1979 - Ham Radio Beginnings

In December 1978, with some help from my father and a local ham radio club, I took my Novice code and written tests, and I passed.  It was January 5, 1979 that I was issued my first Amateur Radio License, with the call sign KA1CCA, a Novice class ticket shown here. On January 20, 1979, I had my very first ham QSO at the station of my friend Ron Chouinard, KA1BVL (pictured left).
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I picked up a Henry Radio Tempo One transceiver, and my antenna was a dipole antenna strung in my back yard. The Tempo One was familiar to me because it was frequently used by 11 meter folks that I knew. It had a separate speaker/power supply. The rig was a black-face Tempo One with a brass CW straight key mounted on a piece of wood. You can see at the extreme left of the picture that I still had the President Washington CB radio along side of the ham rig. Note also the Siltronix SWR-3DX wattmeter and Mattco Model 711 Frequency Counter, both left-over from the Siltronix station. 

My first antenna was a simple wire dipole. Then, I picked up a Hy-Gain Model 18 AVT/WB Vertical that I ground-mounted with radials. On January 26, 1979, I got an endorsement for 20 WPM Morse Code (receive) from the ARRL as part of the Certificate of Code Proficiency program. I made my first ham radio QSO ever from my new radio on February 6, 1979, on 21.143 on CW, working WD9FYD in Foulton, Indiana (QSL below). 

​Note also the KA1CCA callsign entry in the Winter 1980 Radio Amateur Callbook (pictured left).