My start in radio ~ Radio and Travel Inspired Ramblings

June 24, 2020 -

My start in radio

When I was 7 or 8 years old my grandparents had a big console radio in the front room of their house in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was fascinated by all the cities and countries that were listed on the shortwave bands of the radio dial. I used to sit for hours and listen to radio stations, trying to figure out where they were. My Dad's parents lived a few miles from us so we visited them a lot.

About that time we moved into a new house in White Bear Lake (1959), my father helped customize some of the early construction (he was a Civil Engineer). He wasn't into shortwave listening himself, but thinking ahead he ran a wire from one end of the house to the other in the attic, with a single connected wire running thru the walls down to the basement. My younger brother and I shared one of the 3 bedrooms upstairs. When I was 10 yrs old my Dad finished a bedroom in the basement at the other end of the house from the upstairs bedrooms, and I got my own room ! One of his engineer friends sold me an almost-new Hallicrafters S-120 general coverage shortwave radio for $20 (he almost gave it away!!), it was connected to the attic antenna and I became addicted to radio :-)

I discovered jazz music by listening to the weekly Voice Of America Jazz Hour on the shortwave bands. I sent SWL (Shortwave Listener) reports to many foreign broadcast stations, and would get Christmas cards every year from Radio Moscow and Radio Havana (Cuba) for years after.

While tuning the shortwave bands I came across a REALLY strong signal, it was Tony W0KVO on 75m AM ham radio. One of my Dad's friends was a ham operator and gave me a Callbook, as big as a Sears catalog, a way to look up every US Radio Amateur and get their address. Tony lived less than a mile from us, I rode my bicycle to his house and introduced myself. He was a mentor to me in electricity, electronics and ham radio.

When I was 15 yrs old Tony gave me and a neighbor the FCC tests (Morse code and written) for the Novice class Amateur Radio license and a few weeks later I received callsign WN0VPK, in September 1968. Six months later on an early Thursday morning I went with my father on his way to work in downtown St. Paul and took the FCC General Class test. I became WA0VPK. Six months after that I took the Advanced Class test at the same FCC office and passed that :-)