[W2CRA] The Night Before Christmas

[Ron Wescott]

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL..

 

-A Christmas poem.. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

'Twas the night before Christmas,  

And all through two-meters,  

Not a signal was keying up  

Any repeaters.

 

The antennas reached up  

>From the tower, quite high,  

To catch the weak signals  

That bounced from the sky.

 

The children, Technicians,  

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 wouldn't 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?

An Elecraft, TEN-TEC

Or Flex, could it be!"  

(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 weekends

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 a 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 an old ham expects: 

"Merry Christmas to all, 

And to all, good DX."

 

C 1996, 2016 Gary Pearce KN4AQ

 

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