Okay, you asked for it... if you're on this page, it's because you
apparently *wanted* to read the not-so-brief history of my ham radio
"career". Oh, well, you can always click "BACK" on your browser...
As a youngster growing up in a suburb of Wilmington, Delaware, I was always
interested in mechanical and electrical things, and RADIO. On the nightstand
next to my bed I had an old GE tube-type clock/radio. I used to tune around
the AM broadcast band in the evenings, listening to far away radio stations.
My maternal grandfather lived in Philadelphia, about 35 miles away, and we
would visit often. On his nightstand sat an old Zenith Trans-Oceanic short
wave radio. It was a model B-600, which he bought new in 1957. I spent hours
and hours listening to it until my head literally ached from having those old
bakelite Baldwin cans crushed against my young ears! I still have that radio,
and I maintain it in working condition. Yep, from as far back as I can remember,
radio in general fascinated me.
Meanwhile, back in the northern Delaware 'burbs, the kid across the street
had a pair of GE 100 mW CB walkie-talkies that transmitted on channel 14, and
we used to sit in our houses in the evenings and talk to each other. The
walkie-talkies had regenerative receivers that picked up all 23 CB channels
at the same time, which meant that we could hear lots of real CB stations.
Listening to them piqued my interest in CB radio.
I became active in CB radio while I was in Junior High School. Some of the
guys at school had CB stations, and they helped me get started in CB. In 1972,
my parents bought me a brand new
Lafayette HA-310A walkie-talkie
for Christmas. It was a 3 channel, 1.5 Watt unit that ran on 8 AA batteries.
I eventually added a battery eliminator and mounted a 1/4 wave ground plane
antenna on the roof of the house. I used that walkie for a while, then
upgraded to a second-hand JCPenneys 23 channel mobile unit, which I later
traded for a tube-type
Lafayette Comstat 25A base station.
I frequently visited our county library to do research for my school
homework. I also scoured the shelves for books on CB radio! To my dismay,
they had very few CB books, but something else caught my eye: the 1972
edition of the ARRL Radio Amateur's Handbook! I immediately checked it out
(the first of many times!) and read it with rapt fascination. When I saw
what amateur radio operators could do compared to what CBers could do,
I was blown away! I knew right then that some day I would become a ham.
Around that same time, a neighbor was cleaning out a closet, and she came
across her son's old Hallicrafters S-107 general
coverage shortwave receiver. She knew that I was a radio buff, so she gave
it to me. I spent countless hours tuning around the HF spectrum, listening
to all of the wonderful sounds. But much of my time was spent listening to
the hams chatting on SSB, and listening to the Morse code signals, wondering
what they were saying. If I wasn't hooked on ham radio already from just
reading about it, actually listening to it surely did the trick! But how does
one get started in ham radio? Hmmm...
Unfortunately, there were no hams in my area (that I knew of), so my interest
in ham radio was, sadly, put on hold. However, I learned a lot from that ARRL
Handbook. When I was about 14, I began scrounging up bits and pieces of
damaged CB antennas, and using that Handbook as my guide, I built
a wide-spaced, three-element, horizontally-polarized Yagi beam! Can you
imagine the surprise of the other CBers when they heard that this young kid
had actually built a beam antenna, and it really worked? Wow! I stayed active
in CB radio until I got into college. And yes, I'll admit it... I had a "slider"
(CB slang for a VFO), I ran a "heater" (CB slang for a linear amplifier), and
I frequently "shot skip" (CB slang for making a contact over 150 miles away).
Hey, I was young and stupid. Are you gonna tell me that you never did any of
that yourself, back when you were young and stupid?
I began college in September, 1976, at
Delaware Tech in Stanton, Delaware,
studying Electrical Engineering. The school had a club station, WB3CSM.
I joined up as soon as I learned of the club's existence. Frank Getz, N3FG,
and Bill Dykes, W3FRC (SK), were two of my electronics instructors at the
school, and they were the custodians of the club station. Frank and Bill
were my Elmers, and under their guidance, I received my Novice license on
July 27, 1977. My call sign was WB3JBG. With continued help from Frank and
Bill, I upgraded to General and then Advanced class within a few months. I
attempted the Amateur Extra test in December of 1978, but because of poor
preparation on my part, I failed the written exam. I never had any trouble
with the code, but that written exam killed me! Undaunted, I just kept on
operating CW.
