{"id":13,"date":"2020-09-21T04:57:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T04:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/?p=13"},"modified":"2020-10-10T04:57:56","modified_gmt":"2020-10-10T04:57:56","slug":"20-year-hiatus-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/?p=13","title":{"rendered":"20 year hiatus (part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry\">\n\n\n<p>Have you ever taken a 20-year hiatus from anything? Intentionally or otherwise?<br><br>I\u2019ve got a couple of things I\u2019ve given up on purpose for long periods of time.&nbsp; Diet Coke is a more recent habit I quit, but that\u2019s for another day.<br><br>I can\u2019t exactly remember when I gave up on ham radio but it was before the year 2000. I know this because that is the year my license expired and I distinctly remember intentionally *not* renewing it.&nbsp;<br><br>I only ever got involved in amateur radio in a failed attempt to cut the exorbitant cost of placing long-distance calls from Japan to the United State when I was in the Navy. In those days, a 3-minute call was something like 9 bucks and 5 dollars a minute thereafter.&nbsp; I can\u2019t remember the exact cost but it was almost more than a young sailor could endure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enter amateur radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My father jumped in head first, got his license and bought some hardware and he was on the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>it took me quite a while longer before I made the effort. Soon, I had my novice and then my general license. I can\u2019t recall my first license and I don\u2019t think I ever got on the air with it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While I was still in Japan, I bought that great used HF rig. A handsome juggernaut from years earlier &#8211; a Kenwood TS-830S. It was as heavy, bulky and hot, but it was a real ham radio covering the most popular HF bands.&nbsp; I set up a few dipole antenna and did a few local contacts, but I have little memory of any of that.&nbsp; It was nearly impossible to get permission to put an antenna up in base housing. Still, I tried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once I left Japan in late 91, I went back state-side to visit my father before heading off to a second trip to San Angelo, Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever taken a 20-year hiatus from anything? Intentionally or otherwise? I\u2019ve got a couple of things I\u2019ve given up on purpose for long periods of time.&nbsp; Diet Coke &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","anons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/straightkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}