I was first licensed in Wisconsin as a teenager in 1959 as KN9HEC and within the year upgraded to “Conditional” (General Class license for those who lived far from an FCC office) as K9HEC.My first station sported a simple Hallicrafters receiver and a Gonset GSB-100 Dual Sideband receiver (AM and SSB) running about 40 watts into a neighborhood-terrorizing dipole fed through TV twin lead. I received my share of post card notices from the FCC about my spurious emissions!

In 1980 when I moved my family to Seattle, I was determined to quit smoking at the insistence of my children and used as motivation the promise to fund an amateur radio station with the savings from not smoking. It worked. I purchased a great Kenwood TS820S from a doctor in Seattle (don’t recall his call sign) and got re-licensed as KA7IYS. I ordered the GAP Titan DX vertical as my antenna which I used until recently.

I sold the GAP vertical and now use a Mosley TA3-JR beam and a 450’ horizontal loop antenna. My rig is a Yaesu FT-890 running 100 watts. And I’m renewing my interest in CW and digital modes.

Emergency Communications is my latest interest. I’m joined a local AREgroup and have the needed VHF and UHF FM gear. I encourage scouts and other new blood tojoin the amateur ranks.

My shack in a room off the garage is dedicated to amateur radio. It's finished - but I wish I had heated it as well. Just outside I have several AGM batteries with more than 200 ampere-hours of operating capacity.

Amateur radio is now even more rewarding for me than it had been as as teenager. And I'm working on infecting more young people with the same interest.

I still don't smoke.

73's and best DX to you!

Jim N7MU