[TowerTalk] Anniversary

[Don Havlicek]

You guys are all kids. ... heck, I was licensed before most of you were 
born!  Celebrated 51 years .... of Ham Radio ... this year!
Now to put up, this Spring, the 6 towers lying in the yard ... and the 6 
verticals, too.
Anyone wanna help a geezer?
Don
N8DE
Edmore, MI

ersmar at comcast.net wrote:
> 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
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 
> See: http://www.mscomputer.com  for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather Stations", and lot's more.  Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>