No subject

To catch the weak signals 
That bounced from the sky. 

The children, Tech-Pluses, 
Took their HT's to bed, 
And dreamed of the day 
They'd be Extras, instead. 

Mom put on her headphones, 
I plugged in the key, 
And we tuned 40 meters 
For that rare ZK3. 

When the meter was pegged 
By a signal with power. 
It smoked a small diode, 
And, I swear, shook the tower. 

Mom yanked off her phones, 
And with all she could muster 
Logged a spot of the signal 
On the DX PacketCluster, 

While I ran to the window 
And peered up at the sky, 
To see what could generate 
RF that high
. 
It was way in the distance, 
But the moon made it gleam - 
A flying sleigh, 
With an eight element beam, 

And a little old driver 
Who looked slightly mean. 
So I though for a moment, 
That it might be Wayne Green. 

But no, it was Santa, 
The Santa of Hams, 
On a mission, this Christmas 
To clean up the bands. 

He circled the tower, 
Then stopped in his track, 
And he slid down the coax 
Right into the shack. 

While Mom and I hid 
Behind stacks of CQ, 
This Santa of hamming 
Knew just what to do. 

He cleared off the shack desk 
Of paper and parts, 
And filled out all my late 
QSLs for a start. 

He ran copper braid, 
Took a steel rod and pounded 
It into the earth, 
Till the station was grounded. 

He tightened loose fittings, 
Resoldered connections, 
Cranked down modulation, 
Installed lightning protection. 

He neutralized tubes 
In my linear amp... 
(Never worked right before -- 
Now it works like a champ). 

A new, low-pass filter 
Cleaned up the TV. 
He corrected the settings 
In my TNC. 

He repaired the computer 
That would not compute, 
And he backed up the hard drive 
And got it to boot. 

Then, he reached really deep 
In the bag that he brought, 
And he pulled out a big box. 
"A new rig?" I thought! 

"A new Kenwood? An Icom? 
A Yaesu, for me? 
(If he thought I'd been bad 
It might be QRP!) 

Yes! The Ultimate station! 
How could I deserve this? 
Could it be all those hours 
That I worked Public Service? 

He hooked it all up 
And in record time, quickly 
Worked 100 countries, 
All down on 160. 

I should have been happy. 
It was my call he sent. 
But the cards and the postage 
Will cost two month's rent! 

He made final adjustments, 
And left a card by the key: 
"To Gary, from Santa Claus. 
Seventy-Three." 

Then he grabbed his HT, 
Looked me straight in the eye, 
Punched a code on the pad, 
And was gone - no good bye. 

I ran back to the station, 
And the pile up was big. 
But a card from St. Nick 
Would be worth my new rig. 

Oh, too late, for his final 
Came over the air. 
It was copied all over. 
It was heard everywhere. 

The Ham's Santa exclaimed 
What a ham might expect, 
"Merry Christmas to all, 
And to all, good DX." 

And I'd like to add my good wishes too.  
Reporting for Newsline, I'm Gary Pearce, KN4AQ.
--

Thank you Gary, and Happy holidays to all. 

(A Ham's Night Before Christmas is yet another corruption of Clement 
Clarke Moore's classic Christmas tale, this time distorted by Gary 
Pearce KN4AQ first published December 2, 1996.)


**

NEWSCAST CLOSE

With thanks to Alan Labs, AMSAT, the ARRL, the CGC Communicator, CQ 
Magazine, the FCC, the Ohio Penn DX Bulletin, Radio Netherlands, Rain, 
the RSGB and Australia's Q-News, that's all from the Amateur Radio 
Newsline(tm).  Our e-mail address is newsline at arnewsline.org.  More 
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For now, with Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, at the editors desk, I'm Jim 
Damron, N8TMW, wishing you a Merry Chritmas, a Happy Hanukah and we 
thank you for listening.  Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is Copyright  2003.  
All rights reserved.