Quoted by permission from N9DD's website at http://n9dd.home.comcast.net/~n9dd/bio.htm

My Days at Valpo Tech

After graduating from High School, I spent two semesters at the local campus of Indiana University,
here in South Bend. Then I decided to make the move to electronics school and enrolled at Valparaiso
Technical Institute in Valparaiso, Indiana, about 50 miles west of home.

Although I was a mediocre student at best, I really enjoyed my days at Valpo Tech. There were other
hams there - Jon WA3MVM, Kurt WA3IUI, Bob WN8RXD and several others. I spent a lot of time in the school's
ham radio club station - W9SAL. It was there that I got my first taste of operating SSB with a transceiver.
We had a Heath SB-102 that WA3MVM had built with a tri-band beam on an old windmill tower to go with it.
I had lots of fun running the station.

Jon was a pretty smart guy. He dug up an old teletype machine from the school's storage area and got it
on the air. I had lots of fun running RTTY on 80 meters with it (when the guys watching TV in the next
room didn't complain about TVI!)

We had lots of good instructors there, but my favorite was Gene Wiggins W9CWG. Mr. Wiggins, as we called
him, had a stern, gruff exterior, but he had a soft spot for guys who were hams. He was a great instructor
who always had wonderful old stories to go along with whatever topic we were learning at the time. He'd be
lecturing away, then suddenly pause with a bit of a reflective look, and then launch into one of his great
stories. I loved them all.

I remember one day in Transmitters class. Mr. Wiggins was talking about oscillators. He diagrammed a
typical circuit with output winding moved back towards a grid winding for transformer coupling and then
asked "What would happen if we slid this output coil down along this path until it touched the bottom of
the input winding?" He had redrawn the circuit so that it was now a Hartley oscillator. It was as if a
light switch turned on in my brain and I suddenly understood the difference between an RF and a DC ground.
Yes, Mr. Wiggins was a great teacher - one of the best I've ever had.

While at Valpo Tech, I got my First Class FCC license. I had aspirations to work in broadcasting after
I got out. That never happened, but Valpo Tech did get me started on my way to a lifelong career in
electronics.


April 12, 2009 - Some added info via email from Tom:

Yes, I did graduate from Valpo Tech in the Spring of 1975. I have mostly
fond memories of my time there. I only wish that I had applied myself a bit
more in my studies, rather than spending so much time in the W9SAL ham shack. :-) 

When I got to Valpo Tech, the W9SAL station sported a new Heath SB-102,
built by Jon Schlegel, WA3MVM. We also had an old Collins receiver and a
2-meter transceiver. I remember chatting with Juergen, DJ6RD (now N9RD) from
the W9SAL ham shack. We could also reach the Michigan City repeater, which
at that time required you to "whistle up" the machine with an audio tone.
There was a tri-band beam on an old windmill tower, just outside the shack,
and some dipoles for 80 and 40.