A VFO, wire, power supply and telegraph key…my Novice story. In order to get my First Class Scout badge I had to learn the Morse code. Listening to 80-meter ham operators in Southern Idaho on an old radio without a cabinet while milking cows pointed me in the right direction. I was able to pass my 5 wpm Novice code test in the office of the Dean of Engineering at Utah State University (USU) during my freshman year in 1960-61. He then ordered the written test and I passed it without much problem.
My license came during finals week of the spring quarter. My call was KN7PML. I was faced with the age old question, should I study or get on the air. A friend of mine was a ham and he lived just down the hall in our dormitory. He had a long wire antenna going out to a basketball standard from his second story window. His antenna tuner was of the breadboard variety with washing machine knobs to tune with. I arranged to buy his tuner along with his Heathkit AT-1 transmitter. I had my National SW-54 receiver over my bed in my room, but was on the front side of the dorm so it was difficult to run an antenna.
We picked a night that preceded a day with the least amount of tests and I took my receiver down to his room and set it up there. I plugged in my only crystal of 7.175 MHz and began listening and calling CQ. I was very shaky and had no luck that first hour. Dave Henry, K0BBN/7 and another ham Al, K7MSR took pity on me and took a VFO, a power supply, a key and a hunk of hookup wire into the next room and set up a makeshift station using the VFO as a transmitter. Dave became my first QSO at 2115 hours local time on 29 May 1961 and Al was the second at 2130 at the great distance of 15 feet.
After the quarter was over, I took my new station home to a farm South of Burley, Idaho, but was unable to make any further QSOs during June and July. I left on a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Texas in August so was unable to use my license and it expired. Then you had to upgrade that first year or lose Novice privileges. If I were to have upgraded, the N would have been dropped and I would have become K7PML. As it turned out I returned from my mission and went back to USU to continue my schooling. I joined the Air Force ROTC and spent a lot of time studying code and theory in the MARS shack in the ROTC building and was able to go to Salt Lake City and pass my General and its 13 wpm code test. My call is now WA7AHY.
TNX Kent S. Gardner, WA7AHY
