Hello All:
This thread is a bit amusing, since it caused me to remember 1950, and taking
my first ham test.
I had an interest in "radio" from a very young age and built a spark
transmitter (with the help of my scoutmaster) using a model-T ignition coil, at
the age of eight. Into my folks long-wire receiving antenna we could transmit
code for about four blocks.
Our junior high school principal was a ham. He tutored three of us until he
felt we were ready and then he, and our parents, put us on a Greyhound bus one
Friday evening to travel from Spokane, Washington to Seattle to take our tests.
That bus ride lasted all night long. When we got off the bus we walked quite a
distance to the Federal Building, and waited in the cold, wind and rain until
the examiners arrived at nine o'clock.
We three were the only ones there, and their mood can best be described as
"grim".
In those days there were 100 questions and most/many or all were essay answers,
complete with hand drawn schematics.
And, if I remember correctly, the passing grade was 90%.
Well, we all passed! Soon we were on the air and making contacts, CW, of
course. Phone equipment was expensive.
I worked a lot of 40M CW throughout high school. In those days the CW portion
of the band was very much segregated according to skill. Only the top-ops
(good fists) QSO'd on the low end of the band.
It wasn't that a mediocre fist couldn't go down "there", it was simply that
nobody would talk to you. (Something sound a bit familiar?)
While I never had any phone gear during the 1950's and 1960's, I listened to
phone a lot.
Now, this does sound familiar: What I'm reading here the last few days sounds
like echos from the past.
Must be a case of extreme LDE.
73, Barrie, W7ALW (vanity, but also my original call)
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See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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