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One thing about all of us kids was that we were always wondering how things worked and trying to make something that we did not have. I can think of all kinds of things, some that worked, kind of, and others that did nothing at all. I guess most kids are like that, but I think I spent more time then others just lying in bed at night thinking about how to make things. I know when my brother and I got older, we liked to work on cars and used to tare them apart just to see how they worked inside. My father gave us the old Ford when I started to drive and one of the first things my brother and I did was to take part of it apart to see how it worked. We decided we wanted to build a better car with a larger more powerful engine so we thought of ways to destroy the motor it had just to justify to our dad that we had to put in a new motor. We would mess around and blow up a clutch or transmission and then go get a used one at a wrecking yard and put it in. We actually had fun doing this stuff. Now days I hate working on cars and will do everything I can to avoid it, but in those days we really enjoyed it. Our love of cars went all the way from our own street machine like the Ford which ended up with a full blown road drag machine with a motor that was full race with just about everything done to it that could be done. It had white and blue roll and pleat seats with a matching midnight blue paint job. The car had Lake Pipes and was lowered as far as we could.  The motor was bored out as far as it could be with high compression pistons and a roller-racing camshaft. We had 6 large carburetors on it that would sometimes belch up to much gas and catch on fire. We had to have a fire extinguisher at the ready. The car was really to much a race car to drive on the road, but we just loved watching some guy cry as we blew away his brand new Chevrolet 409 which was the car with the best reputation for speed at the time.  We spent most of the money we maid playing music on this car.  It was a real cool machine. We lost very few races with it. I liked to build more than race. My brother Denny liked to drive and did most of it. I raced it some, but he was better at it then me so I let him do it. We went from this car to go-carts and then to a “C” class competition coupe that we took to the drags at Thun Field in North Puyallup. I belonged to the “Screamers” car club and we both had a reputation as drag racers in our town. Even to the point we got our insurance canceled just because our neighbors talked to our agent about the wild Wassman boys and their hot cars.  About the same time we got into cars real good, I found Amateur Radio, which was along with computers, the technology love of my life. 

As small kids, we did not have TV and spent time listening to the radio. I think it was at one of the several movies we went to that we heard the dits and dashes of mores code. We had a radio that we listened to most of the time that had areas on the dial that pointed out areas of the world where other broadcasts could be heard. The antenna was not good enough to actually hear much in the way of foreign broadcasts, but we would listen anyway hoping to hear something. We would sometimes unknowingly get into the amateur radio part of the spectrum and hear mores code on the speaker. We had no idea how to read this strange code, but just the idea that it may be coming from some far off place was a wonder to us. We had been in the Cub Scouts and had a book that had the basic code structure, but we were not able to differentiate the different tones and decode the messages being sent. 

One day I happened to get a Night Kit catalogue in the mail. It was filled with all kinds of wondrous electronic kits to be built. The first one I purchased with some of my chore money I got from mowing lawns was a crystal set. I sent away and after what seemed like months, I finally got it in the mail. I carefully followed the instructions and to my amazement, had a working crystal set. I used to lie in bed with the small earphone stuck in my ear and listen to AM broadcasts. Most were just local stations but sometimes I could hear KVI in far off Seattle. 

With this success fresh in my mind I decided to save and order a receiver that the manufacturer claimed could hear stations all around the world.  Again I waited and finally the day came that it showed up in the mailbox. I had already anticipated having a radio shack and cleaned out the old chicken coop. When the new radio came, I went directly to the radio shack and assembled it again as per the instructions. I learned very soon that it is not a good idea to touch live 110-volt circuits. After messing with it for some time, the tubes finally started to glow and I could really hear voices and code coming out to the speaker. We were all amazed by the receiver I built with my own little hands and soldering gun. Fred Keller and I were the most involved with it, but my brother liked to play with it as well.  My parents were quite proud and happy that I was showing and interested in a technical field like electronics and were quite supportive of what I was doing. 

Fred was so impressed that he sent for a catalogue and we started to look it over to see what else we could get that would be fun to play with. He had been pretending he was a disk jockey and playing 45s for us on an old army walky-talky we had. He decided that he wanted to get a transmitter kit so we could really play DJ. We got it and he put it together and at first all we did with it was to play DJ and send Elvis music between his house and mine. One day we saw one of the men in the neighborhood washing his convertible as he did most every other day. It was a new car and he was taking good care of it. It was his habit to wash the car and listen to the radio as he did so. Fred and I were upstairs in his house watching him wash his car when we got the bright idea of trying to transmit to him over his car radio. We got another radio and after tuning it to the same station the neighbor was listening to we made a few test tones and then started to talk to him. “Hi that sure is a nice car.” “ Why do you wash it so often?” This and much more jabber was sent to him. At first he did not pay much attention but all of a sudden he realized that the voices were talking to him. He looked at his car and then looked around the car to see who was hiding and talking to him. The more he looked the more we talked. We tried not to laugh, but it was so funny to see him scratching his head and looking all over to find were the voices were coming from. We stopped after we were about ready to pee our pants from laughing. The next time he was out there washing his car we were on the mike talking to him again. I think the poor man was about to report to a crazy home when all of a sudden he looked up in Fred’s window and saw us up there laughing at him. He started to laugh too, much to our relief.  We went down to the street and confessed our deeds and we all had a good laugh. He was glad to know that he was not going crazy. 

