Your most memorable events as a ham

One nice thing I've found in ragchewing on the bands are the stories hams tell of some of their most enjoyable times as a ham. It can be anything from a camping trip with their radio buddies, or a new high contest score, a rare DX, or maybe unusually good band conditions during one of the cycle peaks. Sometimes it is a project that they completed, or a new mode that they tried. Maybe it was an opportunity to help someone in need, providing public service.

For me, there have been several "high water" marks in the hobby. Perhaps the first was when I was still in high school. There was a spring break I shared with another ham friend, during the sunspot peak of the late 80s, which was so much fun. All sorts of new countries coming in, and we tried out RTTY and AMTOR, as well as packet! We worked all the bands, day and night. We even competed against one another. Both of us still vividly recall those times whenever we get together.

There have been a couple of others. Like a picnic out in the desert and an attempt to hoist up a 160m dipole (didn't work to well, but that's beside the point&#33. Or my first field day, when as a teenage kid, I nervously took over a CW station from a veteran op in the middle of the night on 40 meters. Most recently, being able to work Europe on 6m from my home QTH here in Tucson, AZ, a rare event indeed! And my first QSO with the Antarctica research station, from the club station at Arizona State University.

There are as many good stories as there are hams.

What are yours?

 

I have several "fun" points I remember using ham radio.  One was being the first contact for a young lady (11 years old) that just received her license in the mail.  As soon as she got it, she got on her dad's station and called CQ on ten meters.  I was her first contact she maked using her own call sign.

Another time I was listening to a somewhat local repeater (in the Chicago suburbs).  Another local ham who worked for a major airline was calling users on the repeater to get weather conditions in the Chicago area.  (He worked in the cockpit with the pilots and was able to use his HT in flight.)  I was on my HT talking with him and monitored the input to the repeater and could hear him easily.  I responded back to him on the repeater output and he was able to hear me.  What makes this so special is we were both using Icom 32 AT HTs with rubber ducky antennas and only five watts of power.  I was in the Chicago suburbs and he was 150 miles north of the Washington state/Canadian boarder at 45,000 ft.

Yet another time I was able to do an HT to HT simplex chat.  Not a big deal normally.  But he was north of Green Bay I was in the Chicago suburbs.  Good old Tropo.

 

One nice thing I've found in ragchewing on the bands are the stories hams tell of some of their most enjoyable times as a ham.

    My fun in time was having a rag chew with General George Washington while crossing the Delaware, Benjamin Franklin while signing the Declaration of Independance, Marconi on his first wireless transmissions to England, Paul Revere yelling the British are coming, the British are coming.

Of course I am only kidding, but want to bring out from some if they have been able to have a ragchew with many celebrities who are plentiful as hams of today. I can mention two that were hams and are now gone, passed on.

    How about it? Anyone talk to VIP's of today?

 

I too have heard of the many experiences of some of the older hams.  Compared to them, my experiences seem fairly boring.  But, to me, they are excellent memories.

When I was first licensed over 10 years ago, I vividly remember an event involving amateur radio.  My father and I were members of the Rainbow Canyons Amateur Radio Club (RCARC) in Cedar City, UT.  The Utah Summer Games Committee requested the RCARC make sure a mountainous trail for an equestrian race was clear and well marked for the participants.  My father and I volunteered as we both had off road motorcycles.  We had just bought new HT's and were very willing to help.

We drove the trail well ahead of the participants and marked the trail so they could easily see the race course.  We stopped often and checked in with 'net control'.  In fact, we stopped sometimes just so we could talk on the radios.  

Eventually, we finished the trail not far ahead of the winning horses.  All of the participants thanked us and commented on how well the trail was marked.  Dad and I were all smiles. We even received a free tee shirt!

I know this one experience will not tip over the 'excitement meter' or anything, but that very experience kept my excitement for ham radio for years.  Since that time, I have found very few clubs or hams that actually participate and volunteer for such activities. The events in which I can participate seem few and far between.  

David
K7DLD

 

My most memorable was when I had just come home late (like 2:30 am kind of late) at night, from working an evening shift at a fast food joint in N. Virginia.  It was August '92 I believe and the propagation was unreal!  I heard a repeater ID on a freq you could never hear during the day from home.  It was located in Ocean City, MD and was about 150 miles from my home.  When the repeater dropped off, you could hear some 3 calls and decided to see if I could contact them with just 5 watts from my Yaesu FT-470 HT.

