[QCWA] Re: QCWA Chapter 91: our website was updated today, 7 Apr 07

[walter Maxwell]

Hi Dick,

Thanks for putting me on the list for seeing the updated website. The stories
are interesting, or course.

However, I would like to add a little, and also correct an error.

My addition is to Frank Kratokvil's story. I took my first ham exam at Bay City,
MI, with an RI from the Detroit office when Frank was chief there. As a result,
my original landscape amateur operator's license was signed by Frank in 1933.

Next, after originally being a member of Delaware Chapter 5, I moved to Florida
in 1980. I went to my first meeting at Citrus Chapter 45 in Orlando, and as was
about to open the door to enter, Frank opened the door for me, and welcomed me
to the Chapter. Frank and I met many times after that, and were both members of
the Old Goat's Net on 7210 kHz. The OGN has annual reunions in my home town of
DeLand, and Frank attended every reunion until just before his death.

Now for the correction of an error that has been long enduring. The common
knowledge has it that Loren Windom invented the off-center-fed dipole, called
the 'Windom'. This common knowledge originated because Windom presented the idea
to the ham community by writing an article about it in QST as if it was his
idea. The truth of the matter is that it was invented by William Everitt and
Robert Byrne, then engineering professors at Ohio State, where Windom was an
engineering student. During experimental testing of the new feed method, Windom
tagged along with the two professors, learning about it from them. Windom later
published the QST article as his own development.

William Everitt is well known as the author of "Communication Engineering," by
McGraw-Hill, the first edition published in 1937.

Dick, I thought I had given you the story of my encounter with Dick Cotton, did
I not? So I'm surprised by not seeing it here. To shorten the story as a
reminder, Dick thought he had jurisdiction of the the Allegan Monitoring
Station, and proceeded to come to Allegan to ''inspect" the Station. I was
working a shift then that put me off duty for that week end, so I offered my
apartment to Dick to obviate the necessity of the FCC paying for a hotel room.
While in my apartment he chose to inspect my ham station,W8VJR, the one in the
picture in the Journal. He decided that I wasn't keeping a log based on his
desires, so he issued me a citation. Other than that I never met Dick in person,
and I'm just as well pleased that I didn't.

Walt