Hi, I’m Ken Nichols! Please Text 602-670-7569, List your 1st Name, & How I Can Assist You With Your Vehicle Needs!!!
Ken Nichols – Ham Operator, US Marine & Ex Fleet Director Earnhardt’s Dodge [1995-2006]For Commercial & Retail Car& Truck Sales…!
New Photos & New Information, Ref: MARS Radio www.qrz.com
I AM A FCC LICENSE AMATEUR HAM RADIO OPERATOR, SINCE 1969…!
I HAVE SERVED IN THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS FOR EIGHT YEARS…!
WHAT HASN’T KEN NICHOLS DONE? I ALSO RAN PHONE PATCHES TO THE SOLDIER BOYS IN VIETNAM. FROM SENATOR BARRY GOLDWATER’S HOME THAT HAS THE “HAM SHACK” AT HIS HILLTOP HOME… IT WAS A TWO-WAY HAM RADIO CONNECTION AND THE CALLS RAN FOR THREE MINUTES… AT LEAST THEY KNOW THAT EACH OTHER WAS SAFE FOR THAT MINUTE THAT THEY TALKED… IT MADE THEM SO HAPPY… IT WAS MY PLEASURE TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT FOR THEM… I WILL NEVER FORGET HOW IT MADE ME FEEL! LISTENING TO HOW HAPPY IT MADE THEM FEEL JUST FOR THAT THREE MINUTES…! Because of going up to the mountain-top ham shack each evening to run ham radio phone calls to the vets in Vietnam and ever so often getting a view of watching the sunset over Phoenix, made me want to build a home like Barry Goldwater’s mountain-top home & Ham Shack…
NOW HERE’S THE REST OF MY HAM RADIO STORY…! I held a Novice & Tech Licenses before I got my General Class License in 1969… Later on, I got my Advanced License! I was later invited by another ham radio operator who was a member of Senator Barry Goldwater’s Amateur Radio Club. The Senator had his Ham station at his hilltop home in Paradise Valley. The club consisted of appx 25/30 operators who ran the “Calls”.
The retired members ran the daytime patches and some of the younger ones, like myself went to the station after work and ran the stations until the band faded out, or until sometime around midnight…What a great privilege to be a part of… I just love connecting the families to their servicemen in Vietnam. Barry paid for most of the stateside calls to his radio-shack in Phoenix… His station consisted of two complete stations. So we had both stations running most of the time… One serviced Vietnam. The other one covered Hawaii, Guam, Midway, and Okinawa & ships at sea, with assistance and helping with phone calls home…!
When Senator Goldwater was home from Washington DC, he came out to the station and sometimes ran the calls and other times just visited with everybody… A lot of the time, there were visitors in the shack visiting… You never know what was going to happen when you went there or who you were going to meet… One afternoon, we hear a very loud sound coming thru the door from the parking lot and when we opened the door, Barry was landing a helicopter in the parking lot just outside the door in front of his house/ham shack!
We just couldn’t believe it, but he did it and always with a Big Smile, looking thru his famous horn rimmed glasses..! As I said, you just never knew who or what was going to happen when you were there. The large antenna that Transmitted to Vietnam was so l large, that the boom was larger and longer than my R-45 Ham Radio Tower at my home..!
The TOWER base was connected to a large electric rotor in a huge concrete pad… We communicated with 5 stations at one sitting, all taking turns until we completed all 10 calls In Five Locations In Vietnam… I had Mountain-Bell phone company operator in one ear and Vietnam in the other… had taken down 10 listings from the 5 stations, the operator downtown had already briefed the first caller on how to say “Over” and then we were off to the races… I had to turn on the transmitter with a foot pedal, as we were running a 5000-watt amplifier, I needed my hands to write down the information, and so forth… But with all of that, I would do it again in a heart-beat, because I loved it so much! So when the band was open, they heard us loud and clear with no-problem…!
So as Walter Cronkite used to say, ” And That’s The Rest Of The Story “! Well, here’s ” Ken’s Ham Radio Rest Of The Story, Influenced By Senator Goldwater’s Hill-Top Ham Radio-Shack…! How did this all happen to me, well when I was just a five to six years old at my Grand Parents home in West Virginia. I think I was tall enough to tune the huge RCA radio that sit on the floor. I was curious, as I like to turn the dial, full circle, and then it had different bands, being a young kid I decided to check one of those bands, and wouldn’t you know as tuned the dial, I heard these guys talking, back and fourth, & they would say ” Over ” Wow, I said to myself, as I kept listening to them talk…
So by now, I am guessing, you have figured out the rest of the story, again! Yes, I was hooked, but I didn’t know what I was hooked to, or hooked on, or ” how could I do that… Well many, many years later, and recalling to those days which I never forgot. I found out about new way of talking back & forth… You guessed it, it was called “CB”, Citizen’s band…!
