By W7CRG
Sometimes my mind has lots of ideas and other times it is fairly empty as I am sure my wife will attest. As I searched for a topic this month I didn’t find one that really resonated with me.
I thought about my first QSO but since that consisted of dots and dashes and was the product of an overly excited 16 year old I quickly discarded that idea.
But the idea of beginning anew stuck with me. My novice license expired without me upgrading and KN7ORZ fell by the wayside. The interest never faded. Work, family and life took the forefront. Retirement found me and provided less conflict so when my wife told me about a class in Newport to get a ham license I decided to renew an old interest. Took the class, passed the test and KF7WZV was born!
I found an excuse to go to Salem and stopped at a dual purpose store which sold ham gear as part of the dual purpose. I bought a Wouxun HT for 2 meters and 70 cm. I was ready to get on the air again! I carried it with me, listened and occasionally responded. I showed up at the Lincoln County Amateur Radio Club and paid my dues. I was accepted into the group and was eager to participate. I met new friends and put voices on the airwaves to the faces at the meeting.
VHF communication was great but I wanted more. I knew how far my Novice CW signal traveled with 75 watts and decided I needed to get on HF. I didn’t want to use CW as I was never very good at CW. So, I started to study for my General and I started to search eBay for ham radio bargains. The first “bargain” that fit my needs and my pocketbook was a TS-140 by Kenwood. It arrived in the mail encased in a briefcase with foam padding inside and complete with a wire dipole antenna. Perhaps someone’s radio for going on Field Day.
Thus began my friendship with eBay “ham radio”. I looked at all kinds of items offered for sale and learned the value of equipment. I found items I had no knowledge of and researched them. Most often I determined I had no use or interest in the item but I now knew what it was.
The Kenwood TS-140 gave me many interesting contacts and I learned what “100 watts and a wire” could accomplish. I also improved my technical skills when it suddenly developed a problem. Joe Joncas, who has forgotten more than many hams will ever know about electronics, came to my rescue. Joe insisted that “we” could troubleshoot and hopefully fix the problem. I stood behind him in his crowded workshop/ham shack as he poured over the schematic of the TS-140 and he showed me what various sections did what.
I have some technical skills but I would never have been able to determine the problem was part of a large integrated circuit (IC). The IC was functional for everything but this one small section. “What do we do Joe? Can we buy a new IC?” Joe informed me that the likelihood of that was smaller than small. But we could build a replacement for that section. Wow, I wanted to see how Joe did that!
Once again the term “we” was used. Joe dug around through the vast supply of electronic components in his workshop and showed me that all the necessary parts to replace that section were on the desk. Then I was told to sit down and start soldering the parts together on the small perforated board. Once I had done that and Joe accepted my solder job, he showed me where to solder the leads thus replacing the bad section of the IC.
We connected everything, hooked up an antenna and tested it! Voila it worked! So I learned a number of lessons. I learned that a segment of an IC could be replaced. I learned that my soldering skills weren’t as bad as I thought. And I learned how an “Elmer” worked, taught and passed on skills to other hams.
Did I think I could do that? No, I didn’t until Joe helped me to do it. I have tried to pass that kind of “Elmering” on. It is a valuable experience to learn what we are capable of and that often flows over to other things in our lives. I’m pretty sure I still could not identify which section of an IC was the problem. But I grew one step closer to being technically proficient.
Later at one of the meetings, Joe asked if anyone would like to try an Icom IC-746pro that had come to the club collection. Since no one was using the radio, I thought I would give it a whirl. I was satisfied with my Kenwood but this 746pro was so much more radio. I soon was in love with it and constantly amazed at what it offered me.
A couple of months later Joe asked me at a club meeting when I was going to return the Icom 746pro. Did someone else need to use it? No, and l, I realized that it was not mine to keep using for free. I dug down and found the money to purchase it and the club treasury grew. The capabilities of my ham shack grew far more than the club treasury. That radio is still my primary radio. I have come to depend on it so much, that when I started to experience some problems with it I found a backup at a very good price (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) I could send the radio out for repairs and still have the familiar radio to operate with.
What I’m trying to convey is that one does not need to obtain an expensive bunch of equipment. Be aware of bargains and if the bargain appears at the same time as the means to purchase the bargain, go for it. Try to avoid creating a situation where the significant other is asking “So just how many radios do you need?” (This has been a failure on my part and a response of “Just one more” is not a recommended.)
Moving to new and different factions of the hobby involve more than changing radios. If you are going to operate on HF you need bigger antennas. Now depending where you live this may be a big or a not so big problem. Wire antennas tend to be the cheapest and easiest to put up. I’ve talked to hams using everything from pieces of wire strung together to speaker wire or just some wire they found along the side of the road. Hams have used drain pipes and gutters, slinkys and coax to create high frequency antennas.
But having the space to string it up and not get complaints from the HOA, neighbors or the other resident in the household can be another matter completely. It can also be difficult or downright dangerous getting the wire up high enough to suit you.
Back when I was younger and far more agile than I am now I owned a climbing belt and spurs. Was I an experienced and trained climber? Do I really have to answer that question? My parents had owned a logging company at one time. I had watched climbers top and rig spar poles to bring the logs up to the landing and then load them onto log trucks. Far better than watching a You Tube video wouldn’t you say? (I know the internet wasn’t even a dream back then.) Besides, I was a Lieutenant in the Toledo Fire Department and we had done rope training which I had also done in the Army. What more did I need to learn?
I was up early one Saturday, my wife was pregnant so I let her sleep in. I donned my climbing gear and started up one of the 80 foot tall trees in my back yard. Our yard slopes in the rear and the house has a daylight basement at the rear. Imagine the surprise my wife got when she walked out into the living room and looked out the large window and saw her husband slightly above her in a large fir tree. He was affixing a rope to the tree as he hung there in his climbing belt.
A very loud, familiar and angry voice directed me to get out of that tree! I started to comply and luckily I was out of her line of sight when the lack of experience thing got me. Spurs are meant to allow you to support yourself as you climb, work or descend the tree. They are strapped to your leg and foot. You must be sure the spur is well into the tree or pole before you put all of your weight on it. One should never hurry setting your spur. I’ll claim the demanding voice over ruled the never hurry part of that advise.
I put my left spur down lower but it was not solidly into the tree. When I put weight on it my leg just slid down the tree. My climbing belt held me to the tree and my right spur was still well anchored at the original height. So there was Charlie, right leg bent as tightly as possible and held firmly against the tree by the climbing belt, and left leg connecting mostly to air.
A possible headline flashed through my mind. “Fire Department Officer trapped in tree and must be rescued by his own Department.” Frantically I tried to anchor my left spur. A lot of the tree’s bark had been ruined as the spur slid down the tree. By moving slightly to the right and lifting with my right leg and my arms grasping the climbing belt I was able to get the left spur to set about 6 or 8 inches higher. I rested, recouped my strength, and was able to gain another few inches allowing me to reset the belt’s rope and get into a more advantageous position.
The familiar voice called out again. “I’m almost down I’ll be up to the house in a couple of minutes.” I assured her.
The belt and spurs hung in the garage for a long, long time. There are some things better left to the professionals. There are all kinds of devices to keep us out of trees. Slingshots and air guns which trail fishing line that is then used to pull heavier line up into the tree are popular and much safer than spurs and climbing belts.
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” is not just a Ricky Nelson song from the sixties.
Chuck Gerttula W7CRG