Growing up as a CW operator.

I was born in Kansas, where I was first licensed as an amateur radio operator (KA0GNX) in 1979 as a teenager. In 1975 I was given the USAF Radio Engineers (Blue) books, which I studied for 4 years. During that time my uncle was writing to me on tissue paper like letter head from Saudi Arabia during his deployment to install a communications infrastructure. He kept referring to something called amateur radio, and in 1978 I discovered what amateur radio was. My parents, a father who was bookkeeper and very practical man, and my mother who was loving and had a great sense of humor, was very supportive of this endeavor. My father drove me to my amateur radio class, where others like me were preparing to take their Code & Written test. I remember the cold winter nights when the snow would blow deep, and all my waking hours were spent running through code drills on my cassette player and my “buzzer keyer” that ran off a single D Cell battery. The day of the trip to the FCC office in the Big City had then come, after months and what had also truly been years of preparation, I took the test and was licensed in 1979 as KA0GNX, Novice operator. I didn’t realize it, but my mother had been working and saving to help pay for this, for I did not know how little my family had back in those days, nor how the Ham Radio community had come together to help my family acquire a Ten Tec Century 21 for my Christmas present. Reflecting back on all the good people in amateur radio who have supported me, and my family, shines a light on the fact that I couldn’t of chosen a better community to serve than those who first gave so much to this small town boy who had very little.