MEMBER SPOTLIGHT, PAT HAYNES, K4BEH:
          Our    member spotlight this month is Pat Haynes, K4BEH, of  Jasper, Ga.  Pat has been active on the Ky CW nets for several years now....in fact, he shows up on the KYN Roster in June '96.  As he mentions, he is also active in the Ga. nets, and operates mobile quite a bit.  I have had his picture from the Roving Camera for several years, but he put me off on the bio until he moved into his retirement home.   That happened this summer, so, true to his word, here is his interesting story in his words...enjoy it...
 
           "I've never met most of the KYN/KSN members personally but I feel that I know them pretty well from the QAN.  I know from experience of publishing a sunday school newsletter for several years how hard it can be to get participation from the masses, so here goes.....
 
           My interest in amateur radio started when I was about 10 years old.  My next oldest brother, my mother and I were living with my dad's mother on our family farm near       Mt. Airy, NC at the time.  My brother had a friend who had just gotten his novice license and wanted my brother to get his.  In order to help him learn the code we strung a wire between our rooms and using keys and a door buzzer we practiced until we knew it pretty well.  The novice friend loaned Jim an S-38B Hallicrafters receiver.  Bottom line was that my brother Jim lost interest but I was "hooked" !
 
           We moved to Newport, TN in 1954 and I picked up a license manual and refreshed my CW skills until I was ready to take the novice test.  I believe it was December of 1954 when the license arrived.
 
           I worked in a TV/Radio repair shop on Saturdays sweeping, meeting customers, etc.  One big fringe benefit was being given all the old TV's that folks didn't want to have fixed.  I stripped the parts and used them to build a small transmitter.  My receiver, if you could call it that, was an old Silvertone radio with shortwave bands and no BFO ! Not real great for CW so I would put a portable AM broadcast band radio next to it and tune it until the IF's would produce a beat note!  Crude, very unstable and hard to manage but I worked several states with it.  I later bought a Viking Adventurer and Heathkit AR-2
receiver from a couple of ham buddies and continued to work more and more stations.
 
          Later, when I got my general class I built a cathode modulator and Heath VF-1 VFO and I was on the air with 25 watts of AM !  I worked quite a few stations with that modest setup.  It was a real thrill to have someone come back to you running that low power on the AM bands at night!
 
          This interest in radio prompted me to apply for and get a job as a DJ in our local 5KW station.  I would sign-on the station at sunup and work until school time and then come back after school and work until sunset sign-off!  I did this my junior and senior years.  There were times when we would be without a licensed engineer and I would take care of the routine (sometimes not so routine) maintenance chores.  We had a sister station in Lenoir City, TN about 70 miles away, so if I got into big technical trouble the engineer from there would come bail me out or talk me through it over the phone.
 
          I went to college after graduation intending to become a chemist.  Well,  the love bug bit me and I dropped out after one year and married Judy.  We are still married 40 years later.  I went back into broadcasting as an announcer in Chattanooga.  I also worked as a cameraman at Channel 3 there, a job I never quite mastered!  I studied on my own and passed the FCC engineer's examination.  I moved to Sevierville, TN (home of Ten-Tec) and worked as a DJ and engineer until 1965 when I decided that I had worked enough weekends and holidays for low pay so I went to work for Lockheed aircraft in the avionics
quality control field.  My First Class Radiotelephone license was the key that opened that door plus my interest in planes.  I got my pilot's license shortly after moving to Georgia. I worked on the C-141A, C-5A and C-130 planes until I was laid off in 1973 when we finished the C-5A program.
 
          Jobs were scarce at the time so I decided to look into the medical electronics field.  I landed a job as a service technician with General Electric Medical Systems.  The manager who hired me said "I have never met a ham who couldn't fix equipment with chewing gum and an old TV set!"
 
           I must have been able to fix them because after three years he promoted me to Region Service Support Engineer assisting the rest of the field engineers on the tough problems and prototype installations.  I worked three different areas of medicine, patient monitoring equipment (ICU/CCU), nuclear medicine and finally ultrasound.  I enjoyed all of them because often the perceived problems were not actual equipment problems but application problems or medical problems with the patient,  so I had to learn a lot of physiology, anatomy, and general medical applications in order to "fix" the customer as well as the problem!  A big challenge when dealing with doctors who "know everything" ! I kept that job for twenty years, turning down offers of management because I really enjoyed what I did.
 
