Had the receiver running as usual while putzing around between the garage and house, listening to the Old Friends group that meets Sunday afternoons around 3.715. Heard my neighbor and boatanchor friend Nick, K4NYW over in Chapel Hill join the group with a nice sounding 40 over signal, using a cool old Navy transmitter - the FRT-17. Well, turns out this is the same transmitter formerly owned by Chuck, W3FJJ, that he put up for sale after the tree dropped in to his place uninvited last year. Apparently Nick had just gotten it going yesterday and had his first contact with Wayne/WA1SSJ in NH. Today was only his second time using it since getting it last year and tearing it all down for a cleaning and rebuild. He had mentioned that he hoped to catch up with Chuck on the air someday so he could hear it.
As we were signing off, who should jump in? None other than W3FJJ. Nick was heading off but hung around long enough to contact Chuck, and Chuck had been able to make some recordings while listening earlier, so Nick will have a good idea how it sounds. It sounded pretty good for a stock military rig.
Here's a link to the FRT-17 on Nick's Navy Radio pages:
http://www.navy-radio.com/xmtrs.htm#frt17I'm not sure but I think this is the first time I've worked Nick in the 5 years I've been down here, he's just not on much. So getting to work him
and getting to witness Chuck hearing his old transmitter returned to the air was pretty neat. Bert/WA3JYU came in as well, and as we were signing Joe/WA2PJP jumped in. It ended up being a nice little revolving QSO for a while with folks coming and going.
First time on 80 since early November, it was surprisingly quiet.
