My Mobile Ham License Tags Through the Years

 

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K5LAD - 68
K5LAD - 69
K5LAD - 70
K5LAD - 71

K5LAD - 72
K5LAD - 73
K5LAD - 74
K5LAD - 75
K5LAD - 76
K5LAD - 77
K5LAD - 78

K5LAD - 79
K5LAD - 80
K5LAD - 86
K5LAD - 90
K5LAD - 94
K5LAD - 95
K5LAD - 96

K5LAD - 97
K5LAD - 98
K5LAD - 00
K5LAD - 02
K5LAD - 03 		 
WA5SNU - 69

WA5SNU - 94
WA5SNU - 95
WA5SNU - 96
WA5SNU - 97
WA5SNU - 98
WA5SNU - 00
WA5SNU - 02
 
WB5IRP - 75
WB5IRP - 76
WB5IRP - 77
WB5IRP - 78
WB5IRP - 79
WB5IRP - 80

 

I've had the K5LAD license since starting my ham career back in 1957.  To the best of my memory, my first mobile was in about 1962 when I had a homebrew 6146 transmitter and a Regency transistorized converter in my wonderful old '53 Ford.  I remember the 6 volt dynamotor, which generated the 500 or 600 volts for the transmitter, was so powerful that when I would key it up to transmit, its starting torque was so powerful that it would rock the car over a bit.  I also remember the old T-17 W.W.II carbon microphone I used.  Back in those days you never had to worry about someone making too long a mobile transmission because those T-17s had a powerful spring on the button.  Your finger or thumb couldn't hold it keyed very long without hurting so badly that you had to let it go.   Voila!  Short transmissions.

Looks like I had some off years in the 80s where there weren't too many tags or mobiles.  I was not as active since I was busy raising boys.

The tags for WA5SNU were for my wife Gloria's call.  She was licensed back in about 1966 but I didn't seem to save as many of her old tags.  She probably encouraged me to throw them away since they were just old dirty useless pieces of metal.

The tags for WB5IRP were for my ham radio store call at Derrick Electronics in Broken Arrow, Okla.  I used them on the several delivery and hamfest-visiting vans which we had.  I sold the store in 1980 so those tags stopped back at that time.

It was fun going back through all the old tags and re-living some old memories.  Most of them are very pleasant.  One of my favorites was during the summer of 1965 when I was going to summer school at Okla. State University in Stillwater.  I had the old '53 Ford and was cruising along not bothering anyone.  Suddenly I was pulled over by a local Sheriff's deputy, complete with red lights and siren.  He had never seen a ham radio tag and I thought I must be up to no good.  I tried to explain to him that the tag was my ham radio call and the tag was offered through the DMV and built by the state prisoners, just like all the other state tags.  He didn't buy it.   Then I told him that I had a regular tag which I had to purchase before I could get my ham tag and I kept it in the trunk.  He wanted to see it.

I just happened to be wearing Bermuda shorts that day and I'm not too picturesque in anything but especially in Bermuda shorts.  I really didn't want to have to get out of my Ford but the deputy said I had to.  I was standing alongside the road looking like a giant idiot but I opened the trunk and showed him the tag.  He recognized that one and decided I was actually legal.  His comment was, "Well I ain't never saw (sic) one of them before."

He let me go without a ticket but I heard him say again as I was getting back in my Ford, "I sure ain't never saw (sic) one of them before."   Mobiling is, and always was, so much fun.

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Created 1/14/04 - Last updated  10/15/2006 10:46 PM

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