[CW] RV: Ballenita

[Uranito]

----- Original Message -----
From: Uranito <uranito@infovia.com.ar>
To: CW REFLECTOR <cw@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 6:34 PM
Subject: Ballenita


> Hello dear friends:
>
> DH4PB Sylvester Focking is writing a book about Sparks -
> .foecking@main-rheiner.de
> Web site in http://home.main-rheiner.de/foecking/text.htm
>
> I write this one short note for him.
>
> He is looking for some others WW stories.
> Best regards
>
> Alberto LU1DZ - AY1DZ
>
> -0-0-0-0-0-0
>
> The Whale of the Caribean Sea and the "Buque Motor Ballenita"
>
> Many years ago and after 3 years in the High Technical School learning
> everything about Morse, Radio, Propagation, Whether, Geography,
Electronics,
> etc. I started my first Radio job in LPD the old Coast Radio Station for
> Buenos Aires.
> I was a new and young operator, then the supervisor send me to paste
> telegrams, use RTTY, etc. but the CW room was only a dreams for some time.
> It was in 1965 when the olderst man in charge of the CW room, send me to
22
> MHz for a few traffic with some distant ship. With the experience and
better
> CW I down to 16, 8 and 4 MHz. But never can sit on 500 KHz. This was a
> golden chair used only for those very good operators and I wasn�t
> After some time, I saw a very funny CW episode in the radio thelephony
room.
>
> One of the SSB operators listen a SOS call in 16 MHz. It was a CW
> transmition coming very clear from "Buque Motor Ballenita", an LPD well
know
> Panama flag ship.
>
> Then he started the usual emergency procedures, and evebody come close to
> him to follow the news about our friends in problems.
>
> The Ship CW transmition said
> "We have problems with a whale".
> ..ohhhh.they have a whale colition...!!!, we said
> "We are in the Caribean Sea..."
> ...ohhhh of course they are from Panama, we said
> "The whale eated our Master...!!!, ...etc".
> ...ohhh what a tragedy, we said.
>
> It was time on wich everybody take a picture of the situation.
> It wasn�t a real picture, was one coming from our rememberings of some old
> seaman in a small boat facing the whale with his harpoon...
>
> It looks soo strange but is was in the receiver loudspeaker, and the ship
> was answering every operator question very well, and the supervisor was
> agree.
>
> When he decided to call the Coast Guard Station for an international
> emergency CQ Call, some body intercept him and said
>
> "don�t worry, ...I will take care of this".
>
> Later the CW transmitions from the ship said:
> "The ship is in very bad conditions..."
> ...ohhh poor boys..., but the water is not very coold, we said...
> "I am the only on board now..."
> ...ohhhh this is an heroic operator, we said.
> "The water is over my foot..."
> ...mmmmmm
> "The water is over my shoulders..."
> ...leave the radio now..., we said...
> "The water is near my lips..."
> ....he�s  still keying with all this water..., we said
> "GLU  GLU..."
> ...ohhhh, glu glu in CW?, we said
>
> This was the moment when that good friend know that something was wrong,
and
> nervous started to find somebody to figth with him...!!!.
>
> What happened?
> It was very simple.
> Some one patched the audio output of an SP400 receiver into the same audio
> line of the 16 MHz receiver and started to manipulate a no modulated
carrier
> with the BFO joking him.
>
> Finally we finished drinking "Mate" and coffe and talking about the famous
> "Caribean Whale who eated a ship Master".
>
> This was a great time. A time were the individuals have a lot of
> responsabilties and posibilities to do everything by himself.
>
> We lost that era and I find that the Amateur Radio is a good place to use
my
> knowing and my Morse instruments for a log time more.
>
>