           I had to take an early retirement in 1997 due to problems with my feet, legs and hips.  I don't get around very well today but I am often reminded that I am much better off than many, so I say my prayers of thanks daily!   My wife, Judy, retired from Lockheed-Martin last September. She worked as a secretary in the procurement area for the F-22 fighter project.
 
          In 1992 I bought two one-acre lots in a new development on a ridge in the north Georgia mountains.  I finally got started having my dream home built last November.  We moved into it in mid-August and it is everything I had hoped it would be.  We have 3000 square feet of finished space on two floors and a 2000 square foot basement.  It is studded out but unfinished.  The area under the kitchen is where I will construct my ham station and workshop.  I have acquired a lot of very elaborate test equipment in anticipation of this day.  I may do some experimenting with QRP rig development and tinkering!  I also plan to build "Big Bertha,"  an amp with three 3-500's!  Not exactly QRP !  In the meantime, I am operating from an upstairs
"bonus room" with my Paragon and a 135 foot dipole fed with ladder-line.  It is up about 60 feet.  I have a 70 foot aluminum tower about ready to go up.  It will have a TA-33 on it. Neither have been up for over 30 years!
 
          I am very fond of Ten-Tec equipment.  I own a Paragon, Delta II, Scout and a 1340 40 meter QRP transceiver kit I picked up at the Ten-Tec Hamfest on October the 7th.  I also have a Yaesu FT-747, IC-706 and SB-104 hf transceivers.  My problem is that I can't bear to part with any of them!
 
          I enjoy traffic handling, some of the time, that is.  I don't enjoy the messages that flood the nets saying "congratulations on your new license" or "Everything's great here in Nausea, NH (sic)."  For several years I have been one of a couple of stations delivering traffic within the 100 mile Atlanta radius handling or generating over 1000 messages a year average.  It gets very frustrating trying to locate and deliver messages that mean nothing to and are often a bother to the recipient!  I often spent three or four hours a day in that pursuit and have about burned out.  Legitimate messages are a pleasure and sometimes these
"wothlessgrams" are really appreciated, so that is what keeps us NTS guys hanging in there day-to-day.  I think most can relate to these feelings pro and con.
 
          I also enjoy building, experimenting with antennas and some rag-chewing.  I actually do a lot more listening than rag-chewing though.  I guess my biggest single focus each of the past eight years is Field Day. We have a small group of guys who look forward to the last weekend in June each year.  We approach it as primarily preparation for emergencies but we also get very competitive in our operating!  Strange, since I don't operate any other contests!  We usually come in first or second in Georgia in class 1A.  We always try at least one "new" antenna each year!   The past year it was a 1000 foot loop!  The old, trusty 175' dipole (Extended Double Zepp for 40 Mtrs) fed with ladder-line always seems to be our workhorse, though.
 
          Our resident antenna expert and good CW operator is a Kentuckian, K4GSX.  Dale Covinton's family is from the Cave City area.  You may know him.  We enjoy discussing and designing antennas for the yearly exercise!
 
           You can see from this rambling story that I really enjoy all aspects of electronics and ham radio in particular.  I have been very blessed in my life and I count it all to that morse code wire strung between bedrooms in the early fifties.  Sometimes a small spark can build a fire in a youngster that will burn a lifetime.  That is why I try to help all newcomers to the hobby in any way I can.  Many of us had our "Elmers" and we owe it to them to pass on this great hobby and enthusiasm for learning something new.
 
          I really enjoy all of you guys and gals on the KYN and KSN.  I think you have a very efficient and active group of traffic handlers.  I think you are on the right track with the training message program and your book,  John, on traffic proceedure for the KYN.  Very good information for the "newbies!"  Thank you for making me feel welcome to the Bluegrass nets!
                                                                                                                                   73,"   Pat Haynes K4BEH

 Shack shot of Pat and more information...

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Posted on November 2, 2000.