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  • Tom Fagan, K7DF
    (Formerly WB7NXH, 1976) I was first introduced to ham radio by a friend of the family in 1968. Jack Willie WB9BIK now KC3KU.  He let me talk to a ham in the pacific on SSB. I was hooked. After that I read every book on ham radio and electronics I…
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  • 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
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Late-1950s 1957 Ralph Javins, N7KGA

Ralph Javins, N7KGA

(1957)

I was also one of those who started with a Novice Class License, and I lived 65 miles from Washington, D. C. at Naval Air Test Center Patuxent River, Maryland, so I qualified for testing outside of the sanctum of the FCC office for the old Conditional Class also (or was it 200 miles?), and my parents did not need to drive me up to Washington, D. C., even though gasoline was less than 20 Cents per gallon then, and they asked you if you wanted regular or ethyl. Yes, tetra ethyl lead was not always considered to be an evil thing and a scourge upon the world.  Eutectic solder of 63% Sn and 37% Pb was also a very good thing for gluing electrical pieces together back then.

 

I had worked all summer in a bowling alley setting pins to buy the receiver I wanted, the National NC-300, and I built a Heathkit DX-20 with a 6CL6 for the oscillator and a 6DQ6GB for the final running about 50 Watts maximum plate DC power input for my first transmitter.  Because of space limitations, I had only a dipole set up for 15 Meters.  This was not a good thing with all of the DuMont, Crosley, Setchel-Carlson, and other black and white televisions with a 21 Mc IF strip in them.  There was one Crosley only two houses away that reversed its video every time I keyed the transmitter.  I learned about "quiet hours."

I also learned about electronics and developed skills in the art of working on electronics equipment.  In addition to my formal schooling, this really helped in shaping my vocational interests. I wound up working mainly in electronics all my life.  Using the skills and knowledge I developed while building power sources for use on satellites, I later used that for coming up with a power source for operating a completely independent, self-sustaining, self-powered, 100 Watt HF radio station for use in activatingislands under the RSGB IOTA Programme, and could be transported on any airline in the world.  This has been expanded to include a small portable wind turbine also, and it has come to have a clear application for EMCOMM.  Yes, it was up last weekend for Field Day.

Ham radio even had an unexpected effect on my life in later years; I met the lady in my life for the last 16 years on a local 2 Meter repeater out here in Latte Land.  However, I seem to be the only one in my own family with an interest in amateur radio. None of my own children have shown any interest in ham radio in addition to their father.

Enjoy, and 73;

Ralph Javins, N7KGA

Latte Land, Washington

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