X-Rated
04-07-2010, 11:26 AM
The fall semester of my senior year, I took a class in electronics. I had thought I was interested in photography but I was a total klutz when it came to properly framing the shots and getting my subject matter properly illuminated, so I went to an electronics class. There was a kid in there. A sophomore who had a novice license. I always wanted a ham license and that really started a fire under my nads so I got my tail in gear.
Randy was WN0ORT. He was your typical Ornery Republican Teen. His father was a state rep for a section of the city and I thought he was the coolest kid in school. And the school had 1800 kids in it at the time anyway. Randy was vibrant about ham radio and so excited about working stations from all over the country and the world. Kansas was pretty land locked and getting out of the area was like a dream.
The local ham club had a novice instructional class where we met up on Saturdays and discussed things like horizontal antennas, vertical antennas, and propagation. It was really in-depth and really helpful to understand what was going on rather than memorizing answers. I got my license in January, 1976 (as WN0RXE) and Randy and I would exchange notes about our contacts and made contacts to each other on the 80M novice band. We would work on our fist and exchanged ideas on how to best setup our straight keys for the best CW sound.
Since it was my senior year, I did what many seniors do, and that was to be graduated. I moved on to Pittsburg Kansas to college because my electronics teacher, Mr. Kelly, was like one of the smartest guys I knew and he was graduated from Pittsburg. I ended up losing track of Randy. Randy had a 2 year stint on his non-renewable novice license and never got back into the hobby.
Enter Facebook. I found Randy again and he is living in Washington State. He wants to get back into ham radio, and I think there is plenty of more room in the hobby for one more right wing activist. I invited him to the group here and he has signed in. He has zillions of things going on in his life and I was hoping we could all work together to get Randy licensed once more after all these years of being deprived of this incredible hobby.
I would like to be the first to welcome Randy to our fold and get the job done. Let's us all give Randy a warm welcome.
Randy was WN0ORT. He was your typical Ornery Republican Teen. His father was a state rep for a section of the city and I thought he was the coolest kid in school. And the school had 1800 kids in it at the time anyway. Randy was vibrant about ham radio and so excited about working stations from all over the country and the world. Kansas was pretty land locked and getting out of the area was like a dream.
The local ham club had a novice instructional class where we met up on Saturdays and discussed things like horizontal antennas, vertical antennas, and propagation. It was really in-depth and really helpful to understand what was going on rather than memorizing answers. I got my license in January, 1976 (as WN0RXE) and Randy and I would exchange notes about our contacts and made contacts to each other on the 80M novice band. We would work on our fist and exchanged ideas on how to best setup our straight keys for the best CW sound.
Since it was my senior year, I did what many seniors do, and that was to be graduated. I moved on to Pittsburg Kansas to college because my electronics teacher, Mr. Kelly, was like one of the smartest guys I knew and he was graduated from Pittsburg. I ended up losing track of Randy. Randy had a 2 year stint on his non-renewable novice license and never got back into the hobby.
Enter Facebook. I found Randy again and he is living in Washington State. He wants to get back into ham radio, and I think there is plenty of more room in the hobby for one more right wing activist. I invited him to the group here and he has signed in. He has zillions of things going on in his life and I was hoping we could all work together to get Randy licensed once more after all these years of being deprived of this incredible hobby.
I would like to be the first to welcome Randy to our fold and get the job done. Let's us all give Randy a warm welcome.