An unexpected QSO.

[k4kyv]

Early this morning I was working a couple of stations up in the Ghetto on 3885, and fired up the synchronous detector.  It locked onto both AM signals flawlessly, and later on in the QSO, a W8 broke in.  When I turned it over to him, I realised he was on SSB, because the sync detector had wandered off lock and he was unintelligible.  I switched to manual control of the BFO and tuned him back in.  Turns out he was an old timer, 95 years old, who said he  had been a ham since 1935, and he wanted a signal report on his audio.  The sync detector demodulates slopbucket with much better quality than the stock product detector in the 75A4, so I was able to hear what his audio really sounded like, and tell him that although it was not broadcast quality, it was very good "communications" quality.  We chatted for a round or two, then he signed out and thanked everyone in the QSO very kindly and remarked that we were "true gentlemen".

Sometimes when a SSB station tries to call in, all I hear is gibberish and may not even be aware anyone is calling me, or else I don't feel up to jumping through all the hoops it takes to switch over to slopbucket reception mode.

[W1RKW]

I had an unexpected QSO or eyeball today with a senior ham.  Went to the Southington Hamfest and chit chatted with an old ham, probably in his 80's. He was a nice old gentleman. We chatted for about 30 minutes. Got his call but I can't remember it right now. His name was Charlie and he was from the area. He was a quite an interesting fella. We talked AM and old gear.  He was certainly more knowledgeable than I.  I stood there shaking my head to everything he was telling me. 

To make a long story a short, every once in a while I end up hooking up with these seniors and they are just so engaging, educational, entertaining and have this aura of being radio god like.  I don't know what it is.  I just love talking with the older hams.

Many years ago I went to a hamfest down in Branford, CT, if I remember correctly it was Branford HS.  It was a typical local hamfest with a lot of garbage.  I was looking for a decent tuner.  In the back of the hamfest was an older gent. Had to be in his 80's, dressed up in a suit and tie. He was there with his wife.  He had just a couple of things on his table for sale and just  happened to have a Johnson tuner.  He was in a low traffic area of the hamfest. Being in that spot, he didn't see much traffic from the crowd. He and I talked for a  good length of time about "the radio days".

Again, another bunch of fascinating stories from yesteryear. Because I was so enamored with his stories and engaging conversation I gave $20 more than his asking price.  He insisted selling it for the asking price but I told him, please take the extra $20. 

[W2XR]

I had an unexpected QSO or eyeball today with a senior ham.  Went to the Southington Hamfest and chit chatted with an old ham, probably in his 80's. He was a nice old gentleman. We chatted for about 30 minutes. Got his call but I can't remember it right now. His name was Charlie and he was from the area. He was a quite an interesting fella. We talked AM and old gear.  He was certainly more knowledgeable than I.  I stood there shaking my head to everything he was telling me. 

To make a long story a short, every once in a while I end up hooking up with these seniors and they are just so engaging, educational, entertaining and have this aura of being radio god like.  I don't know what it is.  I just love talking with the older hams.

 

And that is one of the reasons that I became a ham at the age of 15 years of age, now almost 40 years ago. I had so much respect and was in awe of these fellows who were at the time much older than I was, and knew so much more about the electronics and radio art than I did. Yet so many of these older gentlemen took their time to answer this young squirts questions about how to do things radio-related, or to tell their stories of what it was like to be a ham "back then". Many of these guys acquired their license around the early 1920s, put stations together on literally a shoestring budget during the Great Depression, and really worked with things that were the state-of-the-art at that time, such as vacuum tubes, etc.

Many of these older radio amateurs, who are now sadly SK, forgot more about this aspect of the hobby (AM and radio tubes) than we may ever expect to learn.

73,

Bruce

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Yep. We were talking about one on the air just a little while ago - W1GAC. What a guy!

[WA1GFZ]

When I was younger I used to do repair work for a number of local old timers.
I didn't charge them much because the visit was  often worth the time. XYL would feed you and you might come away with a junk box treasure and better yet good advice. W1GUC (not GAC) taught me the fine art of tank circuit layout and very few guys do it right. A guy in Manchester CT showed me Quad antenna design.  These guys are all gone now.

[K3ZS]

A lot of these radio pioneers only run SSB.   One fellow comes to mind, Angelo W8ERN, you can hear him a lot on SSB.    He has great audio with RF speech processing and does a lot of weak signal work with computers.  From what I have been told, he was a designer the Multi-Elmac AF-67.

[KA1ZGC]

Yep. We were talking about one on the air just a little while ago - W1GAC. What a guy!

Too funny, this thread already had me thinking about George, then I read that.

First time I worked George was in 2001 on 10 meters, and was also an unexpected QSO.

I was sitting in "Tacoma 13" in the parking lot of Ben's Deli on the Framingham/Southboro MA line. I had a Kenmore TS-430 secured to the tranny hump. I had the ten meter base loaded Hustler (bad investment, BTW) on the mount and the rig on 29 MHz AM.

I was sitting there chewing away on a reuben for a while when suddenly the rig went dead silent. I mean dead silent.

So silent, in fact, I looked at the rig to see if it had crapped out. Nope, power was still on, but the meter was pegged. Then I wondered if the rig was transmitting, but the wattmeter showed nothing.

Then I hear "hola".

I jumped. I thought someone had walked up to the truck without me noticing. I looked around, and there was nobody there.

Again, I hear "hola" and realize it's coming from the rig. Then I hear "W1 George Abraham Charlie".

Turns out I was all of a mile and change from his house (Dan probably knows the exact distance). I came back to him and related the comic relief he'd just provided. He got a chuckle out of it, we spoke for twenty minutes or so and then signed.

Spoke to him a few times on 75, but listened to him quite a bit from that point forward. Never did get the chance to meet him in person, and wish I'd worked him sooner. Hell of a guy, George was.

I've seen some of the rigs he built, though. A few have passed over Tim's bench since George went dark. I think it was Pete, VZR who referred to some of them as "nice knowin' ya" rigs. Non-polarized AC mains plug, with one side straight to the chassis. 

I guess the moral is you gotta make the most out of the legacies you've got while they're still here to have something made of them.

--Thom
King Abraham One Zebraham George Charlie

[flintstone mop]

You never know who you will talk to in Hamdom. A lot of very famous inventors or owners/previous owners of successful companies.

Fred