Guilty as charged! I placed a search for my call sign on eBay to see if my vanity call would come up and find some history on who and where W2PFY was? I couldn't find anyone listed on the old section of QRZ or if the call was ever issued?
Then one day eBay email popped up and some guy was selling a QSL card with my call on it. It turns out that it was held by a gentlemen from LI and the date on the card was from 1949. i learned that W2PFY was a rather successful business man and the person he was talking to was the founder of the Remington Rand Corporation out of CT. I was able to ascertain from that QSL card the original holders name and located his OBIT and that among other things, that he had quite a gilt to gab nature about him in regards to his radio hobby...Kinda like the present holder of the call! Well anyhow, there must be more reasons than the one I expressed and my guess is that buyers of old QSL cards are a bunch of nuts! But then, what do I know?
Wow, now here is another puzzle piece. The guy who got me addicted to this hobby was W2MJD. Art was the CE for a local station, WMCA. Up in his attic he had a photo of the youngsters, members of the Hampton Roads VA wireless association. Art mentioned that one of the group was the founder of Remington Rand. He and Art were responsible for installing the 1st radio station in a school, in Hampton Roads. I still have a few of the “stamps” they used to verify reception reports, early QSLs. Years after Art passed, I contacted the school to discover the principal was the grandson of the principal who was in charge when the station was installed. The info I provided answered the question as to why they had antenna remnants still on the roof.
