ML> Hi Ed!   
       
   ML>EV> I learned about Ham Radio in the Autumn of 1956 and hadn't heard   
   ML>EV> about SSB until a few years later.   
       
   ML> I started down the radio trail at around 10 years of age in the 4th grade   
   ML> here in College Station, Texas.  I could read at 3 years of age and in   
   ML> the second grade I convinced my Dad to buy me a crystal set with the   
   ML> little arm and wire on it plus get me a little headphone set.  I wound my   
   ML> first coil on a Quaker Oatmeal box and stunned my Dad when I let him hear   
   ML> WTAW-AM here at Teas A&M on 1150Khz on it!  WTAW for (Watch The Aggies   
   ML> Win) in 1929 - one of only six "W" call signs West of the Mississippi   
   ML> River.   
       
   There was another (W5LLX), but he's gone silent now.   
       
   ML> But he was REALLY stunned when I let him hear WOAI in San Antonio from   
   ML> that same crystal set 150 miles away, grin.  My Uncle Bill Schuster, at   
   ML> that time the major competitor to Allied Electronics, gave me a 78 RPM   
   ML> record set that taught people CW and I learned it from them.  From which   
   ML> came my original call WN5WQN in 1952.  The FCC then created the Extra   
   ML> Class license.  My Dad took me on a summer vacation to Erie, Pennsylvania   
   ML> to the Buffalo, New York,FCC Office, where I took the Extra Class in   
   ML> 1953.  Passed it.  At that time the youngest person ever in the USA to be   
   ML> awarded the Extra Class and I still hold the call sign W5WQN.  I really   
   ML> have no interest even to this time in 2012 in anything but CW.  Of   
   ML> interest I am typing this in the exactly same room in the family house in   
   ML> College Station where that crystal set was built. I still have the lead   
   ML> crystal with the cat whisker pointer on it in my archives.   
       
   ML> I probably passed one of my most important milestones in my life when   
   ML> from this historic house here in College Station, I was able to maintain   
   ML> a full copy contact with a CW friend of mine on 40 Meter CW at the   
   ML> Sunrise line to Perth, Australia with even down to ONE WATT of power to   
   ML> him in the 1950's!  Still in the dark, I took my four cell flashlight out   
   ML> into the back yard darkness that new moon night.  I pointed it up in the   
   ML> sky toward Australia.  That flashlight had about one watt of a light bulb   
   ML> in it. As I looked upward into the sky to how far the light beam went, my   
   ML> whole life changed.  It hit me.  If one watt could bounce up and down off   
   ML> the sky and sea and get to Perth where even thousands of people could   
   ML> hear me and that flashlight only went up that far...  I realized just how   
   ML> important that something far bigger than humanity had to be there and   
   ML> what my mission had to be to help carry everyone upward that I   
   ML> encountered.  While not telling them lies, stealing from them, nor   
   ML> cheating them with what I learned.   
       
   ML> The family also has rural property here which formally has the licensed   
   ML> site for W5WQN now out near the Navasota River some 20 miles away.  From   
   ML> that site I wound up being the only ham in the world ever to apply for an   
   ML> original ARRL DXCC award with THREE HUNDRED QSL confirmed countries - all   
   ML> on 40 Meter CW only.  The total now is just at 320 and my hope is that I   
   ML> can make it to Honor Role only on 40CW before I pass away.  I've worked   
   ML> enough to make that, but no QSL from a few of them.  And the longest I   
   ML> have ever waited for a QSL or answer to my College Station mail site is   
   ML> thirty-five (35) years.  I sent my needed QSL to a contact in Liberia   
   ML> just before Kiddafi took over.  Never heard from my friend.  35 years   
   ML> later, I got a QSL from him!  When he got out of prison he got to check   
   ML> his log book and his QSL was one of those cards that was in that original   
   ML> DXCC application.   
       
   ML> Chasing DX on the Gray Line after these countries in the 1974 era, I got   
   ML> so tired of fighting that tap, tap, tap every morning or evening that I   
   ML> learned was the Russion OTH megawatt radar!  I couldn't see why it   
   ML> legally ought to be in the ham bands.  The hams all over the world hated   
   ML> it.  By then I was a professional radar engineer as well as other things,   
   ML> having actually built the first color weather radar at Texas A&M back in   
   ML> the 1950's that one of my mentors, Dr. George Huebner, W5GDK had designed   
   ML> here.  I thought I might be able to confuse things.  So with a scope and   
   ML> precise computer system, assembly language and the original HeathKit H89   
   ML> 64K computer kit I had built, I synced the inbound Woodpecker to my 40CW   
   ML> KW homebuilt system and my cubical quad array.  I sent TEST, then pinged   
   ML> the echo back over the poles to the Woodpecker.  Gently sliding my   
   ML> frequency down toward the Pecker site.  Incoming!  Poof!  In less than   
   ML> two minutes no more Woody.  When it quit I sent "DE W5WQN" on a little   
   ML> different frequency to make things legal.  After about a month of this,   
   ML> Woody vanished from the ham bands and never came back. The hams around   
   ML> the world were estatic!  But this never surfaced outside of my work for   
   ML> about ten years more.  When I took the logs, plus the audio recordings   
   ML> for the events to the monthly FidoNet meetings at Mann's BBQ in Bryan and   
   ML> played the tape for them to hear.  To the horror of one of the Fido users   
   ML> at that time who had come to Texas A&M for his degree.  He turned out to   
   ML> be the US military guy that had attempted to figure out a way to defeat   
   ML> Woody and was thinking of the same thing back a decade or so!  But when   
   ML> Woody vanished from the ham bands, they knew they'd been figured out but   
   ML> they never knew how.  Until then!   
       
   ML> Poof!  Here came the USA RF4 jet reconnisance training planes from the   
   ML> Austin, Texas Bergstrom Air Force Base.  Flying day and night at 600 MPH   
   ML> over my station site at about 500 feet off the ground using it for   
   ML> training and surveilance for years after that!  The neighbors never knew   
   ML> why and they HATED these runs,  And it gets bigger and bigger but no   
   ML> point in going into all the mess that resulted from this which still goes   
   ML> on one way or another even today.   
       
   ML> I'm now 73 years old.  Still on the air with even far more modern stuff   
   ML> and way up there in computer programming and real-time professional   
   ML> template work that is unique to my understanding of life and things.  All   
   ML> based on that incredible night back in the 1950's.  When I shined that   
   ML> one watt flashlight up in the sky and realized what life was really all   
   ML> about.  And what I believe our real purpose here on earth is.   
       
   ML> To carry everyone we meet upward and maximize their choices for what to   
   ML> do in life.  But since I am a human being too, and that has to be my   
   ML> right as well -I try to do it for them at the same time as I do it for   
   ML> myself.   
       
   ML> All because of ham radio.   
       
   That's a nice story, Mike.   
       
   ML> -... -.-   
       
   ?   
       
       
   Regards,   
       
   Roger   
      
   --- D'Bridge 3.9   
    * Origin: NCS BBS (1:3828/7)