The photo below shows the first station I put together on a small desk in my teenage bedroom when I received my WN4HQW Novice class license in early June 1962.
But it wasn't until August 18 that I made my first contact! I spent nearly a month futilely trying, and then my family took a six-week ccamping trip from Northern Virginia to the Seattle World's Fair and back. I still have the journal I kept, and the final entry was on August 1.
It had an Ameco AC-1 15W transmitter and my maternal grandfather's Hallicrafters S-41G "Skyrider Jr." receiver with a dial where the 80M band was only ½" wide! Other bands were even smaller. The fine-tuning knob helped a bit, but I was lucky to pick out individual CW stations on that receiver.
Updated October 22, 2025