I got on and found I was able to hit the machine (which later found was on a radio tower over 200 feet in the air) from my QTH.  I called them and when we finally got set and knew to let the repeater drop to hear them, they were astounded I was able to contact them in the Philadelphia area from just south of DC about an hour.  We ragchewed for about 30 min or so and I then went to bed.  To this day has still been most memorable event for me.  The next closest was working a South American station via a 440 repeater linked to 10m FM.

 

I remember playing around with an FM satellite - I think it was UO-14. I heard my uplink on the downlink and some guy in San Francisco called me back (I live in Portland Oregon). Wow - amazing! And I did it with a handheld beam antenna and 1.5 watts .

Now days though it seems almost impossible to work those satellites with low power since all the was/satellite monkeys have taken them over with their computer trackers and 100 watts (yes I've actually talked to a guy who runs that much power into them).

Oh well - my next big project is to build an earth station to use AO-40 - that sounds like a real thrill.

 

Most memorable so far was my first QSO. Turned out to be someone I knew outside of ham radio. Small world.

Other memorable moments include my first radio, a little HT I found at a yard sale one June day. Buying the radio caused me to finally get my ticket some months later.

Before the rule-book-thumpers jump on that, it's perfectly legal to OWN all the radio gear you want. You just can't talk on it without proper license. So I studied and got a ham license. Then I talked on it.

 

I guess this was a few years before I got my license, but I still remember sitting the basement with my father assembling a crystal radio kit. Just a diode, a coil with a little brass ball for tuning, and a few caps. I will never forget listening to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game on the radio I had just built and connected up to the cold water pipe. There were no wires, no batteries, no line cord, but the voices of Harry Cary and Jack Buck still came out of the headset like magic. I amazed me then, it amazes me now. The fun never goes away.

 

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (K1ZC @ July 13 2002,11:02)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I guess this was a few years before I got my license, but I still remember sitting the basement with my father assembling a crystal radio kit.  Just a diode, a coil with a little brass ball for tuning, and a few caps.  I will never forget listening to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game on the radio I had just built and connected up to the cold water pipe.  There were no wires, no batteries, no line cord, but the voices of Harry Cary and Jack Buck still came out of the headset like magic.  I amazed me then, it amazes me now.  The fun never goes away.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
My interest in radio started with a crystal radio that was built into a belt buckle. My brother and I each got one for Christmas in the late 50s and they were neat. They had a clip on a wire for the antenna, and an earpiece. Mine worked fine until I connected it to the electric fence. Like you I still like crystal radio sets, and built them with my kids, now both adults and one is now KB9MKQ. He got his ticket first, then encouraged me to get mine.

 

There are many events in the past 19 years that stand out but the most memorable has to be from about 12 Years ago when a ham friend and I set up at his camp at Big Bear Lake in rural Preston County ,WV to run Field Day with an old Galaxy Five Transciever. This rugged old boat anchor would keep my tea hot all night and it gets cold at 3500 feet even in June. Well I was up alone pulling the late shift on 75 Meters and decided to take the heat screen off the high voltage section to cool the rig down. I am operating along just having contacted an Alabama Group when BANG!!!there is smoke coming off the High Voltage Transformer....after I felt myself to make sure one of the neighbors hadn't shot me.I next thought oh Lord I blew up the radio! After I got the nerve to look in the High Voltage section I saw the charred remains of a large Luna Moth burned to a crisp in an instant...I went right on working statiosn and we finished second in 1B that year...It tought me a healthy respect for the voltages found in our equipment...There have been other highlights like winning my section for Novice Roudup, winning the WV QSO Party plaque, finishing WAS, working my first Russian DX under the Soviet System, Handling Trafffic during the floods of 1985 just after gettting out the hospital from a Heart Attack. Having been STM and ASM for WV but nothing stand out like the night I fried the moth on the old Galaxy...73...Hal

 

I've been thinking about this topic, and I guess that my most memorable event as a ham was the time that I was called by a ham in China just after I had finished a chat with a JA ham. Seems that the fellow in China had been visited by a ham from NYC, and during the visit the W2's XYL had come down with an illness that required a rapid return to the USA.

