[SEDXC] A ham's Christmas

[w4gbu at mindspring.com]

Merry Christmas from W4GBU

'Twas the night before Christmas, 
And all through 2 meters, 
Not a signal was keying up 
Any repeaters. 

The antennas reached up 
>From the tower, quite high, 
To catch the weak signals 
That bounced from the sky. 

The children, Tech-Pluses, 
Took their H-Ts to bed, 
And dreamed of the day 
They'd be Extras instead. 

Mom put on her headphones, 
I plugged in the key, 
And we tuned 40 meters 
For that rare ZK3. 

When the meter was pegged 
By a signal with power. 
It smoked a small diode, 
And, I swear, shook the tower. 

Mom yanked off her phones, 
And with all she could muster 
Logged a spot of the signal 
On the DX PacketCluster, 

While I ran to the window 
And peered up at the sky, 
To see what could generate 
RF that high. 

It was way in the distance, 
But the moon made it gleam. 
A flying sleigh, with an 
Eight-element beam, 

And a little old driver 
Who looked slightly mean. 
So I thought for a moment, 
That it might be Wayne Green. 

But no, it was Santa, 
The Santa of Hams. 
On a mission, this Christmas, 
To clean up the bands. 

He circled the tower, 
Then stopped in his track, 
And he slid down the coax 
Right into the shack. 

While Mom and I hid 
Behind stacks of CQ, 
This Santa of hamming 
Knew just what to do. 

He cleared off the shack desk 
Of paper and parts, 
And filled out all my late QSLs 
For a start. 

He ran copper braid, 
Took a steel rod and pounded 
It into the earth, till 
The station was grounded. 

He tightened loose fittings, 
Resoldered connections, 
Cranked down modulation, 
Installed lightning protection. He neutralized tubes 
In my linear amp. 
(Never worked right before; 
Now it works like a champ). 

A new, lowpass filter 
Cleaned up the TV. 
He corrected the settings 
In my TNC. 

He repaired the computer 
That would not compute, 
And he backed up the hard drive 
And got it to boot. 

Then, he reached really deep 
In the bag that he brought, 
And he pulled out a big box. 
A new rig? I thought! 

A new Kenwood? An Icom? 
A Yaesu, for me?! 
(If he thought I'd been bad, 
it might be QRP!) 

Yes! The Ultimate Station! 
How could I deserve this? 
Could it be all those hours 
that I worked Public Service? 

He hooked it all up 
And in record time, quickly 
Worked 100 countries, 
All down on 160. 

I should have been happy, 
It was my call he sent. 
But the cards and the postage 
Will cost two month's rent! 

He made final adjustments, 
And left a card by the key: 
"To Joe, from Santa Claus. 
73." 

Then he grabbed his H-T, 
Looked me straight in the eye, 
Punched a code on the pad, 
And was gone with no good-bye. 

I ran back to the station, 
And the pileup was big, 
But a card from St. Nick 
Would be worth my new rig. 

Oh, too late, for his final 
came over the air. 
It was copied all over. 
It was heard everywhere. 

The Ham's Santa exclaimed 
What a ham might expect, 
"Merry Xmas to all,
And to all, good DX!"