How did you get started in radio?

In the summer of 1944, when we were 16, my friend Sherman and I got summer jobs at the RCA Central Receiving site at 66 Broad St. in New York.  For two summers I worked as a messenger boy delivering RCA Radiograms to businesses on Wall St. and the surrounding areas.

But more importantly I got to see how radio worked. I learned that messages being received at Riverhead Long Island from all over the world were relayed to us in NYC.   Outgoing messages went from us in NYC out to Rocky Point Long Island from where they were transmitted to all over the world. It was exciting stuff.

In 1945 Sherman and I got our commercial radio licenses.  A First Class Radio Telephone license would let us work for radio stations and as radio operators on ships at sea. But I didn't really use mine until 1952 or so when I returned from my Army enlistment and went to work for Radio Station WGHF.

That was commercial radio, but what about amateur radio?

My first radio was a National SW-3, three tube Regen, that my father brought home from his work at Sperry Gyrascope Co during WWII. It was on this radio that I first heard hams on 75 meters as ham radio was again opened up after the war.

In April of 1946 I enlisted in the Army Signal Corps.  Since I enlisted for 3 years, rather than waiting to be drafted, I got to choose the branch of service and the location.  I chose to go into the Signal Corps in Alaska. After sending me to basic training in Louisiana for the summer, they sent me up to Alaska in the winter of 1946.