Well, the BY ham asked if I would mind calling the W2 on the telephone to see how his wife was, as the BY and his family had not heard anything form the W2, and it had been some weeks since they had departed Bejing.

I called the W2 on the phone,and explained the situation, and of course he was glad to hear from the BY and aplogetic that in all the confusion and anxiety had completely forgotten to contact his Chinse friend to reassure them.

I told him the frequency that we were on, I think it was on 15 m, and invited him to join us on the air, which he did. I left the W2 and BY deep in conversation and was very glad that I had been there and able to facilitate their meeting on the air.

This is what Amateur radio means to me: meeting new friends on the air and helping them whenever possible.

73 to all, and thanks for a great topic!
Gary, WG7X

 

Though I have many great memories from ham radio there is one which I will never forget. I was listening on 20 meters one early morning at about 0730 local time when I heard a station whose call I truly wish I could remember come on frequency and say "This is W6... in Northridge California, we have just had a mojor earthquake" . At that point I believe he lost power and I rushed out to see the event being covered on CNN. I may never know who the station was but I'll never forget how I found out about the "Northridge Quake". If someone out there knows who the mystery station may have been we'd love to hear from you.
brian930@axs2000.net

73 - Brian - WB3GVT

 

What counts as the most "memorable" event depends on one's definition of "memorable."

I suppose it was a year ago tonight -- my first night on HF.  That afternoon, my Elmer and I had done a particularly crude job of installing a G5RV in my attic.  After I got the kids to bed, I sat down and tuned the antenna for the first time -- on 20m.  A contest was going on, as is the case tonight, and I made my first contacts with countries like Russia, Spain, Portugal, etc.  20m?  Pretty easy, even on a poorly-matched G5 stretched out in the attic.

"I should try 40 meters," I thought.  So, I began tuning the radio up on the band.  ... Seemed to work OK.  The phone rings.  It's the Alarm Company.  Uh-Oh.  Apparently my fire alarm wires in the attic are resonant on 40m!  Dang.  I couldn't remember the password.

Sirens.  In the distance, but getting closer.  Thankfully, my wife was out of town, or this might have been my first AND LAST night on HF.

Within a few minutes, I had 3 pumper trucks, a couple of red-painted sedans, and a police car from the Germantown, TN police department in the yard.  No fire, I explained.  Just an idiot!

The fire guys were nice, but I was sure this did not need to be repeated.  Fortunately, after about 30 minutes of the sound of the alarm piercing through the house, I was able to recall the password.  And I have taken steps to make sure that doesn't happen again.  But, I suppose it was all a good lesson that RF can have ill effects.

Peter Baskind
AG4KI

 

Hi Gang,
Wayne K9DI es Leader Dog Sequoia here. I couldn't help but to reply to this article es the many fine comments. I have had several memorable occasions during my short 10 year ham career.
The first one was getting my first call (N9PSR) in June of 1992, followed by my first 2M QSO on the local (Freeport IL) 147.390+ machine. Next was Feb 1999, calling MAYDAY (for the first and only time) while coming down a mountain in Oregon in whiteout conditions after the lose chains on a Semi's tires knocked out some windows on the passenger side of the minivan I was riding in. After that there was the NTS traffic I passed while attending Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester MI (Yes that's where Sequoia came from) In May 2000. Next memborable event was passing the General written element and the CW element on 17 Sept, 2000 at the Peoria IL hamfest es working my first HF SSB on 17M on the way back home to Macomb, then passing the Extra written element on 10 Feb, 2001.
I had a blast giving a demonstration to my XYL's Mass Media class. I helped plan es execute the 2001 FD effort for the local club LEARC.
On 11 September 2001 was my first time helping to administer a VE session.
In November 2001 I was observing a sixth grade class as part of my preparation for becoming a teacher and my mentor asked me to give a presentation on the Titanic disaster and demostrate Ham radio to the students. I could feel those kids light up when I tapped out SOS SOS de TITANIC (sidetone only) es launched into my lecture, they lit up agn when I went around the room and sent them their names in CW.
I agn helped plan es execute LEARC's FD effort for 2002 this time I was able to bring a portable PSK31 station so the club could try out a new mode, but most memorable of all was having Tom KF9HL bring Bonesy (his Leader Dog) es his TS520 to play FD with us. This was the first time I'd played HF with Tom, what a BLAST!! Tom just happens to be my first elmer. I met him in June 1987 es he was the first ham es dog guide handler I'd had any contact with. Tom and I shared a room at IVHI with his first Leader Dog Cocoa sh (Silent Harness).
However, the most memorable moment in hamming for me was when I handed out his first CW QSO to Kevin KC8SFJ on 40M on 4 July 2002.
Isn't hamming wonderful? Each time we fire up our rigs we stand a chance of creating memorable moments not just for ourselves, but for those we QSO with, or who are listening in.

