May 30, 1999

By David Hersman,  WB8NXA

    Ham Radio has been an enjoyable and useful hobby to me for over 25 years.  I used to see advertisements for joining the Quarter Century Wireless Association, and it seemed so incredible to me as a young person, that some people had been in the hobby so long!  Now I've passed that milestone myself!

    My first radio experience was with a "wireless microphone" circuit I built on a block of wood when I was 14 years old.  I really didn't do much with it, but, for a little while, had a good time playing Hank Williams records over nearby radios in Ashtabula, Ohio. (1963 or 64)

    A couple years later, as I began to become more serious about a girl friend, another good friend was totally immersed in Amateur Radio.  He lived about 60 miles from me, but I had a few occasions to visit his "shack,"  see his "rig," and scores of QSL cards.

    Looking back, I wonder why the "ham bug" didn't bite me then. I guess it was my preoccupation with other things, and maybe I felt this friend's total immersion was a little off balance for me.

    In the meantime, I graduated from Ashtabula High School, attended God's Bible School and College in Cincinnati, and in 1969, married the prettiest girl in the world!  We moved to Greenbrier County, West Virginia, in 1971, with our 8 month old daughter, Victoria.

   The next year, we started a "camp meeting" near our remote home near Cornstalk, West Virginia.  One of our camp evangelists was the one and only George Hawthorn.  He was a Scotch-born preacher, well-known for his professional accordion talents, his out-spoken witness for Jesus Christ, and his hilarious way of telling stories.

    Upon arrival, George was almost immediately engaged in locating the proper trees in which to string up his portable dipole.  A large cherry tree was only a few feet from our porch, and it wasn't long before WA8IBS was communicating with his wife, Madeline, through a phone patch in the Barberton, Ohio area!

    The "ham bug" bit me, and before the camp was over, I was learning the Morse code.  George got on the radio, and found some local contacts for me in nearby Lewisburg, West Virginia. Among these were Ed Knight,  Orrin McKinney, and Francis Womak, whose call signs I don't remember.  A couple of the others are friends yet today, Norm Loudermilk (WA8AVZ) and Jim Coleman (WB8DMS.)

   Mr. Womak gave me the Novice test in the fall of 1972, in his office at the historic Old Stone Presbyterian Church at Lewisburg. I soon became WN8NXA.

    At first I didn't have any equipment, and very little money, but in January 1973, I made my first contacts using an old Eico 720 CW transmitter, and a Knight R-100 (if I remember right) receiver. I'll never forget the thrill of hearing the tones of my own call sign being tapped out in Morse code, and realizing I had made contact with the outside world!  That first one soon faded out, and I lost him, but later that night I had a real QSO with a station down in Tennessee. At the end of this complete conversation, I felt like a real "ham" indeed!

   After passing my General Class test in April 1973, I became WB8NXA.  In those days you had to travel great distances to a testing site where stern FCC employees administered the code receiving test to the whole group at once. The only way to pass was with at least a perfect minute of copy. This meant at least 65 characters in a row at 13 words per minute.

   I added a borrowed, and homebuilt, "modulator" to the Eico CW transmitter, and used a microphone from an old reel-to-reel tale recorder to get on the air with about 65 watts AM. Single Sideband (SSB) had become the standard for voice communication, but the "old timers" were always glad to hear my AM signal. Others called it  Ancient  Modulation!

   The next year I took an additional written test and upgraded to Advanced Class.  I wish I could say I kept upgrading each year, but it was actually 18 years, 1992, before I jumped into it, and upgraded tot he highest class, Amateur Extra.

    Along the way, I taught the Morse Code to all our children, including two adopted ones. Our boys had two old Swan 270Bs, with which they "worked the world."  Two meter communication became very useful to us. My wife traveled pretty far from home giving piano lessons, and I was often away giving flight instruction. The radios were a real blessing to us.

    If you think amateur radio is just for rich people, be sure to read my page on Cost of Hamming. You can afford to enjoy and use this fascinating and educational communication.

                                                                                                                                        73 de WB8NXA