A Brief Tribute to My Father
Albert H. Morris, Sr.
WB8FER
WB8FER in foreground, W8DUW in back
Field Day 1974
General Bio:
Born: October 9, 1917 in Logan County West Virginia
QRV: October 1969 as WN8FER QTH: Huntington, WV
Moved to Ocala, FL in 1985 Went SK: December 30, 2000
Occupation: Primarily with the Chessie Systems RR (originally C&O Rail Road) retiring in 1977.
Ham Radio Interests: Primary interest in CW and RTTY. He was once nominated for the A1 OPS. His job involved the extensive use of teletype machines and he grew so fond of them he eventually managed to find a place for them in the shack until his move to Florida. He enjoyed rag chew QSOs especially those with DX stations. He was not a paper chaser and never did obtain even WAS or WAC. He did teach code class for the Tri-State Amateur Radio Association (TARA) for several years and helped many other fine hams in the Huntington community on their way in this hobby.
His shack over the years: Dad and I were both licensed at the same time and were the 2nd and 3rd hams in our family (the first being his brother Staten, WA9YKM - more on the ham family later). We started with a used HW-16 that Staten had located for us and during our novice career we managed to make hundreds of contacts with our 10 crystals. During the latter stages of our Novice days, we built our first rig we would use as general class operators; the Heathkit SB-101. I still remember that day when we un-packed it and started the building process at step one, the inventory. Dad spread the contents of the box on the kitchen table and set back in his chair, sighed deeply and said; "There is 365 dollars shot to hell!". Well he was wrong and he and I (mostly he at that time) did get it assembled and after some outside help and a trip back to Heath for fine tweaking it did work great and still does today (as I still own it). A few years later we had the opportunity to purchase the "Grand Prize" from the local hamfest as a non-ham had the winning ticket and wanted to part with the brand new Drake TR-4C very reasonably. That rig is the one he used for RTTY daily and still runs great with (as I recall) the same tubes it started with. His last rig to add to the shack was a used Kenwood TS-120-S I gave him when I upgraded my rigs. He still has an Icom IC-2AT which he waited on a list to get for months (this was the first days of those hand held rigs) and it still looks practically new.
The rest of the ham family: Dad was extremely proud of the fact so many of us in the family were hams and as I mentioned earlier dad and I (Albert Jr. - WB8FEQ) were 2nd and 3rd behind WA9YKM. Following us was another of my dad's brothers, Karl, WB8GDY. Later from my mothers side of the family, a nephew, Rusty, WB8NFZ (also now SK). A few years passed before we got another family member interested and that was his oldest son Ron, WB8ZIM (now W4ZIM), followed by his entire family eventually; Charlotte - WD8ORS, Dewayne - WD8CFB (and his wife Jinny - KB8LAM), Tim - KB8HAK and Meredith - KB8HAJ. Since that family ham population explosion, things calmed down some but the only daughter in the family did eventually marry another ham, Kent - KA8QNI. There was at one time a total of about 13 of dads relations (one side of the family or the other) that were licensed and active and every one of those were before the Volunteer Examiner days.
Please bear with me as this is a first draft and any corrections and pictures will be updated and added later. If you knew my dad or even had a QSO with him and would like to recollect it or an event he was involved in, please email me with the details and I will add it to this site.
73 - Al - WB8FEQ
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