"One man's journey into Amateur Radio." Lou Blasco.

Over thirty years ago I was given an old mantle valve radio by a family friend. "See what you can do with that" he said, so I did. About an hour later the radio was in pieces and the set never worked again. That's my earliest recollection of my interest in all things electronic, in particular radio.

Not long after I got my first electronics magazines and devoured them reading them over and over again cover to cover. I've still got those first magazines minus the covers. In those early days I spent my time making crystal sets - variations on a theme and playing with Tandy/Radio Shack electronic project kits (150 in one) along with fiddling with more old radios. Along the way the family stereo and new color TV mysteriously stopped working. The stereo never recovered but the TV repair chap found that an IC had mysteriously rotated in it's socket and was plugged in backwards. No idea how that happened. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

The wonder of shortwave radio opened to me in the form of a National Panasonic BC/SW transistor radio that came my way. Many mornings I would wake to find the earphone still in my ear and the radio still crackling away. Strange languages and mysterious sounds fed my imagination no idea what most of them meant. Then there was those mysterious pips which I now know were the local Australian time signal VNG on 7.5MHz. Surprisingly, it took almost ten years before I actually heard the announcement in that loud deep voice, "This is VNG, Lyndhurst, Victoria, Australia operating on 3.5, 7.5 and 12MHz. ..... " I wonder how many of you out there still remember that authoritative voice booming out across the airwaves?

On to power supplies and the wonder of half and full wave rectification and filtering. All my radios were now mains powered with home made supplies. Ni-cad trickle chargers came next with no thought to charging rates and over heating cells. Wasn't too long before my first set of ni-cads failed and leaked their contents all over my Mother's beautiful side-board.   Through-out this period I learnt that there were "hams" that would "chew rags" whatever that meant and work on meters and bands with wavelengths etc. All quite fascinating and hard to understand for a young chap learning on his own. I also started noticing big antennas on big towers erected in certain houses around town. This was certainly something of interest to me.

The CB boom came along and I nagged my parents for a CB. Finally one Christmas a deal was struck and with my parents making a down payment on a radio. I would take the blue book down to Waltons and make the weekly hire-purchase repayments to pay for my first transceiver. All very well but without a proper antenna all I could to was listen on the long wire. I didn't know about antenna tuners and all I knew was if I didn't "swer in the antenna" I'd kill my finals. After a short frustrating time of listening only I was finally on the air with a 1/4 wave stainless steel whip and a Radio Shack VSWR and Power meter. As luck would have it this was at the peak of the 70's sunspot cycle and I learnt about skip and propagation. I also learn about mixing frequencies, crystal synthesis and the mysterious Phase Locked Loop.

Before long I had my radio in bits and a little box with toggle switches was attached by ribbon cable to the PLL chip in my radio. I learnt how to count in binary and had binary to frequency conversion charts stored in my head. From here I learnt about bandwidth, front end and transmitter tuning, linear amplifiers, high current power supplies, 1/2 wave ringo's (remember them - splatter sticks) 5/8 ground planes. Full wavelength loops and long wire antenna tuners followed and finally a three element beam all mounted on a water pipe bolted to the roof of the garage. Rotation used the armstrong method. The best contact I can remember was a station in South Africa. I also remember the sheer terror of finding an RI (radio Inspector) sitting out the front of our house one evening. I'd been talking to a friend on a frequency outside the approved CB allocation. We were studying for an exam and discussing electronics theory. Nothing happened that evening and I would like to think that the inspector chose to let it pass because we were studying. Whoever you are, thank-you.

By this stage I was at college studying for my Certificate of Technology in Electronics. Once complete I would be qualified as a Technical Officer in Electronics. During my time at college i was offered a job in the lab as an assistant to the T.O. in charge. My job amongst other things was to prepare practical experiments for the students. It also involved me building peripherals to suit the Motorola D2 and D3 evaluation kits for the students. My crowning achievement was to design and build "soft" eproms onto a PCB (yep designed that too) mounted on a 24 pin IC header that allowed students to "burn" their code into the prom and plug it in to the D2/D3 to use as system EPROM. It was basically a 2K static RAM with a watch cell and a voltage converter to keep the memory alive. I hacked the timing loop of our eprom programmer so we could use it to write quickly to these soft proms. From memory that was back in '83.

Who knew about EEPROMS back then? I never wanted to get into computers but the world has a way of conspiring against you and taking you along the path of progress. I started working for a now defunct national electronics distributor here in Oz. S-100 bus was all the rage back then. Many Z80 based systems followed afterwards and then the ZX-80 and ZX-81. I can't recall how many TV modulators I replaced in those things to make them suitable for our TV channels. Apples and Apple clones, Amstrad, and Amiga, BBC, Osborne etc CPU's like 8080, 6502, 68xx, 1802 were all there. One day a shipment of computer monitors came in from China. They were of very poor construction quality and more were DOA than not. I still remember the room stacked to the ceiling with monitors and I had to fix them all. That's how I learnt about monitors.

I was also give the task of building 106 single-board computers. They had around 100 IC's on board plus at least that many de-coupling capacitors and assorted discrete components. No sockets allowed except for the "big" chips and the RAM chips. Sockets would up the cost so I had to get them right first time. By the end of the job my soldering was to a level rivalling flow soldered. I developed a technique that involved dragging the iron tip along the rows of IC pins whilst continuously feeding solder to the pins and tip.

