[Fists] First CW QSO

[Jim Reid]

> So what about the rest of you FISTS, do you still remember 
> your first QSO?

Yes,  even though it was about 52 years ago,  with
Stan,  in Oroville, Ca.  I lived in Tulare,  Ca some 200 or
so miles S. of Oroville.  I,  in the Central Valley,  he up
in the hills N. of Sacramento. I had all "worked over"
WW II surplus stuff;  small little rcvr and xmtrs which
had been aircraft gear.  Rcvr was a BC something or other
and the transmitter was an ARC-5.  40 meter gear in which
the filaments had to be re-wired,  and power supplies built
for each to operate from household current rather than
aircraft 400 cycle power.  Took me a long while to mod
the gear,  and the transmit power supply was twice as
big as the little ARC-5,  hi.  I loved to watch the power
supply tubes as I operated the key.  Mercury vapor tubes
would brighten and the voltage regulator tubes would
light up a sort of maroonish purple color -- also smelled
good,  hi.  I have no idea with whom I had my first phone
QSO a few years later;  this time I had built up an EF Johnson
Viking II transmitter with a pair of 6146's in the final.  Of course,
it was both CW and AM phone,  no SSB at that time.

Do to a home fire in 1973,  lost all my logs from the first 20+ years
of my hobby,  so cannot find the first AM phone QSO.  Have
forgotten the call of Stan in Oroville, and as you,  never worked
that first QSO station again,  that I can recall.

Nostalgia stuff!

73,  Jim  KH7M, #4563