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W4GKR's Ham Station(s) - Thirty years of interesting antenna times!
Thanks for the visit my Amateur Radio site. I am working on up dating my Web site while on the road. As of this date I am having great difficulty transferring the digital fotos for each section/page. Have not been able to transfer anything over 11 kb? Remember your first field day? Thinking back through the last thirty years, there are lots of great memories and some painful ones also; come to mind. one of the first great experiences for me was my first FIELD Day. The time was about 1975 or maybe 1976, I had just transferred with GE from Greenville, South Carolina. I just received my Ham License in 1973. I had meant another five or six Amateurs in Wilmington, North Carolina and we started a little DX club. We monitored the simplex frequency of 146.55 Mhz. I do not at this late date remember all those envolved or how the idea of starting an Amateur Radio Club in Wilmington. But Charlie/K4UWH with me at GE, Martha (for got the call) & her husband, Jerry/KB4FT (I think?), Bob/W4LWS, & Sam/KB4IL all come to mind. We called the ARRL for some help in that area. We set up an ARRL affilated general interest club. I started teaching an Amateur Radio Class at night at Cape Fear Community College and the results were very really exciting. We had some pretty good turn outs in those years. All ages and interest were presented. Ex-military, men, women and whole families. As one problem (so to speak) was this was under the "Adult Continuing Education" criteria. Thus, children or under (18) could not attend with out a parent or adult. But, we worked through those issues with nomal classes of (20) to (50) in attendence. So that first field day experience was an interesting time. We had a few of us that had worked contests, some DX pileups but most were new to Amateur Radio. So our goal for that first time was to have FUN! Our site turned out to be an interesting place. Wilmington had a great and long history of military experience going all the way back to the North/South conflict last century. It was one of the largest building sites for Liberty Ships during WWII and the local airport had a large old military barracks complex. The buildings had been empty of personnel for some thirty years, with lots of inter- esting pieces of old miltary odds and ends. Of course every room and building was dusty, dark, and full of old spider webs --- EVERY WHERE! So if you can just picture this place back under some hugh old pine trees covered in pine needles with windows dusty and full of spider webs. You can feel what we were going to experience for our first field day. We selected a building, did a little house cleaning in one of the front rooms. I wish I could get up with some of the old club members, as I do not remember who's or what rigs we used and etc. We brought our own equipment of course. I had an old Health set of twins the SB301/401 and an old Kenwood TS-900. The rigs in those times were of that vintage. We had an old Hygain vertical and a few wire dipoles up in those big pine trees. And remember, we had a lot of new Hams, so if you can feel the excitement as we worked on getting the site set up, antennas up in trees, rigs set up in the front room of the old military barracks. It was a fun and exciting time as we worked fast and hard prior to the starting gun time for field day. We had a few follows that liked to cook, so we were ready to go with a kitchen, rigs and antennas. We started off at 02:00 PM with an great group having fun. We were very fortunate in having three or so great CW operators. I remember Charlie/K4UWH, Bob/W4LWS & Fred/WB4CTB for some that only operated CW. The rest maned the SSB station. For you that are not familiar with the East Coast of North Carolina, it is not an accident that the VOA is located just up the road from Wilmington. The proporgation characteristics were very good and we were making contacts like mad. Then later that evening,we had a visit from mother nature & things become interesting. For you that have been on the beaches in North Carolina know what a big Thunder Storm is like on the ocean! Well we had a dandy come roaring through the trees. Now remember the old dusty, dark spider webs and the thirty year old or so military barrack surroundings! With the lightening lighting up the skies, it was a great show. Well everything was shutdown, antennas disconnected and we all got back into the old military barracks building watch the show! It was an interesting night! Well we made it through the night and prior to sun up fired up the station again with great condition continueing. We had a great break- fast from the cooks, a very nice sunny Sunday morning in North Carolina. The rest of the time was normal with all taking turns at the stations and a great time was had by all. I do not know if it is possible, but it would be interesting to get in touch with some of the old folks to get their side of the story. Let me close this part of the tale as the little girl wants me to got with her for her appointment with the retirement people here in Germany. Will try and add some more thoughts later. More later ... Rich/DL/W4GKR - Berlin, Germany Thanks for your stopping by. I have about a dozen differant ideas for stories. One is a pirate story in the Indian Ocean with the Calsyso's sister ship. tks .. cul .. 73 .. W4GKR/Rich |
