2006 01 09 Meeting Notes

VISIT JOEL’S IMARS WEB SITE, he works hard to keep it updated and looking very professional, do him the courtesy of taking a look. Send him any corrections but especially additions. We need more personal stories, write a short summary of your life, we’re all interested in the varied background of our members. IMARS is a VERY talented group, let’s make the most of it. SHARE

http://home.iag.net/~gretencort/imars/

Hi guys and gals,

I’m late with this, as usual, plug in the routine excuses.

Monday was a beautiful day. My first day back after the Christmas Holiday. Margot and I had a wonderful time in Concord, NC (just north of Charlotte) with both daughters and their families. Although my grandson did not make it he sent a video tape and I could see my 3 year old great granddaughter for the first time. What a little beauty and looks just like two of my sisters when they were 3. (Why the first time? It’s a long story, you don’t want to hear it!)

I’ll start with a little grousing. I was amazed to find NO DONUTS available on Monday. Wal-Mart and, I believe Publix, sells a dozen donuts for $4.00. Surely SOMEONE could have fronted the $4.00 to be sure the other members had the donuts they expect. Refer to my “Theory of Shakers and Movers,” this is EXACTLY what I was talking about. To have a successful organization you have to ADD something to the mix, not just come by and take advantage of what others have provided. Joey has been a rock in IMARS for a long time, what happens when he can no longer handle the coffee pot every week? Who will step up? If nobody does IMARS will probably cease to exist. It that what YOU want to see happen? I certainly don’t, I very much enjoy the meetings, this is a unique club but you all have to support it if it is to continue to survive. (STEPPING DOWN FROM THE SOAPBOX, HOLD YOUR APLAUSE PLEASE ;-)

Aside from that it was a good meeting. Walt and Jean brought Walt’s son Bill Maxwell of DeLand. Bill is W2WM (Wm Maxwell?) and he is former 5A4TY. He has recently retired and we can expect him to be a regular I think. He will make a presentation to let us know about his life at a future meeting.

Bud NØIA brought us up to date on all of the local EOC activity. He mentioned that there is a new paid volunteer coordinator at DeBary, Allen Williamson. Perhaps Allen will come and talk to us about what he sees as the future for the DeBary EOC.

We had no speaker but we had a good collection of jokes and all had a good therapeutic laugh. Here is how I remember them:


Walt told us about the woman who took her little boy to the doctor. As they were in the waiting room a pregnant woman came in. The little boy said to his mother “why is she so fat?” The mother replied that the woman had a baby in her stomach. The little boy was amazed. He turned to the pregnant woman and said “My Mama says you have a baby in your stomach!” “Yes, it’s true” said the woman. “Is it a GOOD baby?” asked the little boy. “Yes,” replied the pregnant woman, “it is a VERY good baby.” “Well then,” asked the little boy “why did you EAT IT?”

Tom Golding then told about Sean O’Grady who went to confession. He entered the confessional and said to the Priest, as is routine in the Catholic religion, “Bless me Father for I have sinned.” “What have you done?” asked the Priest. “I have been very bad,” replied O’Grady, “I have had sex with a girl.” “Was it Marie O’Shannahan?” asked the Priest. “I cannot reveal her name,” replied O’Grady. “Was it Delores O’Shonnesy?” asked the Priest. “No Father, I cannot tell you her name,” insisted O’Grady. “Well son, was it Megan O’Roarke?” asked the Priest. “I cannot tell you,” replied O’Grady. “Very well son, your penance is that you must say 10 Hail Marys every day and you cannot come back to church for three weeks.” Said the Priest, dismissing O’Grady.

When Sean came out of the confessional his buddy asked him how he had made out. “Great,” said Sean, “I don’t have to come to church for three weeks and I got three new leads.”

Someone else told about the guy who went into a public restroom and occupied a stall. He was sitting and thinking when the guy in the next stall said “Hey, what are you doing?” He thought it was very strange to be addressed while in this position but pleasantly replied “I’m just taking care of business.” “Is everything alright.” Asked the voice from the other stall. “Yes, everything of fine.” Was the reply. “Can I come over?” aked the voice from the other stall. “Certainly NOT!” he replied. Then the other voice said “I’ll have to hang up now, some idiot in the next stall keeps answering everything I say to you, I’ll call you back later.”

Then we heard from Jean Maxwell. This guy was flying and heard a female voice on the intercom welcoming everyone to the flight. At the end of the announcement she said “This is your Captain Judith Campbell, I hope you have a good flight.” The guy was surprised and didn’t quite believe his ears. “Hey,” he called to a passing flight attendant, “did I hear right, is there a woman Captain in the cockpit?” “Yes there is,” replied the foxy stewardess, “and the First Officer is a woman and all of the flight attendants are women . . . and by the way, it is no longer called the cockpit, now it is called the BOX OFFICE.”

