[TowerTalk] Anniversary

[ersmar@comcast.net]

Jim:

     I don't think of it as I'm old.  I think of it as there are a lot more younger people around than there used to be.  Thanks.


73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F



> Dang!  You're OLD!!! :)
> 
> 
> 73 de N8AU, Jim in Raymore, MO
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:07:27 -0500
> From: <ersmar at comcast.net>
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Anniversary
> To: <topband at contesting.com>, <towertalk at contesting.com>,	"PVRC"
> 	<pvrc at mailman.qth.net>
> Message-ID: <005c01c5e558$71860b20$0200a8c0 at downstairs>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Gents:
> 
>      I just looked at the calendar and remembered that it was forty (!)
> years ago today that I passed my Novice Morse code test!  My Elmer,
> Harry
> Schaefer (callsign forgotten by me, sorry) of Coaldale, PA had just
> given me
> my test at 5 WPM send and receive.  He then showed me his station -
> Hallicrafters receiver sitting on a large wooden desk in his attic and
> Globe
> King 500 Watt floor rack-mounted AM and CW transmitter feeding a tuner
> and a
> dipole just outside his window (in the days before RF exposure rules!)
> 
>      He tuned across a couple of QRQ stations in the low end of 80M.  Of
> course, I couldn't copy them and asked what they were saying.  Harry
> cocked
> his head for a while, listening intently AND COPYING IN HIS HEAD (My
> hero!)
> He said one Ham in Massachusetts asked another Ham in New York state
> when
> the power came back on in New York.  The NY Ham said his town hadn't
> been
> affected by the power failure.  The next morning I read in the paper
> about
> the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965.  (
> http://blackout.gmu.edu/events/tl1965.html .)
> 
>      Since then we Hams, and the rest of American society, have
> witnessed
> momentous changes in electrotechnology.  In commercial radio
> broadcasting,
> FM supplanted AM as the delivery method preferred by more in the
> listening
> audience.  The Carterphone decision of the FCC in 1968 opened the way
> for
> interconnected devices such as phone-patches (remember when they were
> illegal?) and, ultimately, alternative carriers such as MCI, to connect
> to
> AT&T's telephone network.  We no longer hear, "The following program is
> brought to you in living color on NBC."  Fiber-optic cables are now as
> ubiquitous as copper wires.  Television sets went from using external
> converters for tuning UHF channels to mandatory built-in tuners that
> covered
> up to channel 83 to tuners that covered only up to channel 69 (the
> missing
> 14 channels had been assigned to something called "cellular telephone"
> service.)  And my kids are texting each other on their own wireless
> telephone devices.  (Remember when Ham autopatching was all the rage on
> VHF-FM?)  And computers in the home?  Only on The Jetsons.
> 
>      Thanks for letting me wax nostalgic a bit today (not that you had
> much
> of a choice, I suppose.)  I'm sure we all have similar stories, but for
> me
> it's been an extremely enjoyable trip down this path of Ham Radio.
> 
>      Now if I could just work KL7 on Topband!
> 
> 73 de
> Gene Smar  AD3F
>