Those were the call letters of my amateur radio station
almost seventy years ago. It was a
modest affair, operated only by using Morse code—I couldn't afford to build a voice transmitter, and in any
event my mother and sister wouldn't have appreciated hearing my voice until the
wee hours during which I usually operated the station. I don't know how many thousands of
times I tapped out those call letters over the two years that I was an active
ham: . - - . . - - -
- - . - - .
- . . -
My fascination with radio technology started when I was
about 10 years old. It was the
equivalent then, I think, of falling in love with computer technology as a youngster
today. I started studying radio
theory and building radio after radio as I learned new details. I soon found out about ham radio, but
by that time, late 1941, the U.S. had entered World War II, and amateur radio
was shut down for the duration as a precaution against its use for espionage.
By the end of the war, I was fully prepared both to take the
test to get a ham license and to build my own station—actually a series of
stations whose transmitters had ever more power. I remember climbing to the top of the water tower on the
roof of my ten-story apartment building to install one end of the most
well-sited antenna I could—not a small feat considering my quaking knees and
the length of the antenna, some 60 feet.
Then came many late nights—after I had done my homework, but
more importantly when transmission at the frequencies I used would be
best. At first, with my initial
low-power transmitters, I was able to contact other hams only in surrounding
areas. Later—what excitement!—I
was able to contact stations throughout all of the then 48 states and, mirabile
dictu!, amateurs throughout the world. In these days of the Internet, making
international one-on-one contacts is so commonplace that it may be hard for
young people to understand that then each new one was an accomplishment of some
magnitude.
It was a tedious procedure, especially given the slowness of
Morse code: twenty words per minute was an excellent speed. I would start by repeatedly tapping out
"CQ de W2QKU" (CQ being international code derived from the English
"seek you"). Then I
would tune my receiver through neighboring frequencies to try to find a
response—someone sending my call letters back to me followed by his or her own
call letters—amidst the chatter of other stations and omnipresent static. Or, of course, I would start by
listening for others seeking a contact and respond to them. After making contact, a Morse-code
conversation would ensue, full of abbreviations like those used today in
texting except that they were established by international agreement (the
so-called "Q" codes).
Then both parties would confirm the contact by sending to the other
their own custom-designed postcards; I soon had postcards from all over the
world with resplendent stamps on them.
At times I would deliver messages to
neighbors—a free, custom radio-telegraph service in those days when long-distance
telephone calls and telegrams, particularly international ones, were very expensive. In one case, I repeatedly relayed
messages back and forth between a father in the pre-Castro Cuba of that time
and his two daughters who lived but a few blocks from me in New York City.
During the seven years of my radio hobby, until I went off
to college, my cousins often made fun of me for having my head stuck in radio
equipment all the time—the complete 1940s nerd. But immersing myself in radios turned out to have been a
worthwhile effort, for it was an introduction to a broad field of engineering
that occupied all of my professional career.