Topband: Stew Report

[lstoskopf at cox.net]

I was playing on 160 back in the late 1950s with and S40B RX and a much modified ARC5 TX from our farm in Central KS as W0PSF.  Would work about 130 Qs in the CQ contest.  Took advantage of a trip to Boston to visit Stew in his attic shack and got to hit the key on his spark rig.  Life and work got in the way and my CW skills went way down (from the straight key level!).  Now at age 77 I saw the notice for the Stew.  

When we built my house I put in a large office/hamshack on the 2nd floor and totally covered the walls with aluminum foil and lots of spare wire all anchored in three places to ground.  Not sure why.  Anyway, I have some cables going to the tower base so lifted one, tied a 120 ft wire to it up to the flag pole and down again.  Checked the SWR against the screen in the room with the SARK-100.  Close.  Tied the Omni VII and loaded.  Couldn't run more than 20 watts or dumped the computer monitors.  Off to a Christmasconcert.

Back to the contest.  Found out the Bencher key didn't work.  Contacts corroded.  Fixed that.  Gave a call to a loud sig running about 25 wpm.  Right back, but the report at 30wpm.  Now was that a R?  No an EM, by then I'd forgotten the #.  Either age or lack of practice, that was beyond my comprehension.  Sent a ? and my grid report.  Got an R back and away he went.  Oh well, I got the grid from his next QSO.  So I slowed my keyer  way down to 12 wpm.  Next guy slowed and OK.  Then back to the fast guys.  I'd call and they were back at way too fast for me.  Worked both coasts with 20 watts, but waiting for some of those guys calling CQ over and over at 30 wpm... and no replies...so I could fill their report was a pain.  So I stopped calling the fast and loud guys.  After 31 contacts in 2 hours decided this wasn't much fun so off to bed.

Kind of frustrating.  This morning I came up with a plan.  I'm not going to win anything anyway so:  If I'm around next year I'm going to put up the Titanex, now resting in the shed, get the the Orion and ACOM 2000 set.  Run the contest and not bother with copying the reports.  Will just send in a check log.  Won't sweat the...was that an EM or W, and EN or R, etc.  Will have a good time and get back to SSB.

Meanwhile I need to dig out the newsletters Stu used to send in red and black mimeo  with all of the personalized notes  as well as the SWL I got from him when he was on an European cruise....I guess it  was a bit of trouble to get a big tube type RX approved for use on the deck!  Thanks stu  for being the inspiration for all of the 160 activity...even if the CW has moved faster than my skills.  See you guys next year.

N0UU