After, I did get involved in it big time, even had a radio in 1957 VW bug, & the folks give me a “handle” of “Roller-Skate”. So years passed, and I later found out that the guys I was listening to way back in my early years, was called “Ham”, Operators, or Later found out Amateur radio operators… I also found out, that there was some big negative issues that I didn’t like about CB. So I found out just how that one day, that I could become a Amateur Ham Radio Operator. IT JUST SEEM TO BE MORE PROFESSIONAL! THAT’S IT, YES.
So I checked into just what was required to get my Ham License. Wow, what a challenge I was facing. Here was my challenge, to get my Ham license. Their are the Licenses. Novice, Technician, General, Advance Class, and Extra… Get this, in those days, I had learn morse code at 5 words a minute send and receive, to have either the Novice or the Technician.. Then to get the General, or Advanced you also had to send & receive morse code at 13 words per minute and in front of a FCC examiner who only came to Phoenix every four months. If you fail, then back to studying for four more months.
Now for the code speed for the extra class license, is 20 words per minute. So I have had pass for all classes except Extra. Way too many words per min, at 20… I now had the Advanced, and I have so many frequencies to use so I’m good… I JUST HAD TO TELL YOU HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT… So I checked when I actually started studying for my Amateurs Ham radio license, and it was way back in 1964, and it was struggle for me but I was determined to become a Ham Radio Operator, that’s just for sure with being someone who always finds a way that you will see as you read on… I HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY STORY..!!!
After working the station for a couple of years and getting to love the view from Senator Goldwater’s ham shack hilltop home… One night the band faded out and so I grabbed a coke and went outside as the sun was setting in the west over Phoenix and onto Camelback Mountain turning Red, Pink & Purple, just beautiful. I said to myself ” Wouldn’t It Be Nice To Have A Ham Shack On top of the hill just like Senator Barry Goldwater?” At the time I was in the middle of building our first house in Scottsdale… I told my wife that I would love to build a home on top of a hill just like Barry… She listened, and that was the end of the story, for the time being..!
So we went on and finished that home, and 3 years later sold it… My wife said, ” that was easy so why don’t we do that again? ” So I resigned from my job as I was going to work part-time time on the next house, and my wife would continue to work outside the home… Then we decided to move in with her parents… Then we purchased another lot and started construction..!
It was on the side of a mountain, but not on top… Just about the time that I was working on the plumbing and foundation, we decided to go for an evening drive… Don’t know why we decided to go up this street called Sweetwater which we hadn’t been before, it took us to the top of a mountain that overlooked downtown Phoenix and as far away as Sun city to the west and Superstition mountains to the east, plus so many more great views…I think that the view was almost as good as Senator Goldwater’s view…
When we got to the top, there was a sign that said a lot for sale 2/3’s of an acre, $9950. At that time, ( 1971 ) a lot for $9950 was a lot of money, especially for a home lot…! We looked at the view almost 360 degrees..! It had views Scottsdale, Sun City, and the Superstition Mountains..! The views were just unbelievable… I said to my wife, ” I Bet you don’t know what I’m thinking” She said, oh yes “I Know You Would Like To Build A House Right Here, and put up a Ham radio tower, right? ” She also said ” that we can’t do that now as we just started another house..! ” So I said yes honey, I agree with you, that we need to finish the 2nd house. You won’t believe what happen the next morning!
So the next morning, my wife did what she has done before, and that is she always figures out a way…! She said, ” I figured out a way how we can buy that lot on the hill! ” She’s was always such a great support…! I had called the owner on my Ham radio from my car, ( Before Cell Phones)…! I told the man that I was a ham operator and couldn’t discuss business on the phone patch ( 2-meter repeater ), but I love what I see and will give him a call from a landline when I got home…! Once I contacted him, he never let go of me until we decided to purchase the lot from him ( 1 yr later ) which is the exact plan that my wife had figured out…
So once I told the lot owner exactly what I needed to get a building permit… 6 months later I got a letter from the city of Phoenix building and zoning saying they would issue me a building permit… So I contacted the landowner and we carried out the paper and we made payments for eight (8) years until I finished building the other house… Then I was ready to start my ham shack home on top of the hill… I quit my job and worked on it for over a year & a half, night and day… I built a 3400 square foot home up there… It was a labor of love… Only one room on the second floor and I bet you can’t guess what that room was… Yes, my Ham shack…!
I even had a wrought iron spiral staircase up to the room on top…It was a dream come true… Boy, did I have a signal from up there..? With a 6-element KT34-XA antenna at about 50 feet… I could talk to Hawaii off the back of the beam… What a shack… My dream had come true… So I moved my family in and we lived in this home for twenty years, raised our two daughters there as they completed all their schooling… Then it was time to leave the home on the hill… It was hard to leave..!
