|
Chapter 78 - Who are we? A list of the folks. Well, that is a long story. Being that we are in West Texas that might take some time to tell. Hard to say. Some of the older ham folks decided that they wanted to get mixed up with some Yankees and joined the QCWA some years back. They started a local chapter and were assigned the number 78. As I was sayin this might take some time to tell. Do you have a few minutes? Ok. Sit back and keep readin as it looks like I'm a goina keep typin for quite a while. My name is Gerry Grant and my present callsign is WB5R. I got that fella a few years ago when the FCC said that they were goin to stop givin them exams over in Dallas. So I went and took the Advanced and Extra exams and passed 'em in front of them FCC folks east of I-35. We call them folks east of I-35 East Texans, by the way. Before I had the WB5R thing I decided to become a real 5-land person and changed my original callsign, which was K1EGH, to N5DZB. That was so that the folks here in Lubbock and everywhere else that I used my two meter mobile radio would stop calling me a Yankee. It worked pretty well, but I didn't like the phonetics that I used most of the time. "Dusty Zebra Butt" wasn't something somebody would appreciate sayin all the time on the radio where everybody would hear it. So that was another reason to go and get the Extra thing and change the callsign. What? You noticed that my first callsign was K1EGH and that I am a Yankee? Well, yes I was born in Providence, Rhode Island and got that K1EGH thing through the efforts of some great hams, Joe Ritchie W1YKQ and Stan Atkinson W1AFO. That was way back in 1957. Guess that is why I am writing about the QCWA cuz I was a ham quite a bit ago. I have always been active since I was first licensed. Went overseas with the Air Force and was stationed in Okinawa from 68-71 and was KR6EG and operated KR6US on a daily basis runnin phone patches. I had been stationed in Roswell, New Mexico prior to that. Got there in 1964. You know that Roswell is really a part of West Texas and those aliens were heading for Texas cuz they knew that was the place to be but they crashed so close to heaven (Texas) over there in Roswell. So I figure that I am a Texan since 1964. But they won't accept that down in Austin. I've been trying for many years to become a citizen of Texas. My lawyer says that he doesn't think I'll make it. Oh well, I keep trying. Back to the QCWA thing. Well, them old folks passed on and left it to us young ones. We dropped the ball and didn't keep up the meetins and such. But we did kinda meet every third Saturday at a local library and administer ARRL based examinations. We have been doing it under the sponsorship of Chapter 78 of the QCWA since 1988 when them exam things first started. So I guess we have kept the chapter going by meetin and talkin after the exam sessions. Since we have 'em every month, we get to see each other quite a bit. Some of the folks are gettin a little old now but they keep coming to the exams and helpin out. That is great. Looks like we will have to have a formal meetin at some restaurant or somethin sometime in the future. Maybe elect officers and stuff. Who knows? Send me some e-mail and let me know what I should put about you on this web thing. |