1962, Steve Meyers, W0AZ






1966: Brian Wood, W0DZ

1961: Richard Pumphrey, WN9DDV

1962, Walt Beverly, W4GV

1961: Rick Roznoy, K1OF

1962, Steve Meyers, W0AZ

1951: Bill Weinhardt, W9PPG

1955: Paul Johnston, W9PJ

1964: Michael Betz, WB8ZFQ.

1967: Pete Malvasi, W2PM

1962: Terry Schieler, W0FM

1969: John Kosmak, W3IK

1953: Dan Girand, W5ARB

1975: David Collingham, K3LP

1961: Jim Cain, K1TN

1957: Bill Tippett, W4ZV

1961: Bob Lightner, W4GJ

1956: Bernie Huth, W4BGH

1952: Dick Bender, W3SYY

1951: Dale Bredon, W6BGK

1963: "Sig" Signer, NV7E

1958: Jeff Lackey, K8CQ

1953: Dan Bathker, K6BLG

1961: Rick Tavan, N6XI

1956: Bill Penhallegon, W4STX

1958: John Miller, K6MM

1959/1993: Tom Carter, KC2GEP

1966: Kelly Klaas, K7SU

1976: Mary Moore, WX4MM

1970: David Kazan, AD8Y

1957: Paula Keiser, K8PK

1971: Charles Ahlgren, WB6IYM

1952: Tom Webb, W4YOK

1964: License Manual - Chapter 2, Novice

1964: Advertisements

1970: Jim Zimmerman, N6KZ

1987: Matt Cassarino, WV1K

More - Mike Branca, W3IRZ (sk)

1953: Bill Bell, KN2CZZ

1952: Ron D' Eau Claire, AC7AC

History - 1950s: The Beginning

History - 1960s: Mid-Peak

History - 1970s: Late Peak

(sample story) My Elmer

1954: Novice Logbook (Dick Zalewski, W7ZR)

1961: Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA

1953: George Marko, K2DWL

1964: How to Become a Radio Amateur

1967: ARRL Handbook

1963: Learning the Radiotelegraph Code

1955: Jack Burks, K4CNW

1979: Ann Santos, WA1S

1952: Ron Baker, WA6AZN

Welcome to the Novice Historical Society Home Page!

1952/1955: The CQ Twins (Clint, W9AV & Quent, W6RI)

1956: Mike Branca, W3IRZ

1959: Don Minkoff, NK6A

History - 1980s: Early-Decline

1990-2000: The End

1976, Rick Palm, K1CE

1978: Larry Makoski, W2LJ

1961: Gary Yantis, W0TM

1955: Al Cammarata, W3AWU

1951: Bob McDonald, W4DYF

1951: Charlie Curle, AD4F

1953: Kenny Cassidy, WN2WNC

1951: Jim Franklin, K4TMJ

1953: Rick Faust, N2RF

1973: Greg Harris, WB9MII

1957: Mickey LeBoeuf, K5ML

1957: Jim Cadien, KC7ZMV

1976: Tom Fagan, K7DF

1953: Fred Jensen, K6DGW

1957: Tony Rogozinski, W4OI

1961, Novice Roundup Award (Art Mouton, K5FNQ)