 

I have had the good fortune to have had many memorable moments in my 45+ years in Ham Radio . Of course every serious Ham remembers the first contact,mine was with K6QQJ, sorryI have forgotten the name but he went by Quack-Quack-Jack.

The outstanding moment was when I was approached by Chuck Smallhouse-ex-WA6MGZ now W7CS back in the early 60's,he asked if I would be interested in working on a project called OSCAR.I had heard of oscar it was an idea by Don Stoner-W6TNS(SK).  OSCAR was the name for "Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio"which was destined to be the First NON-MILITARY satellite to ever be launched.
Chuck-WA6MGZ designed the transmitter which was a transistorized 140 milliwatt CW transmitter operating on the 2 meter band. The transmitter was built by Herman Poole a non Ham technician and myself. Herman was one of those gifted people who could take a box of parts,shake it up and every thing would land exactly in the right spot,a real Master Craftsman.Once completed I scratched my call letters in the side of the brass chassis,as though there would be any one in space who would care.....HIHI.  I have been told that the back up transmitter wound up in the Smithsonium Museum on display with the call letters still scratched on the side.

Chuck and myself then tested the transmitters and matched them to the CW keyers. The rate of the CW keying was directly proportional to the temperature inside the bird.Temperature data was very important to the life of the bird and in those days not to available. Each of the transmitters had to be run over the temperatures as they would see in space and the CW rate had to be plotted for both.Many hours were spent running the chambers up and down in temperature and measuring the power out and rate.
Once the calibration curves were compiled the transmitter and keyer had to be installed in the bird. The batteries which were made special for the project and donated by the vendor were installed in the bird. The complete package was foamed in place to keep all the componets secured and the cover was put on complete with the 19 inch whip mounted in the center of the bird.
The launch vehicle was an Air Force rocket and the oscar package was attached in place of weight ballast ,complete with form,fit, and function.The attachment had a spring that would propel the bird out away from the rocket at the proper altitude allowing the rocket to continue it's mission.As the bird shoots out the antenna which had been fastened down across the bird popped up into position and automatically turned on the bird making it active.
All the testing which started after working hours lasted to the wee hours of the morning. When completed the bird had to be shipped to Nick Marshal-W6OLO (SK) at the Lockheed Missles and Space facility at Palo Alto to be run through the launch profile on the shaker table and also run through the tests in the high altitude chambers.
Once the calibration data was compiled and all the tests completed Chuck and myself transported the bird to Palo Alto,the early morning arrival found only the security guard on duty so it was explained what it was and that Nick would retrieve it at the start of the business day.
The next day shortly after starting Chuck got a call from Nick the bird was dead, no output. Arrangements were made to transport it back to the Philco Western Defense Labs and close inspection we found the batteries had gone dead,How could that Happen ??
Investigation found the guard to cure his boredom at that time of the morning was fascinated by the antenna popping up when the catch was triggered and he let the bird run all night long. The battery vendor was contacted and sweet talked into another set of batteries,he not only complied but he shipped next day delivery, in the sixties that was fast service.Several long hours were spent digging the potting foam from the bird and the new batteries were installed and the bird checked out OK.
The rest of the testing all went well and as history recalls the launch took place on 12th of December 1961 the bird spent 22 days in orbit before it made a re-entry in all flaming Glory.
I was lucky enough to be able to join the Oscar Association as an assistant to one of the Board of Directors.
Then there was the time I flew with NASA and made the first 2 Meter repeater contact while being at ZERO G but that's a story for another time.
Ham Radio had a totally different meaning 40 or 50 years ago,many things have changed...those were fun times.
Enjoy  73,   ORV-K6UEY