Alice King, AI4K
(formerly KA4CSS, 1978)

My time as a novice was about two years.   The same month my husband and I received our novice licenses (KA4CSS  and KA4CTF), we bought a new (to us) house.   It was a good, solid house, built in the 1950's, and I am still living in it.   Therefore, the first year of our licensing was not very active.

 We finally got up a 5-band folded dipole and started working on Worked All States.   The rig was a Kenwood TS 830S with a Murch tuner.   I also started my career in DXing at that time.   By the spring of  '80, we both were down to 2 states to go on WAS so we held off on upgrading until we reached that goal.   Meanwhile, we had acquired a 45' tower and tri-band beam.   My WAS NOVICE  is dated July 9, 1981.  We had upgraded to General immediately after qualifying for the WAS and became N4DDK & N4DDJ. 

As a side note, those general calls are now held by my son's children (Sarah and Brian).  Feel free to edit and/or paraphrase as suits your needs.

Alice/ AI4K/ exKA4CSS/ N4DDK