1956: Woody Pope, ex-KN5GCM

1967: Larry Rybacki, WA2ARA

1955: Gene Schonrock, W6EAJ

1955: Dave Germeyer, W3BJG

1983: Harry Weiss, KA3NZR

1970: Paul Huff, N8XMS

1976: John Yasuda, WB6PTC

1953: Alvin Burgland, W6WJ

1966: Neil Friedman, N3DF

1976: Lyle Heide, WB9VTM

1968: Leigh Klotz, Sr., N5LK

1956: Ken Barber, W2DTC

1977: Keith Darwin, N1AS

1959: Tom Wilson, K7FA

1956: Wayne Beck, K5MB

1984: Paul Conant, WQ5X

1970: Ward Silver, N0AX

1982: Christopher Horne, W4CXH

1953: Paul Signorelli, W0RW

1954: Ray Cadmus, W0PFO

1957: Norm Goodkin, K6YXH

1959: Glen Zook, K9STH

1970: Ken Brown, N6KB

1962: Fred Merkel, AK7D

1972: Rob Atkinson, K5UJ

1955: David Quagiana, K2MTW

1952: Sam Whitley, K5SW

1967: Frequency Chart

1983: William Wilson, AB0VG

1953: Jim Brown, W5ZIT

1958: Al Burnham, K6RIM

1952: Gary Borri, K9DBR

1961: Bill Husted, KQ4YA

1955: Dan Schobert, W9MFG

1976: Charles Bibb, K5ZK

1979: Bill Brown, KA6KBC

1965: Ken Widelitz, K6LA / VY2TT

1975: Tim Madden, KI4TG

1972: Steve Ewald, WV1X

1969: Mike "Jug" Jogoleff, WA6MBZ

1964: Phil Salas, AD5X

1954: John Johnston, W3BE

1968: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU

1975: Last of the Distinct Novice Callsigns (Cliff Cheng, AC6C; ex-WN6JPA)

1987: Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV

1966: Tom Morgan, AF4HL

1954: Dan Smith, K6PRK

1954: Novice Callsign History License (Dan, K6PRK's License)

1975: First of the Non-distinct Novice Callsigns (Cliff Cheng, AC6C; ex-WA6JPA)

1957: Doug Millar, K6JEY

1954: Dick Zalewski, W7ZR

1962: Steve Pink, KF1Y

1975: Cliff Cheng, AC6C

1966: Tom Napier, AI4QV

1965: Novice Code Test (Ken Widelitz, K6LA / VY2TT)

1954: Bob Brown, W4YFJ

1977: Russ Roberts, KH6JRM

1958: Jeff Wolf, K6JW

1964: John Shidler, NS5Z

1972: Rick Andersen, KE3IJ

1977: Barry Whittemore, WB1EDI

1967: Grover Cordell, WB5FSP

1959: Val Erwin, W5PUT

1953: Bob Rolfness, W7AVK

1953: Paul Danzer, N1ii

1969: Dennis Kidder, W6DQ

1971: Jonathan Kramer, W6JLK

1959: Chas Shinn, W7MAP/5

1961: Mark Nelson, AJ2K

1978: Alice King, AI4K

1965: Gary Pearce, KN4AQ

1988: James Kern, KB2FCV

1958: Jay Slough, K4ZLE

1954: L.B. Cebik, W4RNL (sk)

1997: Novice Question Pool.

