[Amps] Amateur Radio Vet Turns 100

[John/K4WJ]

Chas,

Ted, K6YN, was born on April 30, 1905 and died sometime in March of 2006.

He was outside with his family celebrating his 100th birthday when he 
noticed something wrong with his vertical. He tried to repair it and 
in the process suffered a large gash on his hand. It was downhill from there.

He got on the air a couple of times right after the injury and then 
we never heard him again. I called his house several times but I was 
only able to speak to his caretaker, Henry. Ted was always sleeping.

Up until the injury Ted was on the air daily. He would meet with us 
guys on 7.020 just about every morning and if he missed the morning 
sked he would show up at 3:00 p.m. on one of the other bands. I had 
to really struggle to copy his fist.

He told me that he operated spark while working on a commercial ship 
on the Great Lakes. He helped put up the Terminal Tower in my home 
town of Cleveland, Ohio and he eventually retired from the FCC. He 
worked for the FCC out in Hawaii for a long time. His pal, Prose 
Walker, W4BW, would show up on 7.020 just to check up on Ted and make 
sure he was okay.

There must be something in the California air because my wife shared 
her birthday, August 10th, with her uncle Mike. She was born in 1945 
and he was born in 1899. He died three months shy of his 103rd 
birthday. After his wife died, he lived alone until the last couple 
of weeks of his life. Uncle Mike lived near Los Angeles, as did Ted. 
Uncle Mike retired before I started working for AT&T in 1966. He 
worked with "old man McCullough," of McCullough chain saw fame. It 
was a very small company when he started working for him.

By the way, my wife's grandmother was born in May of 1884. She gave 
birth to uncle Mike in 1899. At the time of his birth she was 15 
years old and 3 months. Her husband died between the time uncle Mike 
was conceived and born. She married Susan's grandfather just before 
she gave birth to uncle Mike. Her name was Assunta and she came to 
the United States, from Italy, prior to Uncle Mike's birth. She had 
two husbands before her 15th birthday. These were different times. 
The poor lady died on December 31, 1929 at the age of 45.

Back to Theodore Tate. Ted liked TenTec radios because the buttons 
were large. He bought a brand new IC-706 but ended up giving it away 
after he realized that his macular degeneration prevented him from 
reading the small print on the front panel. Tis, N5VV, is now using the 706.

With today's advances in medicine and if we live healthy, we should 
live long lives, assuming our genes don't sabotage us.

73..de John/K4WJ


At 11:48 PM 10/17/2007, schuetzen wrote:
>Paul Christensen wrote:
> > DSP processing and a bandscope -- and remember all
> > the technological changes and historical events in between.  Now that's an
> > enviable life.
> > Paul, W9AC
>
>That was the gist of my eulogy at my father's funeral 11 yrs ago,
>1905-2006.
>In his lifetime he saw changes from steam to digital. from privies to
>bidet's. from bikes and horseless carriages to 120mph cars. from still
>exploring the earth to walking on the moon.  from life expectancy of
>50yrs to greater than 100 today. The changes in cancer treatment between
>seeing his mother die in the 1950s to survival rates at an all time high
>   today... The loss of our republic and its fall into socialism... I
>hope we never have to repeat that era again.
>
>fwiw
>chas k5dam

73..de John/K4WJ
ex K8PXG 18 Jun 1959 to 11 Feb 1997
K8WJ 12 Feb 1997 to 08 Apr 1997