Dan KB6NU

My grandparents were responsible for getting me into ham radio. They had an old Philco console with an AM band, a shortwave band, and a built-in record player sitting in their basement. I used to love to go over there and listen to shortwave broadcasts from the BBC, Radio Canada, and all the other SW broadcasters of that era. The shortwave band included the 31m and 19 m broadcast bands as well as the 20m ham band.

One day while tuning from the 31m band to the 19m band, I asked my dad what those stations were that were sending Morse code. He replied, “Oh, those are ham radio operators,” and explained a little bit about amateur radio. As the radio did not have a BFO, I couldn’t really copy the CW or the sideband phone signals, but I still thought it was pretty cool that you could actually set up your own transmitter and make contact with stations all over the world.

It took me a while–mostly because our family didn’t know any amateur radio operators–but I finally obtained my first ham in 1971. In fact, my first license was dated July 16, 1971–the date of my sixteenth birthday. My first call sign was WN8KTZ.

I operated from the basement of my parents house, first using a Heathkit DX-60 transmitter with a Hammarlund HQ101 receiver. I soon upgraded both my license and my station, becoming WB8KTZ and buying and building a Heathkit HW101. My antenna was a Hy-Gain 14AVQ vertical.

College put a damper on my amateur radio activities, although I still operated from time to time. After receiving my BSEE from the University of Detroit, it was off to Sunnyvale, CA. My first job out of college was with Amdahl Corporation, then manufacturing a line of IBM-compatible mainframe computers. Being a recent graduate, I didn’t have much money for a place, so we ended up in at one-bedroom apartment. There wasn’t much space for antennas, and I wasn’t on the air at all from that QTH.

My immediate supervisor was Dave Roznar, W6TGE. Soon after starting there, we both decided to upgrade to Advanced class. We blew off work one day, took the train up to the San Francisco FCC office, where we both passed our Advanced written exam. That’s how I became KB6NU.

In light of the fact, that they are no longer issuing Advanced class tickets, I’m thinking of keeping mine for the duration. My goal is to become the last living Advanced class licensee in the US.

Despite having been licensed for so long (I even qualify for QCWA!), I really haven’t been all that active over the years. While in California, I lived in apartments and condos, and not being an antenna genius, I never could seem to get an antenna to work very well. When I moved back to Michigan, I just never got motivated to get back on the low bands. I bought an HT and worked the repeaters, but that never seemed like “real” ham radio to me.

Fun on Field Day
Now, however, I’ve seen the light.

What got me started was taking part in the ARROW 2002 Field Day. To be honest, I wasn’t going to go at all. I was feeling a little guilty about not helping set up, and Sundays are when I usually go bicycling (my other big avocation).

That Sunday, however, I was feeling lazy and it was really hot. So, I opted to go to Field Day instead. The first guy I met when I got there was Mark W8FSA, then president. He had been there most of the night and was just eating some breakfast. When he finished his bagel and coffee, he said, “Well, you didn’t come to hear me chatter. Let’s do some operating.”

He had set up his Kenwood transceiver in a trailer that someone had towed out to the site. He first suggested that we try 20m phone. The only problem he said was that the G5RV antenna that he had connected to the rig wasn’t really working all that well on 20m and the antenna tuner didn’t seem to be much help. After a fair amount of fiddling, he finally got the antenna tuned, but it was quickly apparent that we weren’t putting out much of a signal. We made a few contacts, but more often than not, stations we called did not come back to us.

That’s when I suggested we try CW. Neither of us had done much CW operating lately, but I reasoned that we’d have more success with our poor signal on CW than phone. Mark was kind of hesitant, but I said, “What the heck. We may not be the best CW ops, nor are we the most experienced contesters, but it will be fun.”

After prodding him a little more, he finally agreed. I went off to find a key. When I got back, he’d already gotten the rig tuned up on 15m (our other HF station was working 20m CW). We connected up the key and started tuning around. We soon found a station calling CQ FD.

“Call him,” I said, wanting to give Mark first honors. He pushed the key over to me and said, “You do it.” So I called and the guy came right back to me. How cool! It was the first CW contact I’d made in years. It took me a little while to figure out the CW contest protocol, but soon I felt pretty comfortable with it, and we started making contacts. If we could hear them, they generally could hear us. We were really rusty, though. Sometimes after we’d made a contact, we’d have to listen for a while to make sure we got the other station’s call right.

I’d like to say that we racked up hundreds of points that morning, but by the time we got on CW, it was already noon, so we only had a couple hours left. And because I wasn’t the most experienced contester, I only called stations that I heard calling CQ. All in all, I made 24 contacts from noon to 2 pm. Not a stellar performance, but it was a lot of fun.

Back on the Low Bands
That experience has prompted me to get back on the low bands. I dug out my Icom IC735, which had been languishing in the closet since I moved two and a half years ago, and found the box containing my antenna parts. Fortunately, I had enough wire and coax to build a 20m dipole. Consulting an old Handbook, I cut the elements so that the antenna would resonate about 14050 kHz. To install the antenna, I attached a pulley to my house about 25 feet up. The other end I attached to an obliging tree in my backyard. The length of RG-59 coax I had was just long enough to make it into the shack.

Now, as I’ve said, I’m no genius when it comes to antennas, so I was pleasantly surprised when the SWR was low enough to not blow the finals in my rig. It wasn’t resonant on 14050, but close enough, so I began tuning around for a CQ. The first station I heard was XE2AHN. I called him, and he came back. My first HF contact in years was a DX contact!

I’ve since filled up a page in my log book. Amazingly, almost half of the 30 contacts are DX contacts. I’ve worked Wales, Italy, Ukraine, Russia, England, Brazil, Colombia, and Spain. I’ve also worked a bunch of domestic stations, and chewed the rag with a couple of them. I’ve also joined FISTS, the International Morse Preservation Society. Seems like a pretty cool group. My FISTS number is 9342. My immediate goal is to improve my CW operating abilities enough to really rack up some points next year on Field Day.

Projects and Other Activities

• I’m the treasure of the Arrow Communications Association. We operate several repeaters in Ann Arbor, MI; our 2m repeater is on 146.96(-) MHz. We also hold classes and volunteer license examinations. We’d love to have you as a member if you’re in the area.
• I’m doing a little research into the Internet Radio Linking Project and what it would take to get our repeater linked up. I think it would be really cool to talk in on 146.96 and talk to someone in New Zealand or Great Britain.
• The ARROW is now in discussion with the Hands-On Museum to set up a station at the museum to teach people about ham radio. If you’d be interested in helping with this project, please e-mail me and I’ll put you in touch with the right people.
• I built a 20m Wilderness Radio SST QRP rig. I hope to take this out on a bike tour sooner or later.
• I also need to work on some kind of multi-band antenna before the winter. I’d like to work 40m as well as perhaps 30m and 10m.