[SOC] Fwd: An Alliance?

[Quikhooligan]

On 10/17/2019 8:15 PM, Hans Brakob wrote:

> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> News Release:
> 
> QCAO Reorganizes
> 
> de Danny, K7SS
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------???
> 
> The Quarter Century Appliance Operators was founded in the early 1950's by a small group of Amateur Radio operators from the Pacific Northwest. They had been active in their hobby for over 25 years, yet still lacked the basic knowledge of radio electronics and had no idea of how their equipment worked.
> 
> They banded together to try and protect each others honor and pride. At radio gatherings and club meetings in the 1950s one was considered unworthy of the name Ham Radio Operator if he or she couldn't not only name components, but know how to solder them together and make a radio work, or fix a broken set!
> 
> When faced with insults and derision, those few hardy pioneers banded together and formed the First Chapter and National Organization of the QCAO. This was known as the "Cold Solder" Chapter. They even coined the now-famous club byword "e pluribus ignoramae" which is Latin for "We don't have to know how to solder, we just wanna talk on our radios."
> 
> No veterans of that first chapter are known to be active on the air today. In the late 1950s and early '60s, with the worldwide interest in science and space and technology, the QCAO membership went underground.
> 
> It is with great pride and dignity that today in the 21st Century the revived QCAO stands ready to rise from the ashes, and become the standard of mediocrity it once proudly was. In honor of those first pioneering members, QCAO hereby invites all eligible applicants to step forward and join!
> 

QCAO?  Really?  Think about it. To be a member in the early 50's you
would have had to be a ham originally licensed from the late 20's. Were
there many/any "appliances" available to operate back then?  Nope, there
were very few appliance operators back then.  A group called Appliance
Operators might have been formed in the 1950's and could then be
rightfully called QCAO around 1975.  QST and 73 Magazine indexes have no
mention of a QCAO club and Google has no record of any such organization.

Of course this lack of visibility adds substance to the claim that the
membership went underground during the subsequent years.  And only now,
with the extremely low requirements for receiving a ham license, has the
organization chosen to bring itself into the daylight and engage in an
all out recruitment drive.  My only fear is that this re-blossoming of
interest in Appliance Operating will lead to conflict with that other
highly esteemed appliance operator organization, the "Appliance Operator
and Owners League", known as the AOOL.