[Elecraft] KPH on New Year's Eve (WAS: OT-Preserving CW memories)

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Mike, KK5F wrote:

It's hard to believe that it's only been five years since all this went
extinct.  Even as recently as 15 years ago there was substantial maritime
Morse activity.  I used to keep a Kenwood R-600 on 500 kHz at my bedside at
night.  I miss hearing the Winter night-time MF Morse activity that here in
the eastern U.S. could come from anywhere between the Great Lakes to the
Carribean.  Often the signals were A2/MCW, not A1/CW.

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Astonishing that only a decade ago I was lured from my word processor to
dust off my Radiotelegraph license to start climbing masts and repairing
vacuum tube CW transmitters, radio direction finders, old radar sets, etc.,
on the merchant ships we pulled from the mothball fleet war for Gulf war I.
Over the previous three decades America had given up almost all of its
merchant marine in favor of cheaper foreign lines, so they were pulling
every old hull that could still move under its own power out of mothballs to
haul supplies to the Persian Gulf. My main task was to tease 1950's and 60's
vintage electronics back to life for a few more trips across the Pacific. 

Having no American merchant marine meant no trained crews and officers. On a
whim I had answered an query from Mackay Radio looking for help. They were
chasing down every licensed commercial operator who could stand upright.
When I wandered into the shop, the grizzled old manager looked at me,
pointed to a box on the bench and asked me what it was. I looked closely...
frequency dial, audio gain, bandswitch, regenerat... "What?" I asked. "Are
they still using regenerative receivers?" 

"Your hired!" he bellowed. "You're the first guy who's been here who knew
what it was!" And so began a really fun re-acquaintance with the "roots" of
radio communications that lasted for several years in the 90's. 

Memories of dragging myself and a load of tools and test equipment ashore
off of the launch at 1 a.m. Christmas morning after an 18 hour shift
rebuilding a old radar are balanced by the bright, sunny morning I stood on
the bridge wing of the 1,200 foot long Naval Hospital Shop USNS Mercy as she
glided under the Bay Bridge on our way to sea trials. I needed to calibrate
her radio direction finder. The captain came up to me and handed me a
steaming cup of coffee in a Navy mug. When we returned to port and I packed
my things, I was about the leave when the Captain said, "Hey Ron! You forgot
this" and handed me the mug. I'm having a cup of coffee from it as I write
this. 

Seeing how CW quickly died only a few years later, I was profoundly glad to
have been able to come back to the party for a just a little while before
they turned out the lights for the last time. 

The sage who observed that we only live once and counseled embracing each
opportunity as it comes was telling the truth...

Ron AC7AC