It was also during this time that I passed the Amateur Extra Class license exam. My incentive for taking the exam in the first place was the offer by the FCC to issue new 2X1 callsigns to anyone who upgraded to Extra Class. As a CW contest operator, I was looking for something shorter than WB4JYB. In April, 1978 I became AE4Y.
The current QTH brings with it some very strong restrictive covenants regarding antennas. The current station is rather simple. The old TS-520S has been relegated to the status of back-up rig.
Given all of the changes that my station has gone through, one thing is certain; evolution is a process and the process is certainly NOT over.
For months before Christmas, 1966 I had been poring over the Allied Radio catalog which contained the Knight-Kit Star Roamer shortwave receiver. I had been drawn to shortwave listening ever since tuning around on a small portable shortwave receiver that a friend had shown me. It took every ounce of mental energy that I could muster to convince my parents that I was going to be capable of building the kit. A little support and convincing from family friend, and future Elmer - Harry, K4LBF, did the trick. On Christmas morning the kit was under the tree. All other presents received that year paled in comparison to the Star Roamer, how could they compete? After two days of intense and focused effort, the Star Roamer was plugged in. The tubes lit up, the panel lights glowed, but nothing - absolutely nothing - came out of the speaker. A quick trip to Harry's shack and some diagnostics reveiled that the problem was a speaker lead that had not been soldered. That taken care of along with a bit of tuning and alignment, brought the Star Roamer to life. Happy months of listening to Radio Moscow, Radio Peking, the BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio Netherlands, and all the rest followed; but as Harry had told me - I wasn't going to be content for very long with just listening. He was right.
By June, 1967 I had begun studying the code. Within two weeks, I knew all of the characters by heart. In the meantime, another friend of mine who knew about my interest in ham radio offered me a half finished Knight Kit T-60, 60 watt CW Transmitter kit that his father had bought for him. He had no intention of getting his ham ticket and was correct in thinking that I could use it. Two weeks later, the T-60 was completed and once again checked out and aligned in Harry's shack, but it was to be almost a year before it was put on the air. I had pretty well mastered the code, but had not put much (if any) effort into studying for the Novice test. In late 1967, I managed to fail the test on my first attempt. Embarrassed, I hit the books and made another attempt in the spring of 1968. This time I was successful. On the afternoon of June 5, 1968, the postman delivered an envelope from the Federal Communications Commission which contained my Novice Station and Operators License with the callsign: WN4JYB
I had a license, I had a transmitter, but I had no receiver and no antenna. I was in the pits. But the news of the arrival of my license had reached Harry and his son Bob, K4OCE who had recently moved back to town. Despair turned into elation when by 5:00 p.m. that afternoon, Harry had brought over his Hammarlund HQ-110 receiver and Bob had strung up a W3DZZ dipole in the pine trees in my backyard. I didn't have a transmit/receive relay, so I connected a 50 foot piece of wire to the HQ-110 and I was ready to put WN4JYB on the air. I had three crystals for the T-60; two in the 40 meter Novice band and one for the 80 meter Novice band. But there was no way I was going to attempt to make a contact as long as Bob and Harry were there. After they had left, I plugged in my straight key and with hands trembling, began to send my first tentative CQs. Within a few minutes, I received an answer. I still have the copy from that first QSO. I may have copied less than 50% of the exchanges, but I was on the air. My second QSO was later that night with Bob, K4OCE who had written down my 80 meter crystal frequency and therefore knew where to find me. I was a ham!
Obviously Harry had not been able to work me because I had his receiver. I set to work immediately to save as much money as I could in order to buy my own and to allow Harry to get back on the air too. The earnings from my summer job at McDonalds piled up and by the late summer I had saved enough to buy my own receiver. I had been impressed with the HQ-110, so when I started shopping, I decided on a Hammarlund HQ-170, which was the big brother of the HQ-110. I purchased it used from Amateur Electronic Supply in Milwaukee. I will never forget picking it up at the bus station, taking it home, and plugging it in. Nothing looked as good as the warm glow coming off of all those tubes. The HQ-170 served as my primary receiver for the next four years.
