[CW] The last amateur

[K0HB]

-- THE LAST AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR -- 

It was a warm sunny day, with just a slight breeze. Joe squinted at the top
of his tower, admiring the five-element 20  meter monobander he had built
the previous winter. It was an imposing sight, yet had never been used. Joe
was the last ham. 

Joe never intended to be the last ham, but it worked out that way. He
thought back to how it had all started in the late 90's when the FCC
created the no-code Tech license. Joe considered that action the biggest
blunder any government agency had ever perpetrated on the citizens of the
United States of America. "Just think of it," Joe had remarked, "an amateur
radio license with no Morse code requirements! It will mean ruin for us
all!" Joe ignored the fact that the no-code license brought new blood into
the hobby after the amateur ranks had been shrinking for many years. He
refused to notice that after the FCC created this new license category, the
number of active hams increased at a dizzying rate.  Then in 2006 the FCC
finally hammered the last nail in the coffin of 'real amateur radio' when
they removed the Morse exam for even the hallowed Extra class license. 

Joe hated no-code hams. He wouldn't accept the no-code license as just
another way of entering Amateur ranks, and refused to acknowledge that many
no-coders had upgraded to higher-class licenses over the years. No
explanation was good enough for Joe. 

Joe and some like-minded cronies hung out on the local repeater, where they
expounded at length their belief that the new hams are somehow less than
human. They even suggested that the way to clean up the ham bands was to
get rid of all 2-by-3 calls. They joked that everyone ought to own a
no-coder for a domestic pet. 

When new operators dared talk to Joe or his buddies, they found themselves
humbled, scolded, and scorned. In his zeal to control "his" airwaves, Joe
monitored the local repeater with a stop-watch, to make sure interlopers
"ID'ed" on time. If they went a little over, he gave them a tongue-lashing.
He even harassed them when they operated perfectly, just to make sure they
knew they weren't welcome. 

Of course, Joe never gave his callsign when he did this. He regarded
himself not as a jammer, but as a radio cop -- keeping the ham bands pure.
Soon others joined Joe's cause. After all, "The new no-coders made two
meters sound like CB!" Slowly at first, then at a faster and faster rate,
newcomers dropped out of the local clubs, then off the air completely. Joe
was ecstatic. It was working; he was saving the airwaves. 

The number of active hams dropped to far fewer than when he started. He
figured only the "real hams" were left, so he didn't mind when the Callbook
shrunk to the size of a comic book. But with so few hams, the political
power of Amateur Radio diminished. Soon ham spectrum shrunk, too. That
didn't bother Joe; he cared only about 2 and 20 meters. He thought it was
funny when the FCC auctioned many VHF and UHF bands, "those no-coder
hangouts," to commercial interests. 

Finally, citing "no further need for an Amateur license category," the FCC
stopped issuing new licenses. Before long, Joe and his buddies were the
only hams left. But that was fine. After all, they all got their licenses
back when hams took tests at FCC offices, and not at one of those VEC jokes
that allowed an applicant to take a test here or there. Joe and his cronies
spent long hours ragchewing on 20, bragging about how good things were.
Occasionally they paused, but only to note when one of their clan became a
"silent key." 

Then, one day, Joe called CQ on twenty meters and got no reply. He tried
again the next day with the same result. He kept trying for a week, but no
one ever came back to him. 

Finally, he called one of his friends on the twisted pair, to set up a
contact. But, an elderly-sounding lady informed him that his friend was no
longer among the living.  Joe paged through his old, dog-eared Callbook.
But he couldn't find a single listing of anyone he had worked recently. 

That's when he realized he was the only one left. Joe had just started back
toward the house when he suddenly tired. He at down to rest on the grass.
He felt a squeezing pain in his chest, and his left arm ached. He lay back.
His antenna, and clouds drifting by above it, were the last things he saw.
But Joe and his like-minded friends had lived long enough to accomplish
their goal; 
               
THEY HAD CLEANED UP THE HAM BANDS!