[Milsurplus] First QSO 55 Years Ago

[Malcolm Bay]

Thanks Gene for this great piece of nostalgia.
I am the same age as you (1952) and started my ham adventures at much 
the same time.
Cheers & 73,
Malcolm
M0MBO
Buckinghamshire, UK.

On 11/04/2021 23:27, Gene Smar via Milsurplus wrote:
> Gents:
>
>       Today is the 55th anniversary of my first QSO.  I was 14 at the time.
> It was Easter Monday 1966 and I had spent all weekend trying to get a silly
> antenna from Pop Electronics working on 80 and 40 meters.  The antenna was
> two sections of EMT mechanically coupled together (that was the first
> problem) and then connecting to two sets of guy wires at the top that were
> supposed to bring the array into resonance on 80 and 40 M.  I think I used a
> Coke bottle (remember them?) as a base insulator but used a heavy cardboard
> mailing tube to "insulate" the first couple of feet of EMT from the mounting
> bracket that was lag bolted into the back yard wooden fence.  I tried to
> solder the coax center conductor to the base of the EMT (second big
> problem.)  I also bolted the twisted coax shield to an aluminum clothes line
> prop (not sure how many of you even know what that is) that I had "borrowed"
> from my mother and driven into the dirt aside of the Coke bottle.
>
>       I won't bore you with details of my first two pages of logbook entries.
> Suffice it so say that they were filled with identical entries of "CQ"
> followed by "NO QSO," all on the same 7 MC freq of my sole 40M Novice band
> crystal.
>
>       On that Monday morning (a school holiday) I decided to reconfigure the
> antenna materials into a single 40M dipole.  As our house lot was about 70
> feet deep, it fit perfectly North-to-South.  I used the EMT to support the
> "hot" end of the dipole but the shield-connected end of the insulated house
> wire had to touch the peak of the roof and lie on the asphalt shingles.
> This is important.
>
>       I managed to jump the four feet off the roof onto the front porch roof
> and into my bedroom window safely and ran down to the kitchen where I had
> set up my Knight-Kit T-60/R55A station.  I tuned up the T-60 (no SWR bridge
> yet so I was hoping I could get the thing to load properly) and started to
> call "CQ" again.  In between transmit attempts I tuned around my crystal
> freq with the R-55A, listening for replies.
>
>       After the third "CQ" (I logged every one of them), I heard my callsign
> coming back to me.  Due to my excitement I missed the callsign of the other
> station so I sent "QRZ?" (not bad for a Novice!) and heard my callsign
> coming back again.  This time I heard ".DE VE2AOU K."  I am quite sure I
> stopped breathing for a few seconds before I shouted, to anyone and to no
> one in particular, "I'M TALKING TO CANADA!"
>
>       I continued with the QSO, shakily copying what information I could from
> this obviously experienced and kind foreign Ham who deigned to talk with an
> American Novice and sent him my street address and town so I could make it
> easier for him to send his QSL card.  (QRZ.COM was just a glimmer in N7IKQ's
> eyes at the time, I'm quite sure.  And the Callbook was something I'd have
> to save up for for quite a long time.)
>
>       Remember that wire draped over our roof shingles?  At this point in the
> QSO I heard my mother, who had been cleaning in our second floor bedrooms,
> yell down to me, "What are you doing down there?"  Obviously, I couldn't
> disrupt my contact with a foreign Ham; I kept asking for his mailing address
> at about 5 WPM.  That's when the power to my station failed and the
> equipment panels went dark.  My mother had come into my shack (her kitchen)
> and literally pulled the plug on my first QSO.  Apparently my 60 Watts of
> Novice-frequency RF was finding its way into the second floor light fixture
> from the antenna wire only feet away on the other side of the ceiling and
> causing the ten-Watt bulb to blink on and off with my Morse transmissions.
> If I recall her words correctly, I believe she said something like, "You're
> gonna blow up the house."
>
>       I explained to her that it was just me sending signals to my first Ham
> contact - he was in CANADA, Mom!  I told her I could fix the problem (I had
> hoped.)  I found a 25 Watt bulb and installed it in place of the 10-Watter.
> I replugged my station into the wall outlet and did a quick "VVV VVV VVV DE
> WN3EWV" to prove to my mother - and to myself - that my theory of "the
> antenna wires are too close to the bulb" was correct.
>
>       A Happy Ending:  About a week later I received a QSL card from Ron Trew
> VE2AOU.  It included my full Novice callsign but misspelled first name, a
> "?" for the surname and no house number in the address.  It took me only two
> seconds to realize that one of my Elmer's (and I've forgotten his callsign
> after all these years) had worked at the local post office (18218) and
> recognized me as the likely Novice.  He made sure I got the card.
>
>       I added dipole wires for 80M and 20M to that initial 40M set and had a
> blast on the bands from home for a few years until I went away to college.
> (My first DX was on that 20M wire - G3GHB.)  Four years later I graduated
> from college with a BSEE and continued my Hamming with my first Drake
> station (TR-3CW.)  Since then I've enjoyed many, but certainly not all,
> aspects that our fine hobby has to offer.  I've made friends along the way
> and learned quite a bit of esoterica that has helped me professionally.
> (Like sunspots can wreak havoc with the electric grid or that 900 MHz and
> 2.7 GHz signals ordinarily don't travel very far.)
>
>
>      73 de
> Gene Smar  AD3F
> Rockville, MD
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Milsurplus mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/milsurplus
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:Milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

-- 
Malcolm Bay
07730 810522
malcolm.bay at ntlworld.com
malcolm.bay at malcomm.com