From The Time That I Got This Idea Of Building A House On A Hill Till Completion and We Moved In Was Ten Years… Proves That Dreams Do Come True If You Believe..!!! HERE ARE THE PHOTOS OF THE HOUSE FINALLY Built…! WE STARTING STARTING DIGGING THE HOLE FOR THE CONCRETE FOUNDATION FOR THE TOWER…! THE RAISING PARTY BEGINS LATER…! JUST TO SEE THE ANTENNAS AND SO FORTH… ALL PHOTO DESCRIPTIONS & INFORMATION ARE LISTED BELOW ALL THE PHOTOS…!
Photo 1: Left to Right Brother Roger Nichols ( deceased at age 63, way too early ) in the hole for the base of the tower, myself (Ken Nichols) holding up the shovel & Roger’s Twin brother Richard who is now also ( deceased at 77, again too soon ) . . .The Dark Hair One In the Middle is Me: Ken WA7HXZ Guessing these photos were taken from 1980 to 1981… I am now going to be 84 in August 2020…
Photo 2: Some Of My Ham Buddies That Came For The Tower And Antennas Raising Get-together…! Also, my other brother Hugh ( Hat ) came to help with the Ham Antenna raising. Even tho he is not a ham, he wanted to lend a hand and was a lot of helps THIS IS A MOUNTAIN TOP VIEW OF OUR HOUSE AND THE SIZE OF THE HOUSE THAT TOOK MY WIFE KATIE, 1 YR 1/2 TO BUILD !… Just Like The One, We Dreamed Of When I Was Running Phone Patches to Vietnam, 10 years later…
Photo 3: Was another fellow ham (Steve) who I had become really good friends with and he was a good climber and as you can see, like me felt very comfortable at any height… This was at the completion and I think we were celebrating a job well done…!
Photo 4: The Total Installation All Completed Of the KT34A 6-Element Beam
… Above That Is A Vertical 2-Meter Antenna, Plus Dual 2-Meter Beams…The Vertical is for a local repeater. . . Note, The Red Light On Top, Just To Deflect Low Flying Aircraft…!
Photo: 5 This is a view of my new ham shack and the window view of the mountains and downtown Phoenix…! The Phoenix Lites Were Just Beautiful…!
Photo: 6 This is a view from the sun deck, just outside of the arcadia door of the ham shack…! This View Sundeck Was A Great Place That We Watched Fireworks On The 4th Of July…! The downtown view of Phoenix!
Photo: 7 This is a view of the house, showing the ham shack on top and the completed tower and antennas…
Photo: 8 This is a photo of the senator’s ham shack, and all the members young and old… I was sitting on the floor right in front [Yellow Shirt] of the senator with a flat-top haircut…
Photo: 9 This was the cover of a book published at that time called: The World From Vietnam, by MARS RADIO…MILITARY-AFFILIATED-RADIO-SERVICE…! 
Photo: 10 The photo below was of the senator… When he was in town, many times he would come out to the shack and run calls and visit… He was so down to earth and had many wonderful conversations… I WILL NEVER FORGET IT…! From Senator Goldwater’s Mountain Top Home with Barry at the mike…
Attention Doggie Lovers . . . !
*** Notice: The last photo is my newest doggie…I rescued her this last Christmas eve. She was moved from a Kill shelter and She & I are very lucky that we happen to find each other… Her name is Daisy and she sticks to me like glue… She is a Chihuahua & is about two+ years and above all, She’s My Life & I Love Her So Much! *******************************************************************************************
I had to put down my last two… The one of me and the main photo … That one was my doggie, named ” Stitch ” . . . He was a great doggie and he was an Austrian Shepard, but only lived 11 years. . .I also had another doggie named Barney and he didn’t live those long ( 8 ) years… Putting Our Doggies Down, IS SOOOOO VERY HARD . . . *******************************************************************************************Please Text # 602-670-7569 & list ur name & how I can help you..! I will get back to you at my first opportunity! Tnx, Ken Nichols
Use the above numbers to contact me yes I am a semi-retired auto salesman for over thirty 34+ years & yes I have been selling and saving ham operators money $$$ on their vehicles… I love the business and helping folks save money and time on their vehicles ******************************************************************************************
Here’s My latest photo, still going strong, and doing the best job in the world… Always working for you to help you save time, and money, eliminate the hassle sometimes associated with the vehicle purchasing process… The process sometimes leaves us frustrated and disappointed… Almost like going to the dentist, and you know the pain that it brings…! Give me a call, and let’s see if I can provide you with great service on your next Car/SUV or Truck!!! Tnx, Ken Nichols..
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Redwagoncars@gmail.com
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