Re: [IRCA] 30 years of skywave DXing

[ng0g@xxxxxxxxx]

IRCA,

I was always fascinated by the radios in our house when I was very little.  We got a new one when I was about 6 or 7, and instead of sitting up on the top of the refrigerator it was on an end table in the living room, where I could reach it.  I turned it on and stumbled across the Indy 500 in full swing.  I thought this was the coolest thing in the world.  A couple of years later I got a crystal radio kit from the Cub Scout catalog and put it together as well as my 8 year old fingers could.  IT WORKED!!! I heard KOLD, all of about 12 miles from my house, but I had been bitten, was heavily infected, and would never recover.  When I was about 10 I spotted a neighbor hauling a huge wooden Philco out to the curb.  I rescued it and with a lot of advice from my Dad replaced some of the caps.  I loved that radio.  A very kind telephone lineman gave me a partial reel of wire for antennas.  I did not realize until years later, what a gift he had given me.  (several hundred feet of co!
 pperwield, something I could never afford back then).  I soon had wire going everywhere.  I used to wait until my parents went to bed, then quietly close my bedroom door, and roll up the throw rug to prevent light from leaking out under the door.  Then turn on the light, and DX half the night.  I could never get any of my friend interested, so it was a pretty solitary pursuit, which did not bother me much. I am now 64.  I have had my Ham License for over 30 years and am creeping up on 300 countries confirmed on the Ham bands.  But I still chase DX on the BCB and enjoy it just as much as I did when I was 10.  I can just afford better equipment now.

Steve Hawkins NG0G
73 49 111 01001001

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