I started in Amateur Radio in 1970 in the city of Ponce, PR. My teacher for CW was an old AMECO, 33 1/3 rpm record I ordered from Allied Radio. My original callsign was WP4DHW which I held for one year. After the year and a 4 hour bus ride through the mountains of Puerto Rico, I went for my General class license test in the Federal building in Old San Juan. I passed the test and knew I was now KP4DHW, so the ride back to my town was a pleasant one.
Most of my activity on the radio has been CW. Because of that, I wanted to get the extra small pieces of band allowed to Extra Class licensed hams. Two years after my General test, I went for my Extra Class test. This meant another 4 hour ride through the mountains to the Federal building. There, I had to pass the 20 wpm CW test, both receiving and sending with straight key. No bugs allowed. After passing that, then came the Advance class written test and then the Extra class written test. Made it fine though all the testing. Again, a pleasant ride back to Ponce.
It was quite hard for me to get my ham tickets, mainly because of limited Elmers on the island at that time. Because of this, I decided to start some CW and theory classes at the Ponce Institute of Technology with the help of my friend Pedro, NP4A (at that time, KP4AST). We did this for about 6 years and it was a very successful activity. An average of 30 students received their license every year.
I lived in California for 30 years and after retiring 9 years ago, we decided to move back to KP4 land. We were fortunate to find a very nice QTH for putting up my dipoles. I invite you to take a look at my QRZ page. My XYL is NP4GP. We have two sons living in California and two daughters living in Wisconsin. The two boys, along with the oldest girl, are CW licensed ham radio operators. They still maintain their license active but they are not active in radio. They passed their CW test in California when they were 11, 9 and 8 years old!
In summary, as of 2013, I am 72 years old. I have been a ham for 53 years and have held my call, KP4DX for 45 years now. I hold the #22 Extra Class license Certificate in Puerto Rico.
This biography is what appeared in Solid Copy when the member joined CWops.