Hello from WB4HLW

I was introduced to radio when I was eleven years old. My dad had me search around for a few common household items. A toilet tissue tube, brass thumbtacks, varnish, small brass strips, a safety pin and a small pine board. He had brought home a set of very old headphones and thing he called germanium crystal plus a roll of fine gauge copper wire. After a long afternoon of considerable instruction from my dad, and a short lesson about how to make a long wire antenna. I had unknowingly built a single diode crystal radio. He told me to take the cat whisker and pick at the crystal and if I was patient I might hear something. After a half hour I heard something in the headset very weak. It was a broadcast station in Texas of all places. I was hooked to SWL and grabbed every book on radio that I could find. I’ve always been very thankful the day my dad showed me how to build a crystal radio. It was a great experience that I will never forget.

I was licensed as a novice in 1969 as WN4RHZ mentored by K4VRE John Clark. John was my radio electronics instructor in high school. He was a great teacher and through him I learned some very sound radio/electronic fundamentals.

I let my novice license expire but got an advanced class license and the WB4HLW call in 1974 while working in QC and repair at Ultra Electronics in Knoxville. The company manufactured tri-band scanning receivers. I learned a lot while at Ultra Electronics from several good friends N4SH, WA4CDM, WA4NVN and WB4RJE.

I left Ultra in 1977 and went to work for C.E.S Company an electronics contractor in Knoxville. We installed and serviced all types of communication systems for hospitals, commercial building and schools. I stayed very busy doing service work and did not have time to stay active with ham radio. I did manage to get one of my co-workers interested in ham radio while I was at CES Company. His call is AC4RB Glen Irick. Glen was also another mentor who taught me a lot.

I left CES Company in 1994 and started work with a major wireless company and do the area maintenance and repair at several transmitter sites in the East Tennessee area and get to spend a lot of time on the mountain tops.

I had always been interested in flying and in 1994 started taking flying lessons in Morristown, TN. I got my private pilots license in 1995.

In 1999 I found and have rebuilt a 1949 Cessna 140 tail number N3765V. It took 14 months to rebuild and it was a trill to take it on its first flight in 2001. It fly’s like a dream still today and I have flown it 400 plus hours. I try to fly the 140 every weekend weather permitting. No fun to fly in the clouds in a VFR airplane.

Picture of QTH and Ridges of East Tennessee. Wire antennas are in the trees and in the field. I love it here.

I have just recently had the urge to get back into ham radio. I had an old Heath Kit HW-101 that WA4CDM gave to me years ago. I got it out of the storage box August 2008, did some minor repairs, tuning and calibration. I have worked at least 30 countries and half the states on the old rig and it has been a blast. Its fun to talk to the old timers and almost all of them tell me the HW-101 was their first radio. It is also fun to get in a pile up with 65 watts, a good antenna and a 38 year old radio and make a contact with a foreign country. I have even been able to work Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand with the old HW101.

P.S. I have put the old HW-101 on the backup shelf and am using an Icom 746 Pro for the primary transceiver. I have also added a HA-10 Heath Warrior Amplifier to the shack.

Hope to see you on the bands.

73’s Charles Wright WB4HLW