NE6I California

In 1978, I applied for a new 2X1 call. Back then, the 2X1's could not be had as a vanity call. One had to apply for a call sign change and the FCC would issue the next available 2X1 call (to Extra Class licensees only). I was watching the call signs issued and trying to time my application to get an NC6 or ND6 call. I'd been watching closely and thought I had the timing down perfectly. I didn't though, and wound up with NE6I. At first, I was quite disappointed but I was stuck with it. Over time, I grew to love it. In fact, it's amazingly efficient in CW pile ups. I can send my call twice in the time it takes many stations to send their call once!

As a Novice, I got into the ARRL Novice Roundup contest. Thus began my long time interest in contesting. In 1976 or '77, one of the members of the Southern California Contest Club invited me to join. He sent me a copy of the club bulletin along with a membership form. I jumped on it!

The club was small, and meeting attendance was light, but I quickly made friends with some other young guys: WB6ZVC (now N6TR), WA6OTU (now N5OT) and WB6KJI (later AA6RX, now N6AN). I learned a lot from them along with N6AA, N6TJ, K5KT, and N6ZZ among others.

Somewhere along the way in the 1980's, the club needed a new bulletin editor. I don't remember how I got suckered in, but I did. Almost immediately, N6TJ called me and gave me a piece of advice that I never forgot. Jim told me that the club bulletin was the glue that held the club together, and thus it was very important that I produce an entertaining and useful bulletin. Make it something that the members really look forward to reading every month, and time it shortly before the next meeting so that members will be excited to come, he said. I took his advice to heart, and tried to make the bulletin something fun to read.

A couple of years later, the Club President stepped down and we began trying to coax someone else to take the post. After several months of trying without success, someone nudged me into it. For a year and a half, I wore the badge of "Interim President" in an attempt to have someone else step up. I finally gave in and dropped the "Interim".

By the late 80's it was time for me to turn over the reins to someone else. In 1989, my job took me from Antelope Valley to San Diego and I could no longer make the meetings. I've remained a member to this day, however.

I've never been able to put up much of a station in San Diego, and in fact I now live in a home with an HOA. I can barely sneak up some low profile antennas but never-the-less have been able to continue as a little pistol contester and DXer. I still work a few new ones each year, and have pecked and clawed my way to 320 countries confirmed. I also collect prefixes and long ago attained the WPX Honor Roll. I dream of completing 5BWAZ someday but with 11 remaining, mostly on 80 meters, it's only a dream.

My initial interest in ham radio was actually fueled by toy walkie-talkies when I was about 10 years old. My best friend got a pair for Xmas, and we had a ball with them. Some nights, we could hear some man with a booming voice talking to others. We couldn't hear the others but he was really loud. We tried and tried to contact him but he never responded. In those days, toy walkie talkies had broadband receivers and crystal controlled transmitters. He was on CB Channel 19 and we were on Channel 14. No wonder he never answered us!

Later in science class at school, we had to do a project and then do a show and tell. I think my dad and I built a little volcano or something like that. However, one of the kids brought a wireless transmitter and broadcast his voice to an AM radio! It was magic! I couldn't believe it! I ran home that afternoon and told my parents about it. I couldn't stop talking about it. And then one day, they bought me a little AM transmitter kit. I built it and began "broadcasting!" I was on-the-air! A couple of years later, I accidentally discovered that my toy CB walkie talkie (I now had my own!) could be heard at 108 MHz on the FM radio. I had no idea why at the time (it was the fourth harmonic of my 27 MHz signal) but now I was really cool! I was simulcasting music on AM and FM!

All of this interest in radio did not go unnoticed by my mom. One day she showed me an article in the newspaper about the local amateur radio club putting on a Novice license class. "What's amateur radio" and "what's a novice?" I asked. She said she thought it was ham radio where you could talk to other hams on shortwave radio. Heck, I didn't even now what "shortwave radio" was, and neither did she! But we agreed that I should go to the classes. I had no idea what I was going to do once I had a license, but I had to have one!

And as they say, the rest is history. I really had no interest in electronics before that. I just liked radio, and wanted to be a DJ like my heroes on AM and FM radio. But, as you know, you have to learn about electronics to get your ham license. And when your equipment breaks, you have to figure out what's wrong and fix it. Slowly, this did become interesting to me, and by golly, I wound up with a technical career in the telecommunications industry. So not only has ham radio provided me decades of fun, but it's also provided me with a successful living! And when it gets right down to it, it can all be traced back to that pair of toy walkie-talkies that were given to my best friend at Xmas by his parents one year! Wow!