I immediately began studying for the General Class license exam. My code speed was increasing nicely and believing that I knew enough theory, I began taking the General exam in the spring of 1969. After failing the code test once and the written test once; I finally passed in early 1970. Incentive licensing had begun. When I finally passed the General exams, the FCC examiner asked me if I wanted to try for the Advanced class license? Without really thinking too much about it, I said yes. I hadn't really studied for it, but I had nothing to lose. To my surprise, when the license arrived, I had passed the Advanced exam as well and was now WB4JYB. I was ready to really begin operating now, but I was still confined to the T-60 and a handful of crystals. But I had been saving from my summer and after school jobs, and so another order went off to Amateur Electronic Supply - this time for a used Heathkit SB-400 SSB/CW transmitter. It even had a built-in antenna relay so I could replace my long wire receiving antenna! In the interim, Bob, K4OCE had loaned me a 3 element yagi that I had been using on 15 meters as a Novice. I rebuilt the yagi, lengthening it out for 20 meters. I was now operating on all bands, 80 through 10; with 100 watts of SSB and CW.
Most of the other hams that I knew were avid DXers. The sunspot cycle was near a peak in 1971-72 and naturally I had begun chasing DX along with the rest of the guys. Even as a Novice, I had managed to work 20 or so countries with my three 15 meter crystals frequencies of 21.145, 21.150, and 21.155 mHz. But it didn't take too many pileups on 20 meter SSB to convince me that my 100 watts just wasn't going to cut it. During the summer of 1971, Jerry, WB4EEM decided to replace his Heathkit SB-200 linear amplifier with one of the new SB-220 models. Seeing my opportunity, I once again dipped into the savings and bought the SB-200. The investment was well worth it as I saw my DXCC totals take a substantial leap forward.
During the summer of 1972, a nearby lightning strike did more damage to the front end of my HQ-170 than I wanted to repair. I heard that Ed, K4HJE had a Collins 75A4 receiver that he was trying to sell. Cutting a deal, I picked up the receiver and put it into use immediately. Even though it had quite a bit of age on it, the 75A4 was an outstanding receiver. It had 3 mechancial filters and the notch filter was unbelievably effective at cutting out QRM. By this time, I was pretty well a died-in-the-wool CW operator and spent many enjoyable hours chasing DX on the low end of the HF bands using the 75A4.
In addition to DXing, I had always enjoyed operating in contests. Having to "spot" the SB-400's frequency to that of the 75A4 for each contest QSO worked, but it didn't lead to very efficient contest operation nor to good QSO rates or big scores. I was also now at college and not operating as much as I had been when I was living at home. I caught a good case of "transceiver fever". I sold the SB-200 and SB-400 in order to finance the purchase of a new Heathkit SB-102 transceiver. It was my first "new" radio. I built the kit in three days during my Easter break from college in 1973. I decided to keep the 75A4 so that I could operate split frequencies in DX pile-ups. The fact that my operating time was down significantly, that I was operating in contests more than chasing DX, and that DX openings on the bands were becoming scarcer with the dropping of the sunspot cycle; all helped me to rationalize the loss of the linear amplifier.
After completing college, my focus shifted to finding a job and a place to live. Ham radio took a back seat to other concerns. In 1976, I sold the SB-102 transceiver and was active only on 2 meter FM for a number of years. In 1978, I purchased a Ten-Tec Century 21, 70 watt CW Transceiver. I operated with it from an apartment using indoor dipoles for 40, 20, and 15 meters. Band changes were made by connecting or disconnecting alligator clips to change the length of the dipole. It was during this period that the XYL began to doubt my sanity. Regardless of what she thought of me, I managed to work 70+ countries from the apartment. The "thrill" of the chase was definitely not dead.
After we purchased our first home in 1979, the Century 21 and the Collins 75A4 were both traded in on a Kenwood TS-520S Transceiver. A Rohn tower and Cushcraft ATB-34 tribander was added in 1980 and a Dentron Clipperton-L Linear Amplifier came along in 1981. Good band conditions were back and so was the station! That station remained in tact until 1993. A couple of job transfers resulted in a minimizing of the antenna systems. The tribander went up, but with less tower. Dipoles, slopers, and inverted-L's were used more frequently; and the amplifier was off more than it was on.
A TS-570DG replaced it as primary rig in April, 1999. The tower and tribander are gone; sold to a young up and coming DXer the last time I was transferred. An 80 meter "invisible" dipole makes up the current antenna farm. It works well on all bands with an MFJ tuner. The Dentron Clipperton-L is moth-balled, probably awaiting sale at a hamfest or to another aspiring local DXer.