Amateur Radio

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Photograph: Chris Nelson

I became interested in Amateur Radio during the summer of 1952.

I 'hung out' with a kid, on the weekends, that lived near one of my Grandparents' homes and his father was a General Class amateur radio operator, who had built 'all' of his equipment; including a very large beam antenna mounted on a 75 foot [telephone style] pole.

On Saturday mornings we would get together before kids' radio shows began and communicate with anyone who was willing to talk to us via amateur radio using morse code.

(fwiw) Television signals did not reach this area, at that time, and the only form of corporate media was AM radio, 78 RPM records, 45 RPM records, and movies.

I eventually ended up with a 1st Class F.C.C. license which allowed me to work in radio and television, and an Amateur Extra Class F.C.C. license, N6ECT, which allowed me to do, what I consider, some 'neat' things.

For example, I was able to receive pictures from the "Mars Lander" via J.P.L. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) using SSTV (amateur slow scan television) from my home:

Photograph: Dwight Dolliver

communicate with MIR, the Soviet Space Station (from my home):

and with the Spacecraft Columbia; special thanks to NASA (from my home):

Index

Amateur Radio Public Seismic Network - ARPSN

ARPSN - ARPSN

Pacific Packet Radio Society - PPRS

PPRS - http://www.pprs.org/

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