Radio's Rip Van Winkle

This story is about my reawakening interest in ham radio after a 40 year layoff. It originally appeared in the DX Magazine for Sept./Oct. 1997. For more info on The DX Magazine check out their web site

Several of my high school friends and I decided to get our ham licenses after reading about the new Novice license program in an electronics magazine in 1954. I got my code speed up to 5 wpm quickly and was licensed as WN0VBS. I got on the air using war surplus equipment, modified per old issues of QST, on 40M with a folded dipole made from TV twin lead. I worked on my code speed and received my general class license in a few months, with call W0VBS.

One of my old QSL cards

I saw an article in QST on a multi-band vertical, 44 feet high. Soon, my parents' back yard was sliced up to accommodate a bunch of radials for the vertical. I should mention that my dad had been a ham in 1911, before the government started issuing licenses, so was quite understanding about the modifications to the back yard. I began working DX and found it a lot of fun, even with only 100W of output power.

A couple of vintage QSL cards

A card from what must have been one of the first Dxpeditions (Feb. 1955).

I continued to work on my code speed and received a 30 wpm certificate from the ARRL. After graduating from High School in 1955, I decided to go to college and pursue a degree in Electrical Engineering, which took all of my time and then some (this was when about 75% of the engineering students were returning GI's and were very serious!).

Me and my '57 Karmann Ghia at the University of Minnesota in my guise as a parking lot attendant in May 1961 shortly before getting my B. E. E. Look closely and you can see W0VBS on the license plate.

I dropped out of Ham radio and got busy with other things, like a career, family, other hobbies, etc. I didn't feel that I needed to play with electronics since I was already spending most of my time in my day job with it. I let my license lapse and only listened to short wave radio occasionally.

After the kids were grown up and on their own (both are engineering graduates of the University of Illinois), I found that I had some spare time so in 1995 I purchased a Drake R-8 receiver and began listening to short wave radio seriously again. I soon started practicing code via W1AW and decided to attempt to get a Ham license again. I passed the General Exam in Feb. '96 and the Extra in April and then heard that the Vanity program was going to kick in. Back in the 50's, the only people that had two-letter calls were old-timers that had received their licenses in the 20's so I was excited about getting a unique call. I received my first choice, W9RB. I purchased a Drake TR7 and QRO 2000 amp, put up a Uni-Hat CTSVR vertical and got back on the air in Nov. '96. I have gotten back into the swing of DXing and have worked over 100 countries, including VK0IR, as of May '97. I'm even thinking about combining a vacation with some DXing from a more exotic location than Illinois. 73 and see you in the pile-ups.

This doesn't have anything to do with ham radio but is a seriously cute picture. While in Japan on business in 1996, I spotted a Japanese gentleman riding along on his bike with 3 dogs in downtown Nagoya. I asked if I could take his picture and he motioned for me to get on the bike. The dog in the front basket obviously wasn't too confident of my bicycling ability.