My parents had bought a row house, 232 94th St. in Brooklyn and my Dad had built a furnished room in the basement for my bedroom and ham station. While in the Army, I had learned about Single Sideband transmission.  Since it was very new to Ham Radio, I decided to build a Single Sideband transmitter.  I used a homemade SSB phasing exciter driving a 304TH final on 20 and 10 meters. I got it on the air in the winter of 1949 or 50, I think -- I can't seem to find my old logbooks from that time. Anyway, I was one of the early pioneers on ham radio with Single Sideband modulation.

In 1950, or so, I met Bill, W2DLP, and we became lifelong friends. We combined his equipment with mine in my bedroom and he would operate during the day while I was in college, and I would operate at night while he was working the night shift at the Busch Terminal Docks.

What did you do for a living during this time?

In 1952 I quit college and worked for FM Station WGHF [now WPIX-FM] in New York City where I finally got to put that First Class Radio Telephone license to use. Then I worked for Western Electric Company for a very short three months.

In 1953 I got a job as an Engineering Assistant with Page Communications in Washington, DC. They sent me to Greenland where they were setting up new Ionospheric Forward Scatter communications links across the Atlantic.  With Page I spent two very cold winters in Greenland and two summers in Washington. 

How did you find the time to operate ham radio?

For a long time I didn't.

I didn't operate ham radio at all from Greenland. When I left Page and started at Brown University in the fall of 1955, I operated the school amateur radio station a bit but didn't operate under my own call.

I married Denise in 1957 and we settled into a little apartment, but even then I didn't set up a ham station.  I was too busy just trying to graduate.  I finished my degree requirements in Physics in January of 1959 and went to work for RCA Service Company in Washington DC that spring.

In 1960, RCA sent us to Japan for 14 months. We returned and spent three months in Canada. Then, in 1961 they sent us to Berlin Germany, just as The Wall was going up.   We spent two years in Berlin, finally returning to Washington at the end of 1963.