I was introduced to Amateur Radio in 1956 while in the 9th grade of Jr. High School when I was visiting a friend from school. We went flying through his house and when we passed through the back room , I stopped dead in my tracks and there on one wall of the room was a mass of tall cabinets with meters switches and lights, reaching to the ceiling and his father was sitting at a desk talking into a microphone. "CQ DX, CQ DX, CQ DX, this is W5LGH, Whiskey Five Little Green Horn." After he turned and spoke to me, he got a call from someone with a funny accent. He told me he was talking to a man in Africa!! No Way !, I thought.
A few weeks later after a few more visits, I was spending my time studying an old license manual that my friend's mother and father gave me. Not only was his father a ham but also his mother! 
Her call was W5LVT, Whiskey Five Little Vacuum Tube. I finally received my license in October of 1956 and since I hadn't quite talked my parents into getting me some equipment, I spent my weekends at the home of W5LGH and W5LVT pounding on their straight key. Too bad I had to use their old xtal controlled rig over in the corner of the room instead of that nice 75A4 / 32V3 Collins Line on the other side. In a few months I had my own equipment: a Johnson Viking II and SX99 Halicrafter receiver. I will never forget one night on 15 meter CW when I called CQ and got a call from ZL1APM in New Zealand. This was my first experience with DXing (Another Chapter) and I never stopped chasing it. (well, I did chase something else while in High School!)
During my High School days at Texarkana, Arkansas , I spent my spare time between chassing girls and hamming. In those days (1957-1960), most of our local QSOs took place on 80 meters, after school & homework. Let us never forget the old Nucklehead Net on 80 meters! Two other hams that went to school with me: K5JBZ and K5VYL; on the other side of town in Texas were: K5KMX and K5AVH; in nearby Atlanta, Texas were: K5GAT and K5MFA; and in Bonham & Kilgore, Texas were W5VYY and K5BSY. We had a pretty large group and most all of us had met at hamfests or were close enough to visit. All of these guys except for one are still active and QSOs are few and far between but the memories will always be there!
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Walter Ashe Print | Printed by World Radio Labs | Poplular QSL for Texans |
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Another Texan!! | Printed by Pan Am Airlines | Printed by G.E. / ARRL Log |
It seemed, in the 50s and 60s, all the Well Known Radio Supply Houses were offering their own brand of QSL cards like those above. This brings back memories of the equiptment we used in the 50s and the prices compared to those today. What fun it was to build your own Heathkit! A chance for us PO Folks to get into radio the cheap route.
$3.45 each ! at Peterson Radio, Council Bluffs, Ia.
I was so poor, I couldn't afford a VFO so I took the 3 little screws out of the Xtal cases and took out the Xtal and rubbed it on powdered graphite to move the frequency.
If you get out your magnifying glass, you might notice the W2DGW QSL above is for 27 mhz. This was a QSO from the 11 Meter WAS Contest which was a last desperate try by the ARRL to hold on to the 11 Meter band. It became the Citizen Band in 1958. The one thing I remember about 11 Meters is the QRM from Hospital Diathermy Machines which operated on 27 mhz also. Even with this, I had a lot of contacts on this band and it was fun while it lasted. Let us hope this doesn't happen as mentioned in the latest Letter from the ARRL, dated September, 1996!!! Donate to the Frequency Defense Fund!
My first Field Day experience was in 1959 at Lake Texarkana (now Lake Wright Patman.) We setup our equiptment on a hill top across from the Dam. It was a great location for our 1-A station which was set up in the back of a large Plumbing Truck (provided by the father of K5AVH.) The generator was placed some distance away in the woods. The Texarkana Gazette was notified and they came out for a visit and brought their photographer for our extra 100 points. The Photo (23k jpeg) appeared in the next mornings edition. The photographer placed me behind the VFO and told me to Tune it! I will never live down that photo! hihi. Left to Right, K5HYB on the left, K5KMX operating the Radio, and K5AVH keeping log. We had 5 or 6 operators that day and night with a lot of visitors dropping by and it was as much fun as the one I took part in, two years ago.
I am still trying to Remember!
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