1952: Steve Jensen, W6RHM

1989: Michael Tracy, KC1SX

1979: Matt Tinker, AA8P

1965: Dan Gaylord, W7IDG

1956: Chuck Counselman, W1HIS

1976: Scott McMullen, W5ESE

1961: Joe Park, WB6AGR

1955: Jack Schmidling, K9ACT

1969: Bill Continelli, W2XOY

1962: Bob Roske, N0UF

1963: Glenn Kurzenknabe, K3SWZ

1969: Phyllis Webb, WN4IIF

1956: Dan Cron, W6SBE

1954: Carl Yaffey, K8NU

1967: Ted White, N8TW

1982: Penny Cron, W6SBE

1961, Kent Gardner, WA7AHY

1970: Brad Bradfield, W5CGH

1976: Steve Melachrinos, W3HF

1994: Brian Lamb, KE4QZB

1958: Operating an Amateur Radio Station

1965: AL LaPeter, W2AS

1961: Rick Swain, KK8o

1956: Keith Synder, KE7IOW

1951: Elmer Harger, N7EL

1987: Lou Giovannetti, KB2DHG

1966: Dave Fuseler, NJ4F

1976: Marcel Livesay, N5VU

1965: Bob Jameson, N3LNP

1951: Byron Engen, W4EBA

1956: Cam Harriot, KI6WK

1965: FCC Exam Schedule

1962: Joe Trombino, W2KJ

1956: Ray Colbert, W5XE

1964: Geoff Allsup, W1OH

1977: Tom Herold, N9BUL

1951: Hank Greeb, N8XX

1959: Dean Straw, N6BV

1970: Alan Applegate, K0BG

1957: Richard Cohen, K6DBR

1971: Ronald Erickson, K0IC

1965: Jan Perkins, N6AW

1953: Charlie Lofgren, W6JJZ

1960: Art Mouton, K5FNQ

1955: Dan Marks, ex-K6IQF

1958: Mike Chernus, K6PZN

1960: Bob Silverman, WA6MRK

1951: Richard Schachter, W6HHI

1953: Joe Montgomery, W1DWJ

1958: Richard Dillman, W6AWO

1968: Bob Dunn, K5IQ

1988: Jamie Markowitz, AA6TH

1952: Jim Leighty, W6UJX

1955: Matt Wheaton, W1EMM

1957: Dick Newsome, W0HXL

1956: Slim Copeland, K4KCS

1959, 1993: Tom Carter, KC2GEP

1968: Bill Byrnes, AB9BD

1971: Jeff Angus, WA6FWI

1956: Dean Norris, K7NO

1972: Dennis Drew, W7RVR

1958: Stan Miln, K6RMR

1958: George Ison, K4ZMI

1978: Fred Soper, KC8FS

1956: John Fuller, K4HQK

1961: Riley Hollingswworth, K4ZDH

  


1962: Steve Meyers, W0AZ


Steve Meyers, W0AZ (formerly, WV2ZWZ, 1963; KB0LCN, 1991; N0XMJ; KG0HV; AA0QF)

Novice memories . . .

by Steven J. Meyers, WØAZ (formerly, WV2ZWZ)

It was 1962, a memorable year.  The New York Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants in the World Series, a victory made all the more sweet for those of us who, as children, felt betrayed when our beloved New York Giants had joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in moving to that far away, almost mythical, place called California. Continuing the East versus West feud, the Celtics met the Lakers in the NBA finals that year and the result was the same-the East triumphed.

Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, and the entire Christian world spoke in hopeful tones about a reconciliation called ecumenism.  France finally transferred sovereignty to Algeria after a bloody insurgency that was to become a sorrowful model for insurgent wars to come.  James Meredith was escorted by federal marshals into the University of Mississippi signaling the end of one of the last bastions of Jim Crow.  J.F.K. was president, and the illusion of Camelot his inauguration had ushered in was shattered by the most terrifying confrontation of the Cold War-The Cuban Missile Crisis.

Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, warning us about the dangers of accumulating toxins in the environment, while Henry Mancini's Moon River soothed us on AM radio.

The 50s were over.  The 60s were just getting cranked up.

And, in a tiny five-room apartment in Bloomfield, New Jersey, in a half-mile row of brick, two-story apartment buildings built to house returning veterans of World War II, the thirteen-year-old son of a decorated Airborne Ranger got his Novice ticket in the mail.  The call was WV2ZWZ.

His best friend, Chris, who'd made the bus trip into New York City with him to take the license exam at the Federal building in lower Manhattan, also received his ticket. Chris' call was WV2ZXB.

I was that son of a Ranger.  That was my ham ticket.  And even though the rest of the world seems to remember those other events far more vividly, when I look back on my past nothing in that year was as momentous, or memorable.

Months earlier, I'd built a Heathkit GR-91.  The GR-91 was a very basic, entry-level shortwave-listener's radio that had the one feature I really wanted at a price I could afford: a BFO for listening to CW.  Our apartment was on the ground floor, and my bedroom window was in the inside-middle of a U-shaped arrangement of buildings.  The U was about 100' across.  I ran wires from my window to fire escapes in the middle of  each side of the U, about twelve-feet off the ground, and led the ends of the wires to my receiver with a feedline made out of lamp cord.  The "system" was anchored in place by slamming the bottom sash of the window down on the lamp cord.  The "dipole" was an arbitrary length, roughly a half-wave on 80m.  The feedline was about ten-feet long.  It didn't matter that the antenna failed to conform to sound engineering practice, because the world still came out of the speaker.

