the numbers, 
letters, and punctuation memorized and began practicing with others trying 
to study for their test.  My Elmer told me I was copying 10 WPM when I 
passed the novice code test and 20 WPM when I passed the general 7 months 
after passing the novice.  I didn't take my advanced class until something 
like 1977 or so so I lost half my phone bands due to incentive  licensing 
which I'm still mad about to this day, haha.  I took my extra in the fall of 
1978 and that was, of course, when you still had to send and receive 20 WPM. 
I lost some time during college and early married life but I always had a 
receiver somewhere and a friend's house which I could go and operate all day 
so I've never been far from those dits and daws.  I worked a lot of phone 
back in 1980 to 1982 on 20 meters and one year on SSB on 20, I worked 295 
countries in that one year.  The wood pecker was alive and loud back then on 
20 meters, too; some mornings during long path it completely blanked out 20 
meters both phone and CW parts of the band.  I don't miss that Russian wood 
pecker either but who knows what those HARP installations around the world 
are doing to us now, smile.

Phil.
K0NX




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Behler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: Happy Ham's Day


> Congrats, Phil, and happy ham anniversary!!
>
> I got my first novice ticket in June of 1969, so I was just a few years
> behind you.
>
> Of course, I had a significant gap in my ham career after that novice
> license expired, due to college, graduate school, starting a family, 
> getting
> settled in my career, etc.
>
> But, in the early 1990's, I got my ticket back, upgraded to Extra, and I
> guess the rest of the story is still be written to this day.
>
> 73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Phil Scovell
> Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 3:32 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Happy Ham's Day
>
> It was 48 years ago today I made my first contact as a novice.  I was at 
> the
> school for the blind when my mom called from home on a Monday afternoon 
> and
> told me my ticket came.  I had her repeat the call sign a dozen times to 
> be
> sure.  I had been walking to our regular Monday after school student 
> council
> meeting.  I was representing the 9th grade, and the office secretary 
> called
> out the office door as I passed by going to the library for the meeting.
> She said, "Phil.  You have a phone call."  The only person who called me 
> at
> school was generally my uncle in Kansas but this time it was my mom with 
> the
> good news.  I hunt up the phone, and spun around and took a step to the 
> open
> office door.  Our superintendent was a nice guy and although he was not a
> ham, he made sure we always had good equipment, unless one of our radios 
> was
> down for repair, but he called out and said, "Hey, Phil.  You got your
> license."  It wasn't a question.  I was so out of it, I just grunted a 
> yes,
> and ran down the hall to the radio room.  A couple of friends were already
> in the ham shack and one was a novice of about 3 months.  I told him to 
> move
> over, I was getting on the air.  It took them a few seconds to believe me
> but when I threatened to dump him off the king's chair in front of the
> radio, he got the picture.  At this time, our DX60 was off the air so I 
> used
> an A T 1 on 80 meters to make my first contact.  I was WN0ORO and my first
> countact with another guy in Nebraska and his call was WN0OHO.  We kept in
> touch for years after that.  After supper that night, I was back in the 
> ham
> shack pounding out CQ again and having the time of my life.  To this day,
> although I only had my novice license 6 months before I took the general
> class, it was still the most fun I had as a ham.  The guy I almost dump 
> out
> of the chair lived at home where the school for the blind was so we worked
> each other, building up our code speed, in the evenings and then when 
> school
> was out for the summer.  We had a lot of the same crystals so we ended up
> working each other hundreds of times that summer.  We even started a
> midnight schedule which we carried on for years after getting our generals
> and could work side band.
>
> Phil.
> K0NX
>