I was originally licensed in 1969, at the age of 13 years old, as WN6FUE. Colonel William Crum administred my exam in Woodland Hills, California. This one, I passed on the first try. 5 WPM, and the Novice Exam. I had to wait for about 6 weeks while the FCC prepared and sent my license. Wow, that was great. At that time, it was a march up the license latter. Novice, Technician, General, Advanced, and Extra. Less than a year after I earned my novice, I was off to the FCC office in Los Angeles. Up to the room, I remember joining a group of hopeful 13 WPM test takers. I was in that room for less than 5 minutes before I got the proctor call my name and say "Michael Seedman, you failed. You failed, You failed.". OOPS, I failed. Hearing it once was bad enough, but for some reason, this lady seemed to enjoy sharing my over-confidence with the entire group of test-takers. At 13, of course I couldn't drive so the ride to and from the FCC had to be provided by my dad. I collected my pencil and drove back home, as my dad explained to me that, if you're going to be tested at 13 Words Per Minute, you have to easily copy 15 or 16 Words Per Minute. Right he was. I studied, got my speed up, and less than a month later, I had passed my 13 WPM code test and written elements for my general class license. Boy, that felt great. I was on the HF bands with a microphone - no more CW for me. Now it was going to be "Hello CQ, CQ, CQ, this is WB6FUE".
It took years to get back to take the Advanced and Extra test. I think it was about 1987. By this time, tests were administered by a group of VEC's. A couple of days of study, a quick test, and I was an Advanced class licensee.
It took me about 20 Milliseconds to know that I had to get my Extra Class license, but this meant re-learning the Morse Code. Now it wasn't going to be 13 WPM, but 20 WPM - 100 Characters per minute. Ugh. I had to start from scratch. It had been years since I sent or received Morse Code. I studied the code for about 2 weeks, and I even took a couple of days off work as the test date got closer. I knew I had to get up to 23 or 24 WPM to be able to pass the test.
Another trip to the VEC's, a 20 WPM test and a written test, and I was licensed as AA6DY (I wonder if the guy before me got AA6DX, or that one was out of the pool way before we got there).
So, I've been hamming, on and off, for 40 years. My friend Jack Hudson, W9MU, got me back on the air a few years ago after a pretty healthy gap. He got me chasing DX. In the last few years, I've earned my DXCC and now have about 250 countries confirmed. These days it's mostly CW, so much of what I send is the same: "5NN IL TNX", although I do a bit of contesting with my friend Jack.
I haven't had much of an antenna until recently. My understanding wife let me put a 3 element Steppir on a roof tower. Most of the countries I've collected, I've done with a dipole in the trees. Actually, a G5RV dipole and a nice Nye Viking tuner. Now I've got a Steppir 3 element beam on a roof tower. Nice.
In September of 2009 my friend Steve Farkas, WA2NFR and I purchased a great little company - Alpha Radio Products - the manufacturer of the Alpha line of Linear Amplifiers. I remember seeing the original ETO ads in QST in the '70's thinking "wouldn't it be great to own one of those amps". In 2006 I purchased an Alpha 87a from a seller I found on eBay. Two years later we bought the company and have been making Linear Amplifiers ever since. in August, 2010, about 11 months after we purchased the company and filled all the backlog, at last have a 9500 in my shack
In May, 2010 I went to the FDIM QRP convention in Dayton the day before the Hamvention started. One of the speakers, Hans Summers, G0UPL, was talking about QRSS - super slow CW into a really low power transmitter. For some reason, it really piqued my interest. I got home and the next weekend I built the 500mW QRSS beacon they spoke about at the meeting. 30 Meters - 10.140.060 Mhz FSK. The frequency shift? 6 Hz! I've got an arduino computer connected to the transmitter sending .4 WPM. 3 second dots and 9 second dashes. But, that signal is heard all over the country! Amazing.
It's now mid June 2010 and I just put a 6dB pad in series with the transmitter. It's now putting out 125mW (that's about 7 Volts P-P into the antenna) and I'm still seeing my signal on QRSS sites all over the country. 7 Volts!!! Yesterday I found a screen shot from a ham in Concord MA, about 750 miles from here. Let's see... 125mW, 750 miles. That's about 6,000 miles per watt???
So, QRP, QRO, QRSS, HF, VHF - they're all good. What a great hobby.
Michael Seedman, AA6DY/9 |
