How I Fell in Love with Contesting

By Lee Buller - K0WA

Back in the golden days of amateur radio, men were men, transmitters were transmitters and receivers were receivers. Of course, your golden days of amateur radio might be a whole lot different than mine, but just round it out to the late 60s and early 70s.

I was 15 years old and so excited about ham radio that I had no time to worry about girls or cars. To me there was nothing more exciting than flipping on the DX40, the VF-1 and the NC57. I loved making contacts and I made many when I was WN0OWN. Soon, I upgraded to General (not after flunking it the first time) and got WA0SWC. My Elmer immediately dubbed me Short Wave Catastrophe because of my enthusiasm for the hobby.

My Elmer was K0JDB. He was not a contester, but he was a traffic man for the Santa Fe Railroad. Ray knew both International and American Morse, left handed and right handed. Ray's influence led me to traffic handling with the Kansas QKS net. Soon, I was a regular checking in twice a night and about 7-days a week. I became a control operator and soon was going to Tenth Region Net and then on to Central Area Net.

I passed books of messages, managed the net, and made sure everything was in order. We had 18 to 20 QTC each night. Accuracy was important as well as speed. We were all encourage by the Section Manager to participate in the old the QSO Party. That was fun, but never thought more than that about contesting.

Well, Rosanne came along and I kind of dropped out of traffic handling. Then Uncle Sam wanted some of my time. Ultimately, Ruby won out and for awhile took a good part of my time (and she still does along with Sara and Dan). After a few years, Ruby and I landed at Kansas State University to finish college. There I met some crazy guys one of whom is K0BJ (WA0TAS), now the Vice-Director of the Midwest Division. Bruce introduced me to Sweepstakes in November of 1972. The world never was the same...at least for me.

Bruce had brought his SB-100 to school. K-State did have a nice operating room atop Seaton Hall. Not much for antennas or rigs, but we plugged in the SB-100 and let fly with W0QQQ. My old bug was a flippin' and a floppin' with that old call. No computers. Just pencil and paper. What fun that was. I was hooked.

Two weeks later the W0QQQ gang plugged the mike in, but alas the mike cord had an open. Finally, K0BJ shoved a lollipop stick in the connector and jammed the cord in to make the connection and we were off. (About 6 years later, I visited Bruce at his home in Colby and he still had the SB100 and the lollipop stick was still jammed in the plug.) But the rate was poor and the static high. What we needed was an amplifier. So, Jack Meadows W7QQQ (WB0DAV) offered his pair of 813s. The amp weighed about 300 pounds and barely fit in the trunk of my 64 Chevy. Luckily, there was a freight elevator up to the 4-th floor, but we had to horse the amp up to the elevator penthouse where the station was housed. After wiring the amp directly into 220 and making the control lines, we were off to the races again. There is nothing better than the glow of 866 mercury vapor tubes being modulated.

After the contest was over, we all said....next year for sure. From 1972 to 1977, W0QQQ showed up in Sweepstakes CW and SSB...W-ZERO-QUACK-QUACK-QUACK. Take a minute and find your old bug and practice send W0QQQ a Ba-Zillion times.

What I like about contesting is the life long friends you make on the way. More on that later.