My first amateur station consisted of a 1960s
Eico 723 crystal-controlled
60 Watt CW transmitter and a late-1960s
Lafayette HA-800A solid-state ham bands receiver
that covered 80m through 6m. The HA-800A drifted like mad and was
subject to hand capacitance. My antenna was a G5RV, hung as an inverted vee,
with the center at the top of 40 feet of steel TV antenna mast that I bought
from the Lafayette Radio store that was only a ten minute walk from home.
It was a simple station, all I could afford on a college kid's part-time
salary, but it worked, and I filled page after page of my logbook with
contacts. Most of my contacts were made using crystals, although Frank loaned
me an old Knight-kit V-44 "bong box" vfo for a while. After a few months,
I bought a 1950s Heath VF-1 vfo (which drifted in the opposite direction
from the receiver!). After a year or so, I sold the Lafayette receiver and
upgraded to a nice Heath SB-303 solid-state receiver with a CW filter; what
a difference! I recently found a snapshot of my station, circa about 1978,
with the VF-1 and SB-303 in place (click here to see
the picture). Shortly after the photo was taken, I bought a Heath DX-60A
transmitter and used it for a few months, until the function switch burned
up. I sold the DX-60A to a local ham, who repaired it and gave it to his
Novice grandson. I replaced the DX-60 with a Heath SB-401, the mate
for my SB-303 receiver. Wow - I finally had a real station! Unfortunately,
that old SB-401 was poorly constructed, and I had constant trouble with it
for the entire time I owned it. I was always having to work on it. I guess
that's part of the amateur radio experience. If you ever meet me in person,
ask me about the time that SB-401 went berserk and melted the glass envelopes
on two brand-new 6146B's!
I finished college in the spring of 1980, and in April, I accepted a job with
Texas Instruments in Lewisville, Texas. When
I moved to Texas in May, 1980, I requested a call sign change and received
KA5JVU. Even though I held an Advanced class license, I was given a Novice
call sign because I still held my original Novice call. That's the way the
rules were back then.
In early 1981, the FCC offered the opportunity for holders of higher-class
licenses who had not changed their call signs to request a call that reflected
their current class of license. I jumped at the chance, and I received the
Advanced class call sign KC5NG.
In 1982, I was part of a group of hams at TI Lewisville who formed the Texins
Amateur Radio Club. The club lasted until 1999, when the plant was closed
down. At its peak, the club had about 60 members, plus a club station and
a 2-meter FM repeater on 145.170 MHz. After the club shut down, the repeater
was operated by a group of local hams until 2004, when it was taken out of
service. It was later put back on the air in another location in Lewisville
by Bob Landrum, W5FKN, who still runs and maintains it to this day.
I upgraded to Amateur Extra in October, 1990, but I chose to keep my call
sign. When the Vanity Call Sign program came along in 1996, I submitted a
list of a dozen or so 1x2 call signs, and I was lucky enough to receive K5DH,
a call sign with my initials. This call had been voluntarily vacated under
the first gateway in the vanity call program. It was a little hard to get
used to sending a new call sign on CW after having used the previous one
for 15 years, but I managed!
I've always been mainly a CW operator, although I work HF mobile SSB on my
commute to and from work, hamfest trips, etc. I like to chase DX, and I have
about 240 countries to my credit, with the majority being CW contacts. I am
also a QRP (low power) buff. I've worked and confirmed all 50 U.S. states,
all continents, and many DXCC countries using my QRP gear (on CW, of course).
I take my QRP station along with me on trips whenever possible. If you
haven't tried QRP yourself, you don't know what you're missing! I have a
number of homebuilt QRP and low to medium power CW rigs (see pictures
elsewhere in this web site). I love to build, repair, and modify equipment,
and I actually spend more time drilling and soldering than I do operating. In
addition to building some of my own gear, I like restoring tube-type "boat
anchor" gear. I also have a small (but growing) collection of Morse keys.
I have been a member of the
American Radio Relay League
pretty much since the beginning, and I continue to maintain my membership.
For quite a while, I was active in the National Traffic System, handling
traffic via CW, SSB, and 2 meter FM. I was net control on various HF and 2m
traffic nets, and I served as Net Manager of the ARRL DFW Traffic Net on
2-meters for two years. I am a trained severe storm spotter, and I have
been active with Denton County ARES Skywarn since 1980. I am an accredited
Volunteer Examiner with the ARRL and W5YI VEC's.
In July, 1997, TI sold its defense operations to
The Raytheon Company. I currently
work as a Test Engineer at Raytheon's facility in McKinney, Texas.
Thanks for reading!
