[ARC5] Wayne Green

[mstangelo at comcast.net]

Gordon,

Your CQ articles renewed my interest in surplus radios.

I got my novice ticket in 1969. Like many hams at the time my first transmitter was a Command set. I upgraded to Knight Kits and Heathkits and my interest in surplus waned. 

Forward to the late 70's. I started working and got my first good radio, a Drake TR-7. I was jogging in my neighborhood and came upon a stack of CQ magazines tied up for recycling pickup. I took them home and browsed through them. The column I enjoyed the most was you surplus column; I devoured them.

Thanks for the excellent work. I got rid of the magazines but saved all of your articles.

Mike N2MS


----- Original Message -----
From: gordon white <gewhite at crosslink.net>
To: Glen Zook <gzook at yahoo.com>, Bruce Long <coolbrucelong at yahoo.com>, Robert Eleazer <releazer at earthlink.net>, arc5 at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 10:50:18 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Wayne Green

    For what it's worth, I wrote a few things for 73 and Wayne always 
paid for them. I was a professional writer - made my living as a 
Washington newspaper correspondent working for out-of-town papers. The 
Chicago American (A Hearst paper and maybe not a great rag but 
interesting to work for and paid decently) folded up and I then worked 
for several western papers, none of which paid all that well, so my 
magazine writing was part of my bread and butter. CQ paid $100 per 
column for more than ten years, which was pretty decent at the time. QST 
occasionally asked me to write pieces for them, but their attitude was 
not only high-handed, but they thought the honor of being published in 
their mag was so high they did not have to pay for articles. Even a 
pittance! So I never wrote for QST. I wrote for the AOPA magazine and a 
few others. Later I was much better paid by some high-falutin' car 
magazines  at a couple of thousand a piece, though eventually the one 
which paid best quit paying and still owes me a substantial amount.


     Getting paid regularly by CQ was not only good for my grocery bill, 
but I obviously was interested in the subjects, particularly the Command 
Sets. I graduated from High School in Mountain Lakes, N.J., next suburb 
to Boonton, where the A.R.C. executives lived and my dad, mayor of the 
borough. knew most of them. Then in Washington, I was close to 
information sources - Main Navy, the Pentagon, the Signal Corps files 
repository at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, the U.S. Archives and a 
lot of surplus sales sites.


     I think it was a piece in Western Radio Amateur that had a lot of 
errors that really got me into the Command Sets.



  - Gordon White