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NR2C Charles J. 'Chuck' Baker Medina, NY QCWA # 38243 |
I got started in Ham radio in 1975, getting my non-renewable Novice license (WN2WCP). Together with our Shop teacher and a couple of Elmers (Brian-WA2WXG (sk) and Mark-WB2ERS) in Tupper Lake,NY, we started a Ham Radio Club in my High School. I enjoyed building projects and stringing wires in the trees surrounding my house (Lazy-H mean anything to anyone?) I graduated in 1976 and never felt confident enough in my knowledge to drive the 300 miles to the nearest FCC testing site to try to upgrade my license so I was out of ham radio.
In 1980, I ran into another guy who had been in the radio club. He was excited about the 2-meter repeater atop the local mountain that he would help maintain and explained how useful it could be to my new wife and I for communications as I traveled around the Adirondack Mountains for work. I was hooked and the two of us started studying. The Volunteer Examiner program made it so much more convenient to take an exam. Anyway, we went to the next exam and I left happy and kicking myself for not driving that 300 miles, years ago, as my "playing" back then had taught me enough that I left the exam site with my Advanced license (KD2OF) and the wife had her Technician license. We enjoyed the repeater and I started helping Dean with the maintenance on it. The next exam, I got lucky with the CW questions and upgraded to Extra while Dean got his upgrade the following exam. Being on a very tight budget, my HF was limited to a Heathkit SB-102 and later a HW-5400 kit that another ham gave me after deciding that it was too much work to put it together. I played with whatever I could stick atop my 48' tower and discovered that in spite of trying to support PVC pipe with many, many pieces of twine, I could not make an HF Quad using PVC pipe. Dean, myself and some other alumni from the club would always do "Field Day".
Kids, computers, work and then divorce kept me from being active and eventually got completely out of it. When I moved, I sold all my tower and antennas. In 2012, I ran into Dean, again, on Facebook and he was talking about doing Field Day, again. That gave me the bug and I started accumulating a station. I discovered and joined the local club (Orleans County Amateur Radio Club) and RTTY contesting. I still enjoy antennas and climbing towers so try to help those around with theirs, when I can.
Today, I have an Icom IC-7700 with an IC-746 for 2M and backup feeding a PW-1 amplifier, feeding a Mosley PRO-67B beam @ 75' , an 80M dipole, 160M shortened sloper, 6M and soon 2M beam. I really enjoy RTTY contesting as my "shack" is in the dining room and RTTY is something I can do silently so it doesn't bother my new family when I am up late at night.
April 20, 2020