That's how I REALLY learnt to solder.

After completing my exams and graduating I moved into the medical electronics arena working on CT, MRI and all kinds of computer systems. Finally moving on to pure computer application support in the medical industry. Radio took a back seat for many years with work, girls, marriage, children, and a mortgage conspiring to keep me too busy (that's my story .... ) to go for my amateur license. Finally this year after moving to a bigger house and having a bit of a sea change I decided it was time to get my ticket. Last week I booked my place in a Foundation license course. This is the entry level amateur license In Australia and requires a minimum of technical knowledge and is designed to grow the ranks of amateur radio in Australia. Safety and good operating technique are key point in this course. Almost as soon as I booked my foundation course I changed my mind and asked the instructor if he could bring a copy of the Advanced exam with him. To his credit he said yes. MY plan was to sit the foundation exam and THEN if I was successful I would sit the advanced exam.

 The WIA (Wireless Institute of Australia) has produced a book to cover the Foundation license requirements. It's a great book and I urge anyone in Oz with even a little inkling that they might like to try amateur radio to look at the foundation license. I took the opportunity to look through all my old text books (yep - kept them too) and study up on the advanced syllabus during the week. I think they call that cramming. Also on the list were band plans and license conditions as prescribed by our local radio communications authority.

The great day finally arrived and ten of us took our seats for the 8 hour Foundation course. It was pleasing to see some youngsters there full of beans and ready to go. Young people are the hope for this hobby and their ideas will keep it fresh and alive. I think it's up to us to encourage them in every way possible.

 The course was straight forward and involved discussions on safety, interference, band usage, modulation modes (very basic) operating techniques and a small amount of electronics theory (ohm's law). Also included were discussions on practical matters like connector and cable identification, basic continuity checks, antenna types, S.W.R (Not SWER) and how to put your station together. I would have to say the most difficult part (if you could call it that) was the operating procedure section. Even after years of listening to amateur operators and using similar techniques on CB I still found the procedure difficult to complete successfully. Perhaps it was just nerves. We all had the same problems but it was a good group and we all got through it in the end.

Exams would be held the following day. The foundation exam is 30 questions in 45 minutes on regulations and theory followed by a practical assessment. The Advanced exam has the same practical assessment with 50 questions on theory in 90 minutes and 30 questions on regulations in 30 minutes. Imagine my surprise when the instructor informed me at the end of the day that I would NOT be sitting the the Foundation exam but would only be sitting the advanced regs and theory. What happened to my security blanket!!!!???? That evening I couldn't look at my books or watch TV or work in the shed or listen to the radio. Just an uneasy feeling. I know it's silly because it's nothing I hadn't done before. My track record with exams is very good with only one exam failure that I can recall. Pulse and Digital techniques. For some reason I just didn't understand it. My instructor at the time told me not to feel too bad about it. Apparently I had managed to spell my name correctly.

The great morning arrived and revision consisted of reviewing a sample exam. 30 questions. From what I can tell we all did really well. I managed to recall that FM stands for Frequency Modulation. After a quick break, we all took our places and it was on. We had been told that we could not use scientific calculators in the exam - strange but true. Converting microfarads to nanofarads - OK that's fine just move the decimal point. Next one, 20mW into an amp with 33dB gain. CRAP! Power gain is 10log P1/P2. What do I do without a calculator?????. Finally the light goes on. 10dB up = 200mW, 10dB up = 2W, 10dB up = 20W and then 3dB = 40W. OK you can do this. Nerves settle and I continue.

Before I know it I've answered all the questions checked my answers as best I can and I'm out in 50 minutes. All the others are out by this stage chatting excitedly about the answers on their test. I join them and start chatting comparing answers with some of the other advanced candidates. 40W? YES! Well we either all got it wrong or we all have at least one right. All too quickly I'm summonsed back in to the hall to sit the regulations. 30 questions in 30 minutes. 10 minutes in, question 20, my mind wanders and I start thinking about the theory exam. Wait! The limiter comes before the demodulator not after! What were you thinking??!!! Panic. What else did I get wrong? Forget it move on. Can't concentrate, the question make no sense. Crap, only 15 minutes left. Relaaaaaaaaaaaaax. it's OK. Take a deep breath and continue. Can't! Close the paper and take a break.

The instructor asks if I'm finished. NO! I hiss. "Sorry, no, just taking a breather". Calm again. Take a drink and continue. 20 minutes and I'm done. Go out for a breath of fresh air and a chat. Practical assessment. Work through cable types, continuity tests, connecting equipment, measuring VSWR, measuring and adjusting output power. Discuss safety including the danger of high voltages including RF. Discuss CTCSS and DTMF, discuss operating techniques. OK grab the mike and make a call. The other station responds. Get his callsign, name, QTH, and sigs. Return same to him. QSY to 70cm. End the call. Assessment over - well done.

Well it's all done now and I've successfully passed my exams - 93% for the regulations and 90% for the theory. In the next few weeks I will receive my new advanced call VK3ALB. This will allow me access to all bands on all modes as prescribed by our local Radio Regulations here in Australia. I've got a VHF high band commercial radio that is all set to go on 2 metres with a Diamond 130 discone and a TS520 and 5 band trapped vertical for HF. Not perfect but a very good start and as they say "It's better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick". It's been a long time since that first mantle radio gave up it's life in the interests of science but it was all worth it.

Lou Blasco VK3ALB December 2007