This was good fun and we had actually learned a little about electronics. One day there was an add in the paper that told about some classes that were being offered at the high school at night. The classes were free to the community and included several areas of interest to us. The class that sounded the best was the amateur radio class that offered to take us through the steps to get an FCC radio license. Wouldn’t that be something? We could actually talk to someone outside or neighborhood. We got to the class and there were many, mostly young and middle age men, there interested in the class. We started out listening to code on a tape recorder and spent the rest of the class on radio theory. The instructor was an ex-military radioman and was a kind of no nonsense type of instructor.  He did make the class fun however and we quickly learned the code. We drilled each other on the code whenever we could. We did not have a key or anyway of sending code but we would just say “de” for the dit. And “da” for the dashes and talk to each other in code. We kind of sounded retarded doing it, but the sound was similar to what was heard on code and it made it easy for us to learn and we could do it together any time we wanted. We had to go to C&G electronics in Tacoma to get a theory book that had sample test questions in it. Fred and I both drilled each other each day in preparation for the big test.   

Me (future KN7EEF ) and Fred ( future KN7DOB ) in Seattle goofing off before the big FCC test.

After we graduated from the class and had passed a make believe test the teacher gave us, we were ready to travel all the way to Seattle to take the real test at the federal building in downtown Seattle. My Dad worked just north of Seattle in those days and we decided to take the bus from old highway 99 to 3^rd street in Seattle and then wait there across from the federal building after the test to have my dad pick us up. The day came and the two candidates took the long bus ride from Milton were my mom left us off on old highway 99. We were so scared. Here we were two real young kids who had hardly ever even been to Seattle in our lives. I am sure never alone before, and we had to go all the way up to the 8^th floor to take a test. Our stomachs were full of butterflies and we were so scared we could hardly talk to the receptionist and tell her we were there to take a novice amateur radio test. In those days you had to take the code test both receiving and sending in front of some real scary FCC examiners. Then, if you passed the code test, your were sent into another room to take the theory test. We sat at a long wooden table with other candidates and with quivering hands and racing hearts took the code-receiving test. I don’t know which was louder, the code or my heart. We handed in our test papers and watched as the examiner carefully looked at the code we had deciphered and written on the paper. There was no such thing as kind of taking the code and then guessing at 10 questions as it is today. We had to take at least one minute of code perfect. Fred and I looked at each other. Our palms were still wet and sweat ran down our faces as we waited. After what seemed like an eternity, the man started to make some marks on a paper and then stood up an announced. “Please note the following candidates have passed the code receiving test and will be allowed to take the sending test.” Our names were read and a sudden feeling of both relief and anticipation swept over us both. Okay we passed part, but without sending correctly it was all in vain as you had to complete both parts to get credit for code proficiency.  I had more confidence in my sending ability than I had in receiving so I was sure I would pass the sending part, which I did. Fred passed it also on the first try, so we were feeling real proud of our selves as we went into the room to take the written theory test. We had taken and passed several practice tests and there was nothing that was real strange or hard to us, but we had to think and remember every electronic principle our instructor had taught us. After the test we both asked each other how we felt we did. Neither wanted to appear too confidant, but we both had good feelings that we had not only lived through this hellish experience, we may have actually passed it. The next hard part was the waiting to get the little notice from the FCC that you had passed and the indication as to what your call would be. A call is a alphanumeric character string that tells other radio operators who you are. It kind of like your name.  One of the things you looked for was that there was a return address of the FCC and then the shape of the envelope the notice came in. If it was a little envelope, you had licensee or what we call a ticket. If it was a larger envelope it was a rejection notice telling the candidate what he had missed. We both hoped and looked for the small envelope. One day Fred came running down the street with a small envelope in his hand. He had passed and was now KN7DOB. Well at least one of us could get on the air and even if I did not pass we could actually transmit and receive. Days and days went by and I got nothing. In my mind I had failed and it was taking longer to send me the rejection notice. One day I was doing something around the house and my mom came home and said. “ Oh Larry did you see the letter you got from the FCC?” “I left it on the kitchen table for you a couple of days ago.” Now my mom is a wonderful person and has done everything for me a mom could do, but I could have killed her that moment. Didn’t she realize how important this notice was and how I had worried about it. I asked her was it a big or small envelope. I did not want to look at it in fear it was the larger one. She said, “ I don’t know just a regular one I think, but why not look at it yourself?” With that she went and got it for me. It was a small envelope. The smile on my face went from ear to ear. I didn’t care what call letters I got, just that I had a call and had passed. My call turned out to be KN7EEF.   

