Our Stories
1951
Bill Weinhardt W9PPG
Dale Bredon W6BGK 
Bob McDonald W4DYF
Charlie Curle AD4F
Jim Franklin K4TMJ 
Elmer Harger N7EL
Byron Engen W4EBA
Hank Greeb N8XX
Gene Gertler, AD2I
Richard Schachter W6HII
1952
Dick Bender W3SYY
Tom Webb W4YOK 
Ron D' Eau Claire AC7AC
Ron Baker WA6AZN
Sam Whitley K5SW 
Gary Borri K9DBR
Steve Jensen W6RHM
Jim Leighty W6UJX
1953
Dan Girand W5ARB
Dan Bathker K6BLG
Bill Bell KN2CZZ 
George Marko K2DWL  
Kenny Cassidy WN2WNC
Rick Faust N2RF
Fred Jensen K6DGW
Alvin Burgland W6WJ
Paul Signorelli W0RW
Jim Brown W5ZIT
Bob Rolfness W7AVK
Paul Danzer N1II
Charlie Lofgren W6JJZ
Joe Montgomery W1DWJ
Dick Dabney K6BZZ
1954
Ray Cadmus W0PFO
John Johnston W3BE
Dan Smith K6PRK
Dick Zalewski W7ZR
Bob Brown W4YFJ
L.B. Cebik W4RNL (sk) 
Carl Yaffey K8NU 
Gary Liljegren W4GAL 
1955
 Paul Johnston W9PJ
Jack Burks K4CNW
Al Cammarata W3AWU
Gene Schonrock W6EAJ
Dave Germeyer W3BJG 
David Quagiana K2MTW
Dan Schobert W9MFG
Jack Schmidling K9ACT
Dan Marks ex-K6IQF
Matt Wheaton W1EMM 
1951 - 1955
1956 - 1960
1961 - 1965
1966 - 1970
1971 - 1975
1976 - 1980
1981 - 1990
1991 - 2000

Hank Greeb, N8XX
(formerly WN0FVD, 1951)

I began in 1951, went to Omaha Nebraska for the Novice Test.  Don't remember how long it took to get my license, but the first contact was after I got home from High School, using my father's rig.  It had a pair of 1625's modulated by another pair of 1625's, but I turned it down to 75 Watts and disabled the modulator.  It took over an hour to get the other fellow's name, QTH, etc.  By the time the QSO was finished dinner had already started.  I came out - mother was worried because I was "white as a sheet" - father said I'd get over it.

My first personal rig was a pair of command sets - a BC-457 transmitter (nominally covered 4 to 5.3 MHz, so I padded it down to cover 3.5 to 4  MHz just tweaked the capacitors in the thing).  I converted the VFO to a  crystal oscillator (got $15 for a writeup in CQ in 1952, a big sum for a HS student.)  The receiver was a BC-454, wide as a barn door, but both were cheep - one of them was donated by a ham friend of my father.  the only thing in the power supply which had to be purchased outright was a 24 volt transformer to power the filament supply.  The power transformer came from a defunct receiver, produced about 350 volts, which gave about 50 watts input.  No one measured power output in those daze....

First antenna was a random wire about 130' long, between two outbuildings, one which I converted to a hamshack.  I "tuned" with the roller inductor inside the command transmitter and a neon bulb with a loop next to the antenna.  I tuned for maximum brilliance with the neon bulb.  Later I scrounged up a surplus RF ammeter, and tuned for max RF current in the antenna.

I worked 40+ states on 80 meters with that rig while a novice - WN0FVD.  One of the weirdest things of that era was a fellow ham who was erroneously issued WN0SOS and then W0SOS, which he used for over a year before the FCC caught their error and issued him another call! 

72/73 de n8xx Hg