Chris and I had learned the code together, and-as is typical of the young-it came fairly easily.  Very shortly, we were copying well beyond the 5 WPM required for a license, and long before we ever received our tickets we were excitedly copying hams all over the world.

After passing the exam, while waiting for our tickets to arrive, I built an Ameco AC-1 transmitter, bought a single crystal for the 80M Novice band, and wound the coil for 80 meters.  The AC-1 was a very simple, single tube oscillator using a 6V6.  Many novices of the era used that transmitter, or an entirely homebrew rig of similar design.  My ham buddy, Chris, built his homebrew with a heftier power supply, and a 6L6.  Doubling the rated 15W input of my AC-1, his rig had a massive input of 30W!  Of course we didn't have wattmeters and had no idea what those rigs were actually putting into the feedlines, but my signal was clearly closer to QRP than QRO.  I would have been lucky if 7 watts ever got into the antenna.  In any event, I wasn't connecting the rig to the antenna.  Not yet.  Also without dummy loads, we loaded our transmitters into 25W light bulbs, watched them glow to the rhythmic beat of Morse code, and heard the magical signal on our radios (at that time, without Elmers, we had no idea that the light bulbs constituted antennas-very poor ones, but antennas nonetheless-and the signals they radiated, no matter how puny, were clearly not yet authorized!).

When our tickets finally arrived (both on the same day) we called each other on the phone and set up our first sked.  An Ameco straight key plugged into my AC-1 pounded out a nervous call to WV2ZXB.  Chris found me on his Lafayette HE-30, and replied with his 6L6.  It was the first time I heard my very own call coming back to me through the ether.  If you haven't experienced it, there's no way you can know the feeling.  If you have, well, I can see you grinning.

The GR-91 soon gave way to a more sophisticated Lafayette HA-225, paid for with money earned by working as a soda jerk at my uncle David's drugstore.  I traded up from the AC-1 to a Knight Kit T-60, and along with the arrival of my General class ticket, long before the year-long period allowed for a novice license had expired, came a massive chunk of iron: a B&W 5100B sporting a pair 6146s for finals.  It sat on the desk in the bedroom turned ham shack I shared with my longsuffering older brother who was always more into studying Latin than playing with radios.  The makeshift 80M antenna was replaced with a properly constructed 40M dipole, fed with coax-but it still swung only 12-feet above the ground.  Even with the poor antenna, the radio gods smiled and I was able to work a little DX.

A few years later, I became president of my high school radio club, WB2FLU, and we operated a fine shack of mostly donated gear from the attic of the school building, radiating our signal with a tri-band beam mounted high above the surroundings on the roof of the school.

A story familiar to many hams of my generation followed.  In order to help pay for my first year of college, I sadly sold all of my gear, and began a long hiatus during which amateur radio almost entirely disappeared from my life.  Disappeared, except for copying ham QSOs on a short wave radio.  I was never without some kind of receiver, and I mostly listened to CW.

In the early1990s, when my son was in middle school, he made several voyages on a sailboat cruising from Southern California to Central America with his mother and stepfather.  Both his mother and stepfather had acquired ham licenses in order to maintain contact with friends and relatives back home, and a local ham agreed to meet them for daily skeds.  I was able to speak with my son while he was away by going over to the shack of that local ham, Jim Scott, W9KV.  It didn’t take long for me to discover that Jim was an extraordinary person.  Knowledgeable, wise, and gracious, he was also, at that time, the liaison for our local ARRL VEC affiliated VE team, and well informed about the licensing process that had changed so much since I’d been active.  Talking with my son on the boat at Jim’s station soon sparked renewed interest in ham radio, and Jim encouraged me to get licensed again.  This time, for the first time, I was able to do it under the guidance of an extraordinary Elmer.

Jim arranged for a novice examination to be given with the help of another local ham, N0JYL (SK). My code speed at the time was in excess of 20 WPM, but I took the Novice code element sent to Jim by the ARRL VEC—a 5 WPM test.  I remember impatiently tapping my pencil while waiting for each character to complete.  I finished the written test, and if I remember correctly, was told immediately that I had passed it.  Then I waited for the license to arrive. I was assigned the call, KB0LCN, on April 6, 1993.

