My Dad's shack in the '30s	My shack in 1973
Dad's shack in the 40's or 50's

Being born in 1954, I am obviously way to young to be a for real WØ call sign holder. Actually my dad was the first ham in the family. He got started in about 1929 if I remember correctly. Back then there was no Zero call area and he always referred to his first call as 9DKP. Later he became WØPWE and he held that call until his liscense expired sometime in the 1960s. I became interested in the hobby as a teenager and pulled my dad back into it. My highschool band teacher WAØVFE convinced us to get back on the air, so dad and I got our novice tickets as WNØDBG and WNØDBH. After about 6 months of hamming we made the big trip from Hudson, Iowa to our nearest FCC office (St. Paul, Minnesota) and got our general tickets. It was fun having consecutive calls and dad enjoyed his call using the phonetics "dirty Bob Hall". I got my Extra Class license in 1975 but passed up the opporunity to get one of those great one by two calls that were available for a short time in the late 70's. When dad became a silent key in 1985, I decided I would try to get his old call WØPWE if I ever had the chance. Along came the vanity call sign program and here we are back on the air with WØPWE.

Copyright W0PWE [2001]