20 Meter History

[Steve - K4HX]

Gone but not forgotten - W5PYT relates some history of activity on the 20 meter band.

[KX5JT]

I love this!  Wish I would have had the pleasure of knowing W5PYT, he sounds like a great gentleman!  Thanks for posting this Steve.   

[Steve - K4HX]

Bob was one of a kind. You don't get monikers like Ashtabula Bill and Ozona Bob unless you are well know nationwide.

Trivia question. What was Ozona Bob's other call sign?

[WD5JKO]

Trivia question. What was Ozona Bob's other call sign?

   Gosh, I just cannot recall that. Maybe W5KDI?? Just a guess.

I knew Bob quite well, had several visits to his home, hamshack, and I even had a date with one of his daughters (about 30 years ago). After Bob retired he went on a buying frenzy purchasing all kinds of vintage ham equipment. Bob lost his XYL suddenly, and not too long later he collapsed in the Ozona newspaper office run by Scotty K5SPE. He became a SK that day, March 6, 1998.

http://amfone.net/LateNotables/ozonabob.htm

Some pictures, scroll down to see Bob:

http://www.qsl.net/wa5bxo/morpics.html

http://www.vintagemanuals.com/w5pytold.html
The Ham Shack pictured above was used during the 1950's. Bob had a GK400 working 11m to a "plumbers delight" 5 element beam up 80' on a wooden home made tower. That antenna was still there in the early 1990's.

Bob was a very kind and generous man. Hearing that MP3 file gave me shivers, and I'm proud to have known him.

Jim
WD5JKO

[W2PFY]

I think it would be very appropriate if we all declared an "Ozona Bob" weekend once a year on AM.

Did this ever happen? I never spoke with him but he had to be a good guy

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I remember coming across Bob one time back in the early/mid 90s after moving to Randawful. Had just gotten a receiver set up and was listening while working and making dinner. Left the room several times, came back, he was still going. WELL over 20 minutes, a true 'old buzzard' transmission if ever there was one.

And that was par for the course. The good thing was, Bob always had something interesting to talk about. Often it seemed to center around the RCA AR-88, CR-88 and similar.

It's nice to have him preserved as so many knew him - through his audio.

[k4kyv]

W5KDI is correct.  He once explained to me that he actually preferred that call over PYT but because of some fluke with the FeeCee, the details of which I didn't quite comprehend, he ended up with PYT.

The first time I ever talked to him, he held both calls.  I think PYT was the secondary.  When the FCC decided to phase out the secondary station licence, a licensee was supposed to be able to choose which call to keep and let the other one expire.  For some reason he was unable to keep KDI and instead was assigned PYT as his permanent call.

[K1JJ]

Yep, Bob was a classic. Used to hear him late at night coming in big on 75M from W5-land.  When he and Tron got together in a QSO, the LONG old buzzard transmissions were legendary.

An Ozona Bob transmitter IED:  "Bob, I'm thinking of buying an RCA AR-88 and CR-88 rig.  Could you tell me everything you know about them, including all the mods, how to operate them, the tube details, exact capacitors and resistors used, and why you like them so much?"

 

T

[W3SLK]

Todd said:

Bob always had something interesting to talk about.

And talk and talk and talk. I had the privelege to talk to him on 10m AM one time and he gave me about 3 hour dissertation on Hammerlund. Each transmission was about 45 minutes!

[WD5JKO]

Yep, Bob was a classic. Used to hear him late at night coming in big on 75M from W5-land.  When he and Tron got together in a QSO, the LONG old buzzard transmissions were legendary.

   Bob settled on a 75m turnstile mounter diagonally with the highest point at about 300', hung off the microwave tower. He'd say the turnstile done that way created circular polarization. For the most part he used just a Viking I into that antenna, but later he had a Johnson Desk (high-tap) until that crapped out. I used to listen the the sidebanders a KC away, and when Bob came on, they sometimes commented that they had to throw their headphones off to save their ears.

   Bob did have a thing for the old RCA receivers. He had a NOS CR-88 at the house that was in the original crate when he got it, sometime in the 1980's. He gave me a basket case AR-88 that was missing a few IF cans, the wire harness, and the two front panel rotary switches. I got that going, but what a pain. Bob paid full price for it too as some ham advertised it as "mint" in the Yellow Sheet.

Jim
WD5JKO

[Steve - K4HX]

Neither could I, so I'm glad you and Don knew.   

Trivia question. What was Ozona Bob's other call sign?

   Gosh, I just cannot recall that. Maybe W5KDI?? Just a guess.