Jim:
I don't think of it as I'm old. I think of it as there are a lot more
younger people around than there used to be. Thanks.
73 de
Gene Smar AD3F
> Dang! You're OLD!!! :)
>
>
> 73 de N8AU, Jim in Raymore, MO
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:07:27 -0500
> From: <ersmar@comcast.net>
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Anniversary
> To: <topband@contesting.com>, <towertalk@contesting.com>, "PVRC"
> <pvrc@mailman.qth.net>
> Message-ID: <005c01c5e558$71860b20$0200a8c0@downstairs>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Gents:
>
> I just looked at the calendar and remembered that it was forty (!)
> years ago today that I passed my Novice Morse code test! My Elmer,
> Harry
> Schaefer (callsign forgotten by me, sorry) of Coaldale, PA had just
> given me
> my test at 5 WPM send and receive. He then showed me his station -
> Hallicrafters receiver sitting on a large wooden desk in his attic and
> Globe
> King 500 Watt floor rack-mounted AM and CW transmitter feeding a tuner
> and a
> dipole just outside his window (in the days before RF exposure rules!)
>
> He tuned across a couple of QRQ stations in the low end of 80M. Of
> course, I couldn't copy them and asked what they were saying. Harry
> cocked
> his head for a while, listening intently AND COPYING IN HIS HEAD (My
> hero!)
> He said one Ham in Massachusetts asked another Ham in New York state
> when
> the power came back on in New York. The NY Ham said his town hadn't
> been
> affected by the power failure. The next morning I read in the paper
> about
> the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965. (
> http://blackout.gmu.edu/events/tl1965.html .)
>
> Since then we Hams, and the rest of American society, have
> witnessed
> momentous changes in electrotechnology. In commercial radio
> broadcasting,
> FM supplanted AM as the delivery method preferred by more in the
> listening
> audience. The Carterphone decision of the FCC in 1968 opened the way
> for
> interconnected devices such as phone-patches (remember when they were
> illegal?) and, ultimately, alternative carriers such as MCI, to connect
> to
> AT&T's telephone network. We no longer hear, "The following program is
> brought to you in living color on NBC." Fiber-optic cables are now as
> ubiquitous as copper wires. Television sets went from using external
> converters for tuning UHF channels to mandatory built-in tuners that
> covered
> up to channel 83 to tuners that covered only up to channel 69 (the
> missing
> 14 channels had been assigned to something called "cellular telephone"
> service.) And my kids are texting each other on their own wireless
> telephone devices. (Remember when Ham autopatching was all the rage on
> VHF-FM?) And computers in the home? Only on The Jetsons.
>
> Thanks for letting me wax nostalgic a bit today (not that you had
> much
> of a choice, I suppose.) I'm sure we all have similar stories, but for
> me
> it's been an extremely enjoyable trip down this path of Ham Radio.
>
> Now if I could just work KL7 on Topband!
>
> 73 de
> Gene Smar AD3F
>
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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