Sure was good to see old friends and meet new ones at the Dardanelle Hamfest.

Just reminiscing after the meeting I recall some great Dickie, “W5TIZ” stories, too, how he would climb his tower to fix something…and do it in the dead of night…didn’t make any difference 😊 Joel has it right; as I recall the story, Dickie was a tank commander and he stuck his head out of the turret at the wrong time and the sniper caught him on one side of his head, closest to his ideas. He just had the “best” attitude and was a great teller of stories…one in a million! He had an insurance agency and after he retired, he went on to a successful career as a stockbroker. His wife, Marie, was an angel!

More history - the old ADXA Info Net on Sunday nights on 3815 was always interesting; main purpose was to let everyone know what we had worked, frequency, date, time…waaaaay before spotting networks – this was circa 1969. We would all shake our heads when the young student, WA5VDH, reported a very lengthy list of DX including EU on 80 with his Long Wire and 100 watts from his home in Russellville, and now….K5UR; the beat goes on 😊.

That net was heard all over mid-America and it helped grow the ADXA to almost 100 members, many of whom would attend our annual meetings; from Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi, etc….it was a great time of growth for our club. I had a local artist friend design our logo and an ADXA QSL card that only required that each members’ call sign be inserted on the front, so many of us bought them and used them to further “spread the word” about the ADXA. This was a LONG time ago – just a few of us remember this stuff, hi, hi. I will bring a sample to show at the next quarterly meeting.

We had some great annual meeting speakers, too in the late 60’s, early 70’s; Dave Bell, W6AQ (SK), Bob White, W1CW (SK), Jim Rafferty, N6RJ (SK), etc. etc. See photos of these meetings on my QRZ page.

We did have a way to help a few of us know when a “new one” was on – Randy, K5BOC (SK), found some 2 meter radios that were used on locomotives and converted them to 147.51 simplex where we could just leave them on at each “shack” and holler real loud when a good one was on the air and where – we had about 6 of them in the area. In Fort Smith, after 55 years. we STILL use this frequency to do the same thing…scout for new ones!!!

A few musings from one of “the old farts”!!!

Vy 73, Bill

Bill Priakos – W5SJ

10 Free Ferry Heights

Fort Smith, AR 72903

479.461.8368

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Friday, March 8, 2024 5:41 AM
To: 'ADXA' <[email protected]>
Subject: [ADXA] W5TIZ

In recent “chatter” on the reflector Dick Freeling, W5TIZ, was mentioned. Dickie was one of the original charter members of ADXA back in 1967. This morning Chaz Cone, W4GKF, was the “Featured Member” on QRZ.com. I don’t really know him but sometimes I click on the photo to see the person’s bio. I was surprised this morning to see he has Dickie featured on his page as the person who helped him get a license.

For those of you who never knew or met Dick, you can see a photo of him in his shack on Chaz’s page at https://www.qrz.com/db/W4GKF

Also, for those who do not know Dickie was blind. He was shot in the head by a sniper in WW2. He survived, but lost his eyesight.