New QSL Design

[K1NSS]

Thank you kindly Rick. Gotham Vertical nostalgia aside, Warren K2ORS was attracted to the big loading coil because he does a lot of LF work, 500khz and down, where loading coils loom large for those stalwart Neo Retro experimenters. The picture is from my second book "Sky Buddies," about growing up ham in the Soaring Sixties. Drawn from cold winter memories of adjusting the tap in my flannel pajamas.  No ground, no counterpoise, just a Gotham screwed to a 2x4 stuck in the snow.  My luck didn't begin to change until I stopped feeding the vertical and repurposed it to a mast for an inverted V.

[K1NSS]

I just wish I had the foresight to reserve the call K2ORS when Shep passed on. I visited with him many, many times when I was a high school kid and he was broadcasting on WOR in NY.

Excelsior, fathead!

Me too, if by "visiting" you mean listening to his radio show.  Never made it to any of his performances at the Limelight in the city, drat! I don't think any artist better expressed the amateur radio experience, which was the genesis of modern geek culture.  Never knew him, but, in the Kevin Bacon Degrees of Separation mode,  I know someone who did,  a member of the Sons of the Whiskey Rebellion, the ragtime group whose record Shep used much for music beds for his WOR bits. Another member of the group was Shep's Jersey flying instructor.

[WA2OLZ]

Actually, a friend (WA2USW) and I visited him in the studio in NYC frequently. He generally ignored us, but did allow a couple of young snot-nosed hams to stand in the studio as he spun golden tales.

Many years later I saw Jean in a performance at Springfield (NJ) High School and found he had aged almost as much as did I!

73
Jack
WA2OLZ

[K1NSS]

Actually, a friend (WA2USW) and I visited him in the studio in NYC frequently. He generally ignored us, but did allow a couple of young snot-nosed hams to stand in the studio as he spun golden tales.

Many years later I saw Jean in a performance at Springfield (NJ) High School and found he had aged almost as much as did I!

73
Jack
WA2OLZ

Wow Jack, Brass Fig Newton to you guys! How did that come about and how long did that go on?  What a cool story.

[Steve - K4HX]

Indeed. I have one of those cards from K2ORS. Quite cool hanging on the wall.

I like 'em.

The second card is perfect.  -Great theme guiding the viewer's imagination from preceding events to many possible outcomes.  - Your focused ham personified.

[WA2OLZ]

Wow Jack, Brass Fig Newton to you guys! How did that come about and how long did that go on?  What a cool story.

Good morning, Colonel, suh! My Dad was also a member of CAF before the name became so politically correct. I also fly, but never joined the ranks.

Bob, WA2USW, had an ambition while in high school to become a broadcast engineer. I'm not sure how he did it, but somehow hooked up with the good folks over at WOR radio in New York City, got to know them, and the rest is history. Bob actually followed his ambition and became the engineer he wanted to be. My ambition at the time was less lofty. Think of teenage boys with raging hormones and you will get the idea

My recollection is that we started the visits to WOR in 1959 and probably continued until high school graduation in 1961 for him and 1962 for me.

It is memories of that period that have rekindled the AM bug in me.

[K1NSS]

Cool Jack, got me thinking about a proposal I'll share in a PM.

Well..by hook or crook it took some brass to sustain a hangout in Jean Shepherd's studio.  My guess he wouldn't entertain more than a glance in the glass if he didn't enjoy your company. Tip o'the phones to you guys.

Also my guess raging hormones were the undoing of many kid ham careers. Like Joe Walsh, I made the common transition from radios to guitars and there the simularity ends.  I took the opportunity to heavily gild my good old days by means of my alter-ego Dash! in Love Shack on Radio Rowhttp://www.dashtoons.com/LS%20Arch.html.

Re CAF (HI):  I fell into my association with www.b29radio.com by means of Rockwell Collins Museum Curator Lawrence KC0ODK, a longtime Dash!Chum. No pilot me, just a very casual vintage aircraft buff,  but my late Dad was a B17 radio op and my sister-in-law's father was a B-29 gunner, so my interest in FIFI and the CAF is personal.

Also attached find K1NSS (aka Jr Birdman Walter Mitty) at FIFI's rennovated radio position, at last summer's Reading air show.
73

Jeff K1NSS