Letter from Jim D. to Henry K. 23 May 1989

May 25 1989:

Photo copy of two pages from June 1955 GRAPEVINE- So far as I know - the first mention of Hams in AA. This was in Volume 10 # 1

�� The first Grapevine was in June of 1943.

Note the memo which was loose in this copy - I attached it so you may see how liitle (apparently) subscriptions were "pushed for" 36 years ago!! Hi.

Am also inclosing a list that Ben had gotten together sometime before,1970 and which apparently I had started to revise in somekind of cronlogical order but never finished.

Also a letter about "Bill" W8ZUL from a neighbor , also in AA and HAAM. I do not want these papers back and hope they may may be of interest ( Ancient History?;) or perhaps you can reactivate some of them.

Further history- After more than 30 years bottle fed I have been very active for over 33 years, something over or about 5 or 6 thousand meetings (no relapses.) After being away from Ham Radio over 41 years I got back in when retired and in the /-/.first few months saw an ad in QST by Ben W7FNE ( now SMØRDE ) asking AA Hams to look for him on 14060. I did and made CTC when he was in the Alaska sea and have kept CTC with him since.

He was a commercial op running to the far east. About six of us made that net and when he was on the way back from the Bay of Bengal or wherever we would send all the Grapevines we could gather to his home in Seattle. He would take them to Calcutta , Burma , Singapore etc. I made CTC with him regularity fro St Croix and often worked his friend VU2GW "Ranga". I had a quad then with a Swan 500CX no Amp yet he said I reached him in the Bay of Bengal better than the Commercial Stns he was required to work.

I believe that every one of those first several *Swat in Texas Bill WSZUL , Jack YN5KM , Managua, Carl W1EOF, Bob Seattle are all silent Keys.

Not many liked CW but it got us, there and back!!! And I made CTC with Ben'SM' in Sweden this morning. The sked he gave you for that changes as we are moved about by Atmospheric conditions and the last few months have been on 21060 at 1600Z. He was a 229 many times but this AM came up to a 569 . He is usually in a hurry as it is suppertime there and I am ready for lunch.

I think one of your best bets is Wilf VE1ART at 1630 on Sat. at 14290. That SSB Gang was pretty regular a few years ago. If you have worked your calculator as you read you will realize that I (85 next month) am getting to the very tired years and not about to get on any new skeds. Never was fond of SSB - I started with Galena in 1919 and we were shut down for Broadcast Stns from 8 to 10 PM about time I went off the air in 1922 as Hams then were operating only on 200 meters which became the main Bdcst freq. That drove the Hams to perfect 'Short Wave' -Hi.

So when I got back in '66 I was still "Wireless" prone and the code was a fast recall in about six weeks of practice!

It's been fun but AA made it much greater as AA has every thing else.! ! ! So leave me off your mailing list and drop some of the others to save postage when you don' hear from them. The "yellow page List inclosed is not even all who had good intentions- I mean don't be disappointed if tehey don't show.

Jim D.

Handwritten P.S.
1- Still using a Swan 500CX (tranceiver) - tubes - and a 30' dipole
2- Also had VKs & S. Americans & thx to Eve Marsh G.S.O. and many more
3- Time & freqs were listed in World Directory in late 1960's.

[Note: Galena is a semiconductor with a small bandgap of about 0.4 eV which found use in early wireless communication systems. For example, it was used as the crystal in crystal radio sets, in which it was used as a point-contact diodeto detect the radio signals. The galena crystal was used with a safety pin or similar sharp wire, which was known as a "cat's whisker".]