(Receiving John ‘s comment yesterday about his first QSO, reminded me that I needed to do something similar for mine)
I have misplaced my original license and logs (I will find them and put them online in eQSL and LotW someday), but I don’t need the log to remember my first QSO. My father, had signed me up for a Huntsville Amateur Radio Club Novice Class in 1970, about the time I turned 13. While I don’t remember much of the class, I can still see the instructor, Bob Gingras, WB4JMH, in my mind’s eye. Bob had been an active member of HARC for years by then, and was brave enough to teach many of their Novice classes. Back then the exams were longer, harder, and covered more theory, plus there was a requirement for 5 WPM Morse Code. Bob worked very hard to get a pretty large group of us up to speed and trained before we took the Novice exam. I believe you had to take the exam in a big city (Birmingham, Nashville, or Atlanta, for example), or sign-up for a traveling exam if you were lucky enough to have one in your area. I think HARC had arranged for a traveling exam to happen during the annual Huntsville Hamfest.
Well, Bob did his job well, and a number of us passed the exam. Sometime in the fall I finally received my license in the mail, and struggled for several weeks trying to make my first contact (using a military surplus ARC-5 receiver and 15 watt Ameco transmitter to an end-fed wire, probably about 50 feet long, that was stapled under to the soffit of our single-story house). I wasn’t having any luck, and called Bob Gingras, my instructor, in desperation. “Would he be willing to attempt a scheduled contact?” I asked, and he agreed.
Thus it came to pass, on Saturday October 21, 1970, at about 4:30 PM (the change to DST didn’t happen until October 25th, 1970), WB4JMH suffered through the trembling fist of WN4SON, becoming my first contact. I called him, out of breath, a few minutes after our QSO to find out how things “really” went, and to confirm the few things I had managed to copy down between static crashes. He laughed at my nervousness, mentioning that it was a difficult contact due to typical 80 meter noise during the daytime (made worse by my poor antenna and low power), but he assured me we really did make a contact, and a few days later I was handed a QSL card at the HARC meeting.
Bob Gingras, WB4JMH QSL card (My first QSO)
Bob Gingras, WB4JMH QSL card (My first QSO)
I always felt that Bob was my Elmer, and I think of him often. The last I heard of Bob, he had retired and left Huntsville for Florida. I heard he passed away some some years ago. He might be gone, but his spark lives on in my memory. In recognition of Bob, I’ve had my annual “brick” made with his name and call sign. It will remain a memorial to Bob in the Diamond Terrace of the ARRL.