This was my first QSL Card. Of course I had to put and "N" for novice between the K and 7 for a while.

We now had been successful but had at least one major problem, we had no amateur radio equipment to take advantage of our new status. I don’t really remember asking for it, but I found myself being told by my mom that I could order that transmitter kit I had been looking at in the World Radio catalogue. Fred’s parents had taken him to C&G and bought him a used receiver. I am quite sure the parents had planned this all along. Fred and I got the kit and carefully put it together. 

We were finally on the air. We had decided to operate the combined station at Fred’s house as it was much larger and Fred’s dad had recently remodeled the upstairs just perfect for a ham shack. It was much better then the old chicken coop I had. Less flees and spiders at least.  The transmitter worked the first time. We put a key to it and fashioned a dipole between the house and a tree in Fred’s back yard. Hour after hour we called CQ. That is how you tell other amateurs, (hams) that you want to talk to anyone. I don’t know how long it was but we finally got a contact with some other novice. We had to use a crystal, set on one frequency so if a ham in another location didn’t have a crystal for the same frequency as we had he could not contact us. We had a very limited supply of crystals. This was great fun for us and soon we both had contacted several stations in many of the states. We were trying to work and confirm each of the states. We would send a postage card with our call signs on it and other pertinent information about the contact and hope to get a like card back. These cards are known as QSL cards. We spent many happy hours sending CQ and hoping for a new contact. We needed a better antenna and decided to try and make an antenna from old parts that a TV repairman who lived in our neighborhood had discarded. It would never have worked, but we were so proud of it that we asked several members of the local club to come and see it. To this day I don’t know how they stopped form laughing at us, but instead complemented us and encouraged us. 

One night as usual, we were calling endless CQ when all of a sudden I heard a faint signal coming back to us. It turned out to be a rare station on an isolated island off Antarctica. I think the ham there felt sorry for us and gave us a contact. To say the least we were the talk of the local ham community. It really was a rare contact and every time a ham came to our shack we were eager to show off our card confirming our contact.  

We were doing quite well at this hobby and even though my parents were short of money, they bought me more equipment in the next year and finally both Fred and I set up our own stations. I continued to have a lot of fun with amateur radio until I went away after I graduated from high school to attend Washington State University. I sold all my equipment except my receiver to help my parents pay my other college expenses. I kept the receiver because it was still not paid for when I left. It was one of the few things my dad ever purchased on time payments. I had it for years until it was stolen when our new house in Puyallup was being built. Fred continued on in radio and electronics. He graduated from a technical school in electronics and worked his whole life in radio. He was one of the top ham operators when he died. He had worked all the countries of the world. When I went to college I thought it was the end of my radio experience. Even though I loved it, I just didn’t think I would be able to start over with the limited time I had. It had been the rule when I got out of radio and let my licensee laps that you could only enter as a novice once in a lifetime. Unknown to me, the law had changed and you could start over. One day an employee of mine in the data center was reading a ham study guide during her lunch hour and she told me of the change in the law and also more importantly told me that there were classes starting currently. I jumped at the chance and very soon found myself with an amateur extra class license and the call NV7J. I later changed it to W3OZ as a lot of people called me the WAZ or wizard of OZ at work so I asked and received the call W3OZ. 

I too have worked all but one of the countries of the world as I am writing this, and have spent many enjoyable hours on the radio. When pressure at work or home was too great for me I would put on my radios and transport myself to so distant place and forget my troubles. After I got my license back I called Fred and we decided to talk via radio to each other each Saturday morning at 7:30 we did this without fail and were able to relive many of the adventures we had as kids. There was always something to talk about.

One day Fred told me he had finally sold his house in Puyallup and was going to move into the new house he and his wife had bought. My brother Denny was quite sick with cancer at the time, and we both talked and worried about him. On our last radio contact Fred said something to the effect that who knows when we will go? Denny could die any time; but then again maybe I will be moving and drop over dead. This is the last thing he said to me, as he suffered a fatal heart attack the next Friday, as he was moving. He is now a silent key and our radio transmissions have stopped until we meet again someday.

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