Please keep your eyes and ears open for interesting people you could invite to speak to our group. There are no programs scheduled at any time in the future, we need your help to find speakers or other activities.


Margot was cleaning up in the garage and came across a box of VERY old pictures. I scanned some of them and put them up in a photo album on PhotoWorks. Here is the link:

Link starts here => http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=A1DC9F2BFD9&cb=PW <== Link ends here

There are some photos showing the Air Farce MARS station in the barracks in Bremerhaven in 1957. I didn’t have my license but hung out over there while I was waiting for my “CONDITIONAL” license to arrive and tried to learn something. Another picture shows the homebrew radio station a guy built into a table in his room. I was one of the disc jockeys. On Easter Eve I stayed up the whole night, fending off invitations from Margot’s family. I played all kinds of music and said all kinds of clever things. I knew I was going to be a big hit with the guys at work who were listening. At the mess hall in the morning, red eyed and about to drop from exhaustion, I asked them what they thought of the programming I had provided. They informed me that the signal disappeared at 2200 (10 p.m.) and the rest of the time was wasted!

I put in a picture of Margot and I at our wedding reception in 1958. We’ll be married 50 years in 2008 and it looks like we may live to see it! Sad to see how much we’ve changed though.

Another picture shows my Moroccan license CN8IF, my QSL card and a photo of me operating CW from the Navy’s club station on the base at Kenitra (formerly Port Layhatey.) I had learned to copy code on a “mill” so I carried my old Olympus typewriter to the station every time I wanted to operate there. That’s the club that had the Telerex beam on the top of an old broadcast tower. Nobody spoke up when they called for volunteers to climb the tower and fix the antenna. I put up my hand although I had never climbed higher than a hay mow in my life and knew nothing about a safety belt. I showed up on Saturday morning in tennis shoes and went to the top of the tower, jamming my feet between the tower legs and the diagonal cross pieces. My feet were already sore when I reached the top. When I got above the guy wires the top of the tower was moving around in the wind. I was a little frightened but tried not to let on. When I finally got to the top I put my belt around the tower but didn’t trust it and also held on with one hand. It became apparent that I could not do the work with one hand so I made myself let go and rely on the belt. I leaned straight back, reached up and back with both arms and when I looked up the clouds were moving across the top of the tower. I immediately knew the tower was falling and I panicked! I dropped my tools and grabbed onto the tower with both arms as tight as I could (as if that would save me if the tower was falling!) As it turned out it was an optical illusion and after a while I realized that and sheepishly put my head up and looked around. My tools were all on the ground so I had to climb all the way back down, gather my tools, find a messenger line, and go back up the tower. I fixed the antenna so I guess that’s why nobody ever mentioned my panic attack and I was then accepted into the club and made welcome to operate the equipment.
We were at the peak of the sunspot cycle in 1958 and whenever I signed on as CN8IF I had a deep pileup. I remember one of the phone guys having a round table on 10 meters which included all continents. Ahh, the good old days.

Although I could tune and operate the Collins station on base (75A3 and 32A2?) I bought a Heathkit DX-35 from some guy and acquired an (Hallicrafters?) SX-38E cheapy receiver. I never could get that rig to work and finally burned up the transmitter trying, I’m sure, to tune it into a bad wire antenna. How I longed for the Hammarlund SP-600 I used at work. That was, of course, far out of reach for a 3rd class petty officer. Many years later, on Okinawa (KR6BQ) a departing Air Farce officer offered to trade me my National NC-300 (remember the ham’s “Dream Receiver”) which I was still paying for on the installment plan, for a Collins R-390! He was going home and was afraid they would bust him for stealing it. I didn’t say anything, just pulled the plug on the NC-300 and carried it out to his car. Margot about had a fit when she saw me lug that R-390 back into the house. To her it was an ugly boat anchor, to me it was the best receiver that had ever been constructed! The Navy retired their frequency measuring equipment when that receiver (commissioned by the Army Signal Corps) became available. That receiver was absolutely magnificent, trouble is it had 33 tubes and it became prohibitively expensive to maintain so I reluctantly sold it at the same time I got rid of all my teletype gear. I said I didn’t want anything with tubes or gears. The computer had arrived and so who needed a big noisy teletype machine any more?

The last picture is of me as DJ at the AFRTS broadcast station WNAA where I had two programs a day, strictly volunteer without any pay. I was trying to experience any thing that had anything to do with radio.

December 9, 2005 (CNN)
While interviewing an anonymous US Special Forces soldier on his sniper skills, a Reuters News agent asked the soldier what he felt when shooting members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The soldier shrugged and replied, "Recoil."

73 88

See ya Monday

Jerry KØJH

Check out http://www.jerryhale.com it’s very outdated, the pool is now beautiful. I’ll try to get the site updated soon.