Initially, I went back on the air with a kit-built QRP transmitter from Ramsey kits, and the SWL receiver I’d had for some time—a Radio Shack DX-100, using a 40M dipole.

As quickly as I was able I worked my way through the license classes, receiving the Extra Class call AA0QF on February 15, 1994.   I exchanged the 2X2 call for my current 1X2 call, W0AZ, when the vanity callsign program came into being, receiving the call W0AZ in 1996.
Very shortly after getting back on the air, I purchased a used Yaesu FT-101E from a local ham who had become inactive, and I watched in wonder as my brilliant Elmer modified it for use on the WARC bands.  If you were to ask Jim, he’d graciously offer that we  did the project “together.”  But in reality, I did little more than hand Jim tools.  The conversion was quite complicated, and involved some very tricky procedures.  I remember Jim discovering stray RF in places he didn’t want it, and the ingenious way he both designed and built tunable traps to eliminate it.  The parts he needed, some of them quite rare and hard to find (like the tiny, open plate, Hammarlund trimmer capacitors used in the traps) were always near at hand in his seemingly inexhaustible parts bins.  There were new taps to place on an already crowded tank coil, tabs to be installed on previously unused positions of the bandswitch . . .
The project may well have been the most interesting electronic construction job I ever witnessed, and you can imagine the conversations that ensued later, when I was in the middle of a QSO with somebody on 18MHz, and casually reported that I was operating an FT-101.
“I didn’t think that rig had the WARC bands on it?”
“It usually doesn’t.”
“Then how are you . . .”
I operated that wonderful modified Fox Tango for several years, loving every minute of it, until it blew the power transformer one day while sitting on my desk warming up for a sked with Jim and some of his old ham buddies he’d introduced me to.  The radio sizzled like frying bacon, and filled the shack with acrid smoke before I could yank the plug. I discovered that a replacement transformer would cost far more than the rig was worth.  Luckily, about that time, Jim decided to upgrade from the TS-440S he’d been using to a TS-850S.  I bought his 440 at a truly ham-friendly price, and am using it to this day.  Knowing I'm operating my dear friend Jim's radio makes every QSO just a bit more special.

When I came back, the modes had multiplied.  By the early 1990s, I was operating CW and SSB, FM on VHF, and getting my feet wet in VHF packet and the HF digital modes.  A few years ago, smitten with a bad case of nostalgia, I put together the sort of shack I could only dream about having when I was a Novice.  A friend gave me a Hallicrafters HT-37, and very little work put it on the air.  I found a Hammarlund HQ-145AC on eBay, and paired it with the HT-37.  My dear friend and Elmer, W9KV (a retired television broadcast technician with a limitless store of knowledge about electronics and much else), donated a necessary Dow-key antenna relay, and I was on the air with a lashup that could almost make you feel it was 1962 all over again.  (There's a picture of this vintage station posted with my listing at QRZ.com.)

Almost.

The vintage rig is a great joy to me, and I believe I have more fun operating that old gear than I do watching PSK31 print on the monitor of my computer as my solid-state rig handles the receiving and transmitting without a hitch.  No drift.  No tuning up.  No tubes glowing.

I've never been a hardcore contester or DXer, although I've had my share of fun doing both-managing to assemble more than enough cards to put a some DXCC plaques on the wall, and having a ball at any number of Field Days and November Sweeps.  I even had the pleasure of working as a spotter at a multi-multi mega-station that finished second in our region in the CQWW-CW a few years back (and seeing how the other half operates!).  There have been a lot of wonderful QSOs over the years, but none will ever replace that first sked with my buddy, Chris, who lived only a few blocks away.  The day I first heard a fellow member of our wonderful fraternity answering my call.  The day I first heard WV2ZWZ, shaped on a straight key, turned into RF in a 6L6, radiated from the dipole that sent it off into the ether and into my receiver.