Topband: Don W6AM

[Tom W8JI]

I think this topic has gone from talking about actual radios and antennas 
and the merits and folklore about each, to disrespecting people.

I actually thought it was kind of neat that as a 12 year old kid, living in 
a house with tar paper outside and dirt floors and building my gear with 
parts from a dump, that someone was kind and thoughtful enough to have a 160 
signal I could hear clearly from the west coast on the crap I had for 
equipment, and that could hear me with as little as I knew about antennas 
and the small junk I had.  As long as all those old guys were having fun and 
not hurting anyone, that's OK with me. I never felt anything except 
admiration for them being available for contacts, and how loud they were.

That, of course, doesn't change how antennas work. I have no doubt a good 
monoband Yagi is as good as or better than a pretty large Ham Rhombic. But I 
think we can talk about antennas and amplifiers, and some of the big red 
glowing anodes, without getting in a snit or condemning some old dead Ham. 
After all, most of us are 90% there already, and no one will really care who 
had what first DXCC or country total. They will mostly remember the 
characters that touched their lives. I still can hear W6VSS pounding in to 
Ohio with his 25 watts on 1999 kHz, when I could just barely hear W6YY with 
two half waves in phase on top of a 450-foot tower on some mountain.

73 Tom