The Novice license is a thing of the past now - kinda. The reason I say kinda is that like the Advanced Class license I held for 25 years, the Novice license was "grandfathered". You could renew it and keep it, but no new ones are issued.
The Novice and Technician are a lot alike now, but weren't in 1973. I never considered being a Technician, no offense to those who held or hold that class of license. In those days Tech had full privileges on 6 meters and up, but nothing on shortwave, and that's where I wanted to operate!
The problem was that setting up a shortwave station was quite a challenge for a 13-yearold. It took me a year to get on the air. During that year I was studying for the coveted General Class ticket, taking a class with the local radio club on the theory and listening to morse code practice tapes. In those days the code was a big barrier to many people getting a license, as you had to be able to write down a minute of straight perfect copy - that's 65 characters at the 13 word per minute rate required for General.
But the truth is to really get familiar with code you had to get on the air. So I looked for gear. Luckily my parents wanted to support me, although they couldn't run out and buy new gear for me. So I ended up with an old Heathkit DX-40 for a transmitter, and a Gonset G-66 for a receiver.
The Heathkit was crystal-controlled, which was required for Novices in those days, and put out the maximum Novice power of 75 watts on a good day with the wind right :) The Gonset was a mobile rig - old style with tubes and a power supply that separated for those who wanted to have more room in their car. It had a voltage-doubling power supply which meant it could deal you a wicked shock on occasion. It also had a nifty cord-driven band display that flipped when you turned the bandswitching knob.
The problem was that when my elmer fired up the Heathkit for the first time it let loose with a big buzz, a puff of the magic smoke appeared and that was it - power transformer was fried. It took me a few more months to repair that. In fact I had to convince my parents to break the ironclad rule against giving money for Christmas, and give me $18 for a new power supply transformer. Joe and I soldered it in and I was up and running.
The Gonset wasn't very good at 15 meters, but I didn't have a very good antenna for up there and no rocks (crystals) so that was ok - I hung out on 40 meters, looking for contacts after school. Those were the days!! I still go back and look up the results from the 1975 Novice Roundup to see that yes, I really did make 60 contacts in 29 sections, filling them all in on a paper log.
Ok, so enough on my siderail - I will revisit the ol' days ever so often, but mostly want to blog about what Ham Radio is now, and what's going on in the world.
73 for now,
Pete
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