I’m a nut about Ham Radio. I think I learned about Amateur Radio through osmosis. When I just just a small child, I shared my bedroom with my Dad’s Ham Radio Shack. It was always fun for me to observe him as he played radio. Once I completed college, I got the bug again. That was when I started studying for my ham radio license. I was originally licensed as a Technician Class Operator in April of 1993 and received the call KB5ZUD. I quickly upgraded to General Class and passed the 13 word per minute morse code requirement. In 2007, the FCC eliminated all requirements related to morse code proficiency. CW wasn’t one of my major interests, so, I took advantage of this and upgraded to Extra Class Operator. In 1998 I applied for my vanity call sign and received K5TTT. I enjoy many aspects of the amateur radio hobby and I hope you find some of the information here useful.
73,
Charlie, K5TTT
by Charlie Calhoun, K5TTT
Amateur radio isn’t just a hobby — it’s a heartbeat that has pulsed through my family for generations. The story of my life on the airwaves began long before I ever held a microphone or tuned a VFO. It began with my father, K5BXG, whose enthusiasm for the invisible world of radio filled our home and, quite literally, my earliest memories.
When I was very young, my bedroom doubled as my dad’s ham shack. The soft hum of equipment, the faint smell of solder, and the glow of tube radios were as much a part of my childhood as bedtime stories. I fell asleep to the rhythmic chatter of distant voices, call signs, and static. The fascination must have seeped into me through osmosis, because even before I understood what ham radio was, I was already hooked.
Dad had a deep and abiding love for EME — Earth-Moon-Earth communications. The idea that a signal could leave our modest antenna, bounce off the lunar surface, and return to Earth in another station’s receiver seemed like science fiction to me at the time. But for him, it was both art and science. He was the first station in Oklahoma to contact the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, an achievement that brought quiet pride to our family. He also managed to make radio contact with every single county in the United States — three times. It was a staggering feat of persistence and passion, and even now, thinking of that accomplishment fills me with admiration.
Sharing that world with him was one of the greatest gifts of my life. We spoke the same language — in megahertz and meters, decibels and decodes — a language that bridged generations. Ham radio became a bond between us, a shared space of discovery and wonder.
When I finally earned my Technician license in April 1993, under the call sign KB5ZUD, I felt like I was stepping into a legacy. Upgrading to General, then Extra Class, and later adopting my vanity call sign K5TTT in 1998, each step felt like another handshake with my father’s spirit — as though every new frequency opened a doorway we had built together.
While Dad’s heart belonged to the moon, mine found a home across many bands and modes. I’ve enjoyed them all — from HF to VHF, voice to digital, even experimenting with meteor scatter. Contesting became one of my favorite pursuits, where the thrill of the chase meets the beauty of precision. I’ve been fortunate to win a few contests, but the real reward lies in the rhythm of it — the dance of signals across the globe, the camaraderie among competitors, and the quiet satisfaction of seeing my call sign in the log of a distant operator.
Lately, I’ve been chasing an ambitious goal: working all 50 states on 2 meters using meteor scatter. There’s something poetic about that — sending a signal into the sky and waiting for it to bounce, fleetingly, off a meteor trail. It’s radio at its most ethereal, part science, part art, and part hope.
But amateur radio has also called me to serve — to turn technology into compassion. In April 1995, when the Murrah Federal Building was bombed in Oklahoma City, I volunteered as a communications coordinator for the Salvation Army, working two weeks amid the chaos and heartbreak that followed. In those days, when phone lines were down and cell coverage was nonexistent, amateur radio operators became the connective tissue of the recovery effort. We carried messages of logistics, of comfort, of need. It was a sobering experience — a reminder that what we do isn’t just play; it’s purpose.
Years later, I found myself at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum — standing under an open sky at the 2013 National Scout Jamboree, helping Scouts speak directly with an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. Hearing their voices tremble with excitement as the ISS passed overhead was a moment I’ll never forget. I recorded that contact, and even now when I listen to it, I can feel that same electric wonder that first filled me as a boy in my father’s shack.
(You can still hear it yourself: ISS contact recording
And now, I get to share it with my boys. My twin boys both earned their ham radio licenses. Blake is now KF5MCM and Brock got his vanity call with his late Grandfathers call, K5BXG. We're a ham radio family.