Featured Story

  • Woody Pope
    (formerly KN5GCM, 1956) This QSL card is the only thing I have left from my Novice days in 1956. I was in college in Austin Texas when I got my license. There was a ham there who helped me and gave me my test but I don't recall either his…
    Read more...

Submit Your Own Novice Story

Please share with your fellow hams a story of your Novice year(s). The story should mainly focus on your Novice period. A story can be a photo or a few lines of text to a full blown story of several pages.

submit your story now

Latest Comments

  • John Shidler, NS5Z
    John thats a great story. I didn't realize you were so much older than me LOL.. glad to call you my Ham Pal. Where have the years gone.. we are old fat and gray now, but still tearing up the airwaves.... More...
    17.04.13 07:53
Select Language
Early-1960s 1961 Joe Park, WB6AGR

Joe Park, WB6AGR

(formerly WN6AGR, 1961)

I was a Radio Operator in the Navy and my first assignment was at the Naval Radio Receiving Station on Oahu Hi. This was up in the middle of the Island, just out of Wahiawa. I was hitching a ride to the beach one day and this fellow picked me up at the gate. He was a Communications Tech. in a different building and I didn't know him. He was driving a Pontiac, probably a 1954 model. I opened the passenger door and there was barley room to sit. he had radio gear under the dash from the steering wheel to the door. It was probably a Gonset because it was shinny, like chrome. Anyway, that is when I got the bug to become a Ham.

It was about 5 years later before I got busy to study and get my License. 1961 I had an old Hallicrafter Sky Buddy for a receiver and someone loaned me a DX 40 xmtr. My first contact on cw was in Berkeley Ca. with a Ham probably only a couple miles away. That was my only contact on CW, I had been doing mostly CW in the Navy for 3 years and just wanted to talk, so when I got my General license a few months later WB6AGR, I went to AM voice. The DX 40 would do AM but in a short time I got a Gonset G77 transmitter and a Gonset Converter that would convert my car radio to the Ham Bands, I have done mostly Mobile since then, although I have had base stations.

I have acquired another DX 40 and a Heathkit AR-3 that I plan to get set up for strait key night. I also have a Hallicrafter S-38E.

WB6AGR
Modesto Ca

Social sharing
More in this category: « Mark Nelson AJ2X C. Richard Pumphrey, WN9DDV »

Add comment


Security code
Refresh

back to top
Scroll To Top