WN0DLV - History

In 1970 I found a friend in Glenn Bursell, who's father was Arlen, K0IKO (sk). We were in the 7th grade, living in Fairfax Minnesota. Our Science teacher that year was John Zilhardt, then WB0ABX. I want to mention also that my Father was in the Civil Air Patrol.

It didn't take too ling for us to master the Novice Exam and we were ON THE AIR. My call was WN0DLV, and Glenn's was WN0DSV.

I didn't own any equipment but John set up a Heathkit HW-16 in the Electronics classroom at school. We had a 40 meter dipole on the roof, about 50 feet high, stretched North-South. It was great. We would meet the Janitor at the door early in the morning, then operate till class time. In the afternoons, after school, we would usually be in there till they ran us out for the day. My Dad gave me an old Military Key, a CLT-26021B which I have researched and will add on about later. In wood shop, I cut and finished a Cherrywood base for it, attached gold felt to the bottom, and it sits on my desk today.

Eventually, I became the Communications Officer for the Civil Air patrol Squadron, operating a Heathkit HW-18 on 5 Mhz as Starfish 21. SSB too, yippee !!!

We picked up a couple of Military Surplus UHF lunchboxes to comunicate across town with, and I got an old AN/TSC-7 Transmitter and Reciever that ran off 12 volt dynamotors. Well, a car battery and battery charger later, I was on the air, kind of...it wasn't crystal controlled, so I couldn't transmit. But I sure could receive!!

That eventually led way to a Knight T-50, which I used to get my first (and only to date)"pink ticket" cause I didn't know how to tune it up. Eventually I located an HW-16, and made regular appearances on 80 meters around 3.708 MHz.

In 1972 we moved to Pensacola Florida, where I joined the Five Flags Amateur Radio Club, and participated in my first Field Day at Hurlbert Field, a training field in Northwest Florida for the Air Force.

My license lapsed in 1973, and then we moved back to Minnesota. Enjoy the pictures.

Pictures

This is a test image, it's the only one I have uploaded right now.