[TenTec] Xenia - mostly Off Topic

Fri May 5 07:16:16 EDT 2017

Sounds like you've been busy. I can't understand your wife not liking OK. :-)
My wife grew up there, she's from Texas, and she hates both States.
73
J. Steven Cochrane W7JSC

"rick at dj0ip.de" <Rick at DJ0IP.de> wrote:

Yep Steven;  that's exactly what happened.

BTW Steve, except for the mic, your S-Line looks just like the one I used at the MARS station in Berlin (DL4QF).

Actually I got out of the army in March of 1974.

Earlier I had attended an event where US companies were advising on job opportunities "back in the world."
The bottom line was, with the Viet Nam war just coming to an end, everyone of them was in process of laying off people instead of hiring.
It wasn't quite the same "world" I remembered when I was drafted.

At the same time the computer industry here was learning to walk and crying for people who knew anything about electronics and could speak good English, to come here and work. You didn't even need to speak German, although I did speak it somewhat.

So I took a European-Out, stayed in Berlin, got a very good paying job with an Audi 60 as a company car.... and married the bosses secretary.

Then, with DX-pedition countries like HB0, T7, 3A2, and C31 within one day's drive, ham radio got REAL interesting.

First I went here with two ex-army buddy (actually Bill was Air Force):
http://www.dj0ip.de/my-expeditions/liechtenstein-1974/

Then I went here with another ex-army buddy who got out before I did:
http://www.dj0ip.de/my-expeditions/andorra-1975/

In 1975 I also did another HB0 expedition with 3 ex-army buddies...this time even the Major came with us.  I didn't have enough pictures to make a web page for that one.

And my last one with ex-army buddies was this one:
http://www.dj0ip.de/my-expeditions/andorra-1979/

After that, everyone I had ever known while in the military was long gone.

The 4 year gap between the last two was because my daughter was born and, while working for Rhode und Schwarz, I immediately went back to night school to finish my degree.  No time for ham stuff then.  Finished the degree at the end of 1978 and hit the road again the following year.

While living in the north of Germany my first 11 years, Friedrichshafen was just too far away and I never made it there.  I moved to Munich in 1983 and from there it was just a few hours' drive.  Went every year after that, except for the 4 years that I was working in Oklahoma City.

In OKC, I founded Spiderbeam-US and got it up and running.
Anyone who has ever been to Oklahoma will understand why I didn't like living there and my XYL hated it.

First night after my XYL arrived, we lost electrical power due to an ice storm.  Power was out for 5 days.  No heat, now water (we had well water but the pump did not work), no stove to cook on, etc.   5 days!  Welcome to Americal Honey!
She said the last time we had that kind of power outage in Germany, Americans were dropping bombs onour heads!

Ham Radio was fun but Oklahoma was not.

When Scott Robbins (W4PA) left Ten-Tec and purchased Vibroplex, I asked him to take over Spiderbeam-US for me.  We moved all my stock from OKC to Knoxville and I returned to the Vaterland, where I [semi] retired in a wine producing region in central Germany.  I also took over running Spiderbeam Germany in what I thought would be a part time job.  Turned out to be about 10 hours per day.  Oh well..  keeps me out of trouble (sometimes).

About 3 years ago, Spiderbeam bought Appellofunk GmbH, which among other things, had been the central European Ten-Tec distributor for a dozen years - an arrangement which I personally negotiated and set up for them.

So somehow I went from buying Ten-Tec radios from Scott (W4PA) to selling antennas and masts to Scott and selling Ten-Tec radios to others.   WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND.

We are hoping that Ten-Tec resumes production but now that the Euro has tanked against the US dollar, they may be too expensive over here to sell.  The radios will cost about 30% more than they used to.

73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)

-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Steve Cochrane
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2017 11:32 PM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Xenia

Which begs the question, did SAM forget about you and leave you over there?

J. Steven Cochrane W7JSC

"rick at dj0ip.de" <Rick at DJ0IP.de> wrote:

Well I've never been to Dayton,
but I've been to Oklahoma.
They tell me I was born there,
Even though I don't remember.

In the early 1970s, SAM sent me overseas, to Germany.
That made it difficult to get to Dayton.

We have Friedrichshafen, this year on 14/15/16 July.

IS ANYONE COMING OVER FOR "HAM RADIO 2017" IN FRIEDRICHSHAFEN?

73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)

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