[Boatanchors] Saturday HCI Net Salutes Discovery With Radio Tales

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Please join us on Saturday August 6th for the Hallicrafters Collectors
International 40 meter Net. We will be saluting the space shuttle Discovery and
the incredibly courageous men and women who currently man her. Many of you have
had a role with NASA in one capacity or another over the decades since President
Dwight D. Eisenhower struck the NASA match to ignite the formidable spark of
American ingenuity with his inspirational and "peace on earth" Christmas remarks
broadcast over our Explorer #4 satellite in December of 1958. It would be the
unofficial start of a marathon space race between the United States and the
Soviet Union clawing, scratching and risking it all to become the first men on
the Moon. This dream became a reality on July 20, 1969 while Apollo 11 orbited
the Moon, the LLM named the "Eagle" touched down with astronauts Neil
Armstrong and Edwin Buzz Aldron aboard. Who living will ever forget those words
that made us proud to be Americans, but left us with reeling minds at the yet to
be realized magnitude of this first tiny baby step into an unfathomable
universe. "The Eagle has landed." As Neil Armstrong left the first human
bootprints in the lunar dust undisturbed by visitors for uncounted millennia,
Buzz
Aldron joined him on the surface, and together they raised an American flag. The
words on our coins "In God we trust" suddenly took on a real meaning, for as
Armstrong and Aldron gazed at the infinite expanses of stars populating the
heavens before their eyes they knew that we were not alone.      	
	
The men and women aboard the space shuttle Discovery conducting mission STS-114
and the American and Russian crew aboard the ISS, may be humanities hope for a
tomorrow. Support them, salute them and thank them for having the faith to go
where most of us can only journey in our imaginations. Bring your tale to tell
of your radio experiences over the past half century with the space program and
contacts made on VHF and HF bands. How many brands of Ham or military radios
have you seen on TV programs or in those Hollywood movies with a hand mike
modulating the receiver?   		
	
The pre-Net commences at 12:30 PM EDT, (1630 UTC) and the Net proper at 1:00 PM
EDT, (1700 UTC). The frequency is 7.280 MHZ lsb +/- for key clicks, mike
splatter and the rumbling grumble of solar gas lumbering through the bowels of
the atmosphere looking for the entrance ramp into the D layer of the Ionosphere.

	
I hope to hear you Saturday. Be there! Bring that vintage tale of the days when
vacuums sucked and tubes glowed! 	
	
Duane Fischer, W8DBF		
NCS: Hallicrafters Collectors International	
netcontrol at w9wze.org	
HCI Web Site: http://www.w9wze.org