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How I became a ham
- Thread starter vu2nan
- Start date
I came up through CB and heard that Ham Radio was the Dark Side and that they had cookies and ham sandwiches 
huge bank acct,quiet wife lotta $$$ room to turn your yard into an antenna farm lotta $$$ did i say lotta $$$?I came up through CB and heard that Ham Radio was the Dark Side and that they had cookies and ham sandwiches
Simple story here.
When I was 12 i got a black and white telly that conked out after some time, tried to repair it not hindered by any knowledge and got zapped by the 17 Kv high voltage ouch....
Normal people would stop there and take their losses, no, not me...
Bought a ssoldering iron, asked some help, and got it running again.
I was still in school and other guy's made mid wave trans mitters pirating on mid wave 1600 KHz.
All tube stuff, so a steep learning curve, getting books from the library to learn.
Then went to the FM band, tube transmitters as well up to 100 watts.
After almost being caught, i stopped that, and went for 11 meter 23 channel Am, and angry neighbours when their picture on the telly was wiped out....
When i was 25 i decided to get my license as i did, took the exams and got my ticket.
I was not really interested in talking, more building my own stuff, antenna's P.A's audio amps all tubes.
I was one of the first to go over to transistors though, no high voltages and miniature stuff to be build.
Now at almost 68 I;m still building stuff or repairing my sh*t when needed, though SMD is not funny at 67 years......
When I was 12 i got a black and white telly that conked out after some time, tried to repair it not hindered by any knowledge and got zapped by the 17 Kv high voltage ouch....
Normal people would stop there and take their losses, no, not me...
Bought a ssoldering iron, asked some help, and got it running again.
I was still in school and other guy's made mid wave trans mitters pirating on mid wave 1600 KHz.
All tube stuff, so a steep learning curve, getting books from the library to learn.
Then went to the FM band, tube transmitters as well up to 100 watts.
After almost being caught, i stopped that, and went for 11 meter 23 channel Am, and angry neighbours when their picture on the telly was wiped out....
When i was 25 i decided to get my license as i did, took the exams and got my ticket.
I was not really interested in talking, more building my own stuff, antenna's P.A's audio amps all tubes.
I was one of the first to go over to transistors though, no high voltages and miniature stuff to be build.
Now at almost 68 I;m still building stuff or repairing my sh*t when needed, though SMD is not funny at 67 years......
I also was intrigued with radio as a child. I enjoyed spinning the dial of the AM radio and hearing far away stations, and then being able to play with a shortwave radio and hearing signals from other countries. Of course, this was the early 1960s and we were all still pretty naive, so this magic was special back then.
As an older child, I realized that occasionally, there were other TV stations on some normally empty channels, as I spun the dial on the old TV. Wow, I can pick up TV stations from 90 miles away sometimes !!!??? And the discovery of radio wave propagation led me to becoming a CB and ham radio operator.
As an older child, I realized that occasionally, there were other TV stations on some normally empty channels, as I spun the dial on the old TV. Wow, I can pick up TV stations from 90 miles away sometimes !!!??? And the discovery of radio wave propagation led me to becoming a CB and ham radio operator.