Lincoln County Amateur Radio Club

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from Chuck Gerttula W7CRG

          This is hopefully the last effort for this month’s Blog.  I’ve started and tossed numerous efforts and thought I had a finished product when I fact checked something and the result caused me to toss the “finished product”.

          The coming of Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of the year.  Growing up in Taft (now part of Lincoln City) I remember greetings and Christmas scenes painted  on store windows.  Bernie’s Sports and Fishing Tackle store had a big speaker hanging outside his door playing Christmas carols.  Even today when I hear “Silver Bells” I think of Bernie’s.  Even with LP records having ten to twelve songs on them it was a constant chore for Bernie or his wife to change records.

          Another more current reminder that “Tis the Season” is the appearance on TV of Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” hoping to find a Red Ryder lever action BB rifle under the tree.  His story, along with all the family drama of a post WWII mid west snowy quirky holiday is so entertaining.  The story is a favorite of many and most certainly one of mine.  It was written by a fellow amateur radio operator Jean Shepherd who coincidentally was also a radio personality on station WOR doing a nightly show without phone calls and guests, just the host’s monologue.

          There are remastered recordings of his show on the internet if you google him.  The show I enjoyed was describing getting his amateur license in 1935 at the Chicago FCC office when he was 14 years old.  It starts with two minutes of music which made me wonder if I had the right tape but that was  the style back in the 1950’s and ’60’s.  If you think it is difficult to obtain an amateur license in 2023 you will be amazed what it took to get one in 1935!

          In many ways I look at our hobby in the same way I viewed my family.  We, as a hobby, tend to stick together.  We have our differences and some have talents others don’t but for the most part we like and appreciate each other much like many families.  There are those of us who jump in to help when one needs assistance.  There are those of us who provide comfort and understanding when a member experiences disappointments such as failing the test to upgrade their license, or a tragedy within their life.  There are those who anger us as my brother did me so many times, but we persevere and most often forgive and forget.

           Within any community there are the generous and the not so generous.  Hams often are generous with their time, experience , expertise, equipment, help, information and many other things.  I know hams who consistently give equipment away and expect nothing in return but the satisfaction of a ham on the air.  I also know hams who are happy to get equipment to those in need but view the action more like a businessman.  But the thing many hams are generous with is their time; time to work with emergency operations, time to help get an antenna up and connected, time to teach a class, time to teach an operator to use a specific piece of equipment.

          Time is something we cannot get more of.  Time is one of the most valuable resources.  It is one of our most often donated and valued things.  If and when you have the time to help our hobby ….  here’s to you!  Thank you! 

We don’t always acknowledge our appreciation but it’s there.

Chuck Gerttula  W7CRG

Well, Here I am, the month of my birth and 79 years later. That
was of no help in writing this blog except it gave me an excuse for the
muddled thoughts I sometimes write. These months seem to fly by.
Didn’t I just post the September blog??

I know that each ham has different interests and priorities. I like
operating in the HF (High Frequency) bands. I like to think the
stations I reach are interesting new acquaintances and I learn
something about them, their station and their QTH (home location). It
is like being invited to someone’s house for coffee and a chat. For the
extraordinary contact I will send a QSL card and in most cases I will
receive one in return. Yesterday I received a card from W1AW which
is the ARRL’s station at their headquarters in Connecticut. My signal
went from my Icom IC-746Pro up the coax to a folded dipole antenna
30 feet high, which is partially obscured by the roof of the garage,
across the continent to their sophisticated station! Wow!

Of course I have had contacts much farther away but this one was
special as they have been a large part of American ham activities since
the very early days of amateur radio. I am glad to have the QSL card
to confirm our QSO. I don’t have a good open space in my shack to
display my cards so I scan them and use the file containing those cards
to create my computer screen’s wallpaper. It changes from card to
card constantly every 20 seconds.

Another pursuit many Hams have is being a volunteer. I’m
guessing we have members of LCARC who have volunteered for
committees, community positions, church positions, activities to help
others such as food banks and lets not forget ACS. When the need
was there for help, other than communication duties, Jenny Maris has
found hams stepping up to assist. Then of course the communication
duties are always the most interesting to help with.

Those studying for their license often mention such quotes as;
“When all else fails …” Which tells us that they view ham radio as a
resource in times of need or catastrophic events. It’s true, hams can
continue to communicate when other means are no longer
functioning. Cell phones are great but they depend on towers and the
tower depends on a source of electricity which may have backup to
the power grid but when the fuel runs out or the batteries discharge the
system fails. Also, the cell phone operator needs to know the phone
number to call for help and assistance and 911 is not always the
number to call.

Such activities as the “Noon time Net” on the Cape Foulweather
145.370 Mhz repeater are great training. “Training” you ask? Yes, for
those who help out and fill in when W7ALX is not able to run the net
that experience is invaluable. During an emergency or event, a Net
Control may not be available. Someone needs to step in and get the
communication started. If you have done it before in an informal
situation, you will be more at ease and do a better job in an
emergency. But, just picking up that microphone and pushing the PTT
(Push To Talk) button is a major step for some hams. Across the
nation clubs offer courses with titles like “I got my license, now
what?”

People in general, and new hams in particular, are reticent to
make themselves look foolish or inept. We all started somewhere and
have made mistakes everywhere. We have been tongue-tied or lost
our train of thought while talking on the radio. As central to our ham
identity as our call sign is many of us have “forgotten” it or misstated
it, particularly if it is not a series of letters that flow together such as
KF7WZV which was my old call sign. (I found that using phonetic
letters helped both myself and the stations I was communicating with.
Kilo, Foxtrot, Seven, Whiskey, Zulu, Victor resonated with the other
operator much better than KF7WZV.)

Some of us are by nature quiet whether it be having coffee with
friends, at a meeting, or on a radio net. Others seem to talk easily and
sometimes endlessly. The well thought out expression is often appreciated and more easily taken to heart by the listeners. I knew a ham who used multiple “scripts” for his QSOs. He preferred to use CW or Digital operations as it allowed him to communicate without having to talk. As I learned, he had slight speech impediment as a child and it has always made him self-conscious when speaking, even though he had lost any impediment.

These are some of the things that make our hobby so adaptable.
No matter what our abilities or interests we can find a niche in
amateur radio. I just read a blog from the Eugene radio club and a
woman who is by no means a “techie” has become fascinated with
moon bounce. Her husband is a ham and she got a license because of
him. But poetry rather than radios and antennas were her interest.
Then somehow sending a signal a quarter million miles into space,
hitting the moon’s surface, and reflecting it back to earth became a
fascination!

We all need to find interests within our hobby to keep it relevant
to us. We may not even see it coming. It may sneak up on us and all
of a sudden – Wow! 73 Chuck Gerttula W7CRG