My interest in ham radio goes back to the mid-1970s when my father started hanging out with CB radio people. They had creative handles like “The Coffee Man” (dad) and “Snowman” (his friend Jim). The whole family got into the CB action for a time. It was sort of the thing to do, what with movies like Smokey and the Bandit, White Line Fever, and Convoy glorifying CB radio usage. It seemed like everyone had a CB in those days.
Of course, CB isn’t amateur radio, and most hams seemed to view CB radio people as ‘dirty’ and undisciplined.
Jim (aka Snowman) was also a ham radio operator with an extensive shack set up in his house. Jim pushed my father into learning Morse code with the goal of obtaining an amateur license. Even by that time, CB had developed a bad rep, and ham radio seemed like a more mature hobby. Plus, CB had some serious limitations when it came to radio range and equipment options.
I made a halfhearted attempt to learn Morse code from the label on a cheap set of walkie talkie radios (these were also quite popular at the time).
Our ambitious plans to learn ham radio ended abruptly in the late 70s when my family unexpectedly packed up and moved to Michigan.
Fast forward a few years to 1983 and my enlistment into the US Navy.
I joined the Navy to become a Nuclear Electronics Technician; but, halfway through boot camp, someone discovered that I hadn’t passed a color vision test. Apparently, being colorblind disqualifies you from working with electronics and most any other interesting job in the US Navy.
I sat in a room with the Navy’s rating manual and a couple of guys trying to pressure me into picking a random career field without knowning anything about any of them. I felt like I was in a room with a used car salesman and his finance officer, both of them browbeating me into making a snap decision without the benefit of knowing what I was getting myself into.
Finally, one of the guys, annoyed and looking at his watch, asked somewhat randomly, “Hey, do you know Morse code?”
And like a dummy, I said, “Sure, I learned it when I was 11.” (I actually hadn’t really learned it) and signed on to become a Cryptologic Technician.
I spent the next 9 months learning Morse code, radio wave propagation theory, and general electronics at Pensacola, Florida. I never learned how to send code, just copy it. And that’s what I did for the next few years… every day, day after day, 8 to 12 hours a day. There were days when I thought I heard Morse code in everything from buzzing fluorescent lights to the clacking of the wheels on a passing train. It was not a glamourous job or even fun, most of the time.
I spent my first few years overseas in the Philippines, rarely calling back home, and when I did call it was very costly. Prohibitively so. It was about this time my father broached the subject of ham radio again. I made a halfhearted attempt at studying for a license while deployed aboard a ship (The USS Midway – they had a cool ham (MARS) shack) but it didn’t happen.
In the early 1990s, while stationed in Japan, I got my ‘Novice’ Amateur radio license. That callsign is a faded memory and I have no record of it.
My father obtained his license shortly thereafter and although we spent a lot of time planning to make contact over the air, it never happened, at least not until I returned stateside. Somewhere along the line, I bought a fun little 10 meter mobile rig at Radio Shack (the HTX-100). For $259 + extended service agreement and cables and antennas, I was finally able to set up daily ‘calls’ with my father over the air.
Unfortunately, my time on the mainland was short and I was sent to Hawaii where, once again, my battle with the military to erect an antenna prevented me from any meaningful ham activity.
I returned to the mainland and settled down in Omaha where I’ve lived ever since. Although I did get on the air a bit, my ham hobby fell to the wayside, and eventually, I fell silent. My ticket expired in 2000 and I didn’t renew it. My father’s license expired a couple of years later. By that time he turned his HF gear over to me and it sat in my garage until I regrettably sold off everything of value.
And here we are, in 2020, the year that changed our world. And, randomly, I decided to take up amateur radio once again.