Hi Phil,
Great story! Wow! I feel like a newby. I got my novice call (kb9bvi) in 
1988. First rig was a TS-820 and, by that time, novices could operate 
phone on 10 so I remember making lots of SSB contacts with an antron-99 
vertical. As I recall, there were a lot of openings to Europe at that 
time. I need to get that rig running again. I remember using a 
Radioshack DX-400 to keep track of what frequency I was on. I still have 
the audio tuning aide I used to tune the rig. Great memories.
Phil Scovell wrote:
> What I didn't mention in my story of the first contact I ever made was what 
> I did to find out the news of my ticket coming in the mail.  I had made 
> sure, a hundred times, that my mother would call me, day or night, whenever 
> my license came in the mail.  It came that Monday, April 25, 1966.  She knew 
> school was out at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and when she got home from 
> worked and picked up the mail, there was an envelope from the FCC and she 
> knew.  After opening the letter and reading my call sign, what it was.  She 
> picked up the phone, back then I think you still had to go through a long 
> distance operator; I don't believe dial #1 had come in to play as of yet, at 
> least, we all still were using rotary phone dials.  Anyhow, I was on an all 
> boys student council and I had been voted in to represent the 8th grade. 
> Robert Lesley Newman, Whom I have always known as just bob Newman, whom you 
> all often see on these mailing lists, not this one but others, with his 
> monthly blind related issue that he posts on his website, was our student 
> council president.  I was walking down the hall and turned left to angle 
> over to the open door of the library where every Monday after school, the 
> counsel had their meetings.  As I began to pass the open door to the 
> school's office, the secretary looked up and saw me.  "Oh, Phil, say, Phil." 
> I stopped at the open door as I passed and looked in and said, "yes?"  "You 
> have a long distance call.  I have the phone right here at my desk so come 
> in."  My uncle freed lived in Kansas and often, when coming to see us in 
> Omaha, would stop at the school for the blind and get me out of class and 
> we'd go out to eat and visit for awhile before he continued on, either to 
> our house, or into Iowa to visit relatives there, or he'd head south to 
> Wichita Kansas where he was retired.  So it could have been Uncle Fred 
> calling me because he did that often, too.  Taking the phone from the 
> secretary, I heard my mom's voice say, "Philip, your ham radio license came 
> in the mail today."  "It did!" I nearly yelled.  "what's the call letters?" 
> I made her repeat them a half a dozen times, then I repeated it several 
> times myself back to her into the phone, and then even repeated them again 
> letter by letter to be 100 percent certain I had it right.  Hanging up the 
> phone, I spun and headed out the open office door; pointed directly down the 
> hall where the ham shack was about 150 feet away.  The principle, or who we 
> called the school superintendent, had just walked into the secretary's area 
> from his private office and he said, "So you got your license today, Phil?" 
> I turned my head almost 180 degrees around but kept walking as fast as I 
> could go down the hall, and said, "I sure did."  He said congratulations, or 
> something I can't recall now, because I was gone.  After my contact was 
> over, it was 5 o'clock and time for everyone to go to the dorm to get ready 
> for supper.  As I was walking upstairs with other friends working on getting 
> their ham tickets, one of the student council members heard me and said, 
> "Hey, Scovell.  You never showed up for the student council meeting today." 
> He knew where I had gone because the superintendent had told them I wouldn't 
> be at the student council meeting that afternoon because I had gotten my ham 
> ticket and was down in the ham shack so they'd be conducting the meeting 
> without me.  I always appreciated him for allowing me to do what I did 
> because my mind had totally blanked out except for one thing.  CQ.
>
> Phil.
> K0NX
>
>