My earliest interest in radio began in Lone Rock, Iowa with many hours of listening on very large old console radio receivers with many tubes in them and large speakers and using the highest longest wire I could get put up. Ham radio stations, aircraft, police, shortwave overseas stations like BBC, Deutchewelle, etc. all came pouring in. Could hardly wait to get home from school back then to get down to the basement and switch on the set and begin tuning. Coastal marine stations came in loud, WCC and others. I then began hanging around the train depot where my father's friend Jim Larsen worked as the agent for the Great Northwestern rail service. The telegraph in that office was busy nearly all the time, it was hard for me to grasp any of the conversations, I could only pick out parts and pieces. Jim Larsen helped me continue my interest by giving me my first two keys and sounders. He let me operate on the live telegraph line one evening when it was closed down for normal traffic about 7:30pm. He told the other agents up and down the line that a young man was going to send a bit from the rules book. In that all wood room that sounder sure was loud. All the while he sat outside on the bench facing the railroad track reading an evening newspaper and listening to what I said or what some replies were(through the open window). Much later on after learning the Continental/International morse plus a lot of shortwave radiotelegraph listening, I was given the Novice mail exam by Dr. W.W. Jolley, W zero something, in Fenton, Iowa, our family doctor. Issued my FCC Novice license on May 9, 1957 as KN0JTK, applied from Lone Rock, Iowa. We had moved to Osage, Iowa after my exam and application so I had to go back to Lone Rock and pick up the license at the Post Office.;. Osage, Iowa is where I set up my very first station and got on the air, all cw. Ran an E.F. Johnson Viking Adventurer 50 watt cw (crystal control) transmitter with a National NC-88 receiver, and a telephone cable long wire (scrap wire from neighbor) with brass railroad key. Some time after my Novice license expired I was in radio school in the service and took the Conditional Class exam (General Class by Mail for Military) and got K0JTK callsign. While assigned in England I received the reciprocal callsign G5AQK and I lived in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, a short distance from G5LP. The license was 7 pages, one for fixed station and one for mobile. There I ran a Hallicrafters HT-46 transmitter, with three receivers, an Admiralty B40, B41(VLF), and Air Ministry R1155 to dipole. While there I worked on Marconi microwave terminal systems, then later on tropospheric scatter radio in the Dominican Republic and Korea. In June 1966 while living in Wellingborough as a civilian, I was hired by Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd, Chelmsford, in the Installation division by Mr. Ahrens. However, the first assignment was to be one month at training, then 10 months in the Sudan in East Africa installing Marconi radio systems. I Declined, did not want 10,000 square miles of sand dunes and camel droppings, hi Then went to work for Reliance Telephone Co, Ltd, in Wellingborough in their workshop building telephone equipment of various types. Still interested in shortwave listening, some MF and LF listening, like 600 meters, and collecting a few morse keys from time to time with some internet surfing in areas related to ham radio and radio history. Back in the US later on I worked at SBS (Satellite Business Systems), IBM, Rolm, Siemens, and finally CMS Communications. All interesting experiences. Finally got mixed band/mode Worked All States award number 52,556, but especially got the Worked All States award for 160 meters number 914, which took me a long time to get. OMISS 4845, FISTS 10078, SKCC 713, Ten-Ten 41,438, and member ARRL, MTC, and the RSGB. Member of a real great local Ham Club called B.V.A.R.C.(Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club).