Subj : Newsline Part 3
To : All
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Fri Dec 30 2016 02:16 pm
NO QTH TO CALL THEIR OWN
NEIL/ANCHOR: As 2016 was winding to a close, we revisited the
Massachusetts amateur radio club that is facing homelessness in the
new year. Here's Newsline's Paul Braun, WD9GCO.
PAUL: Earlier this year, we spoke with Sumner Weisman, W1VIV, about the
Framingham, Massachusetts amateur radio club, and their urgent search
for a new home. The city building that they had been located in for 38
years had a boiler failure, and the city had determined that it was too
expensive to fix. Unfortunately, as of this week, the club still hasn't
found a new home. I spoke again with Weisman about where the situation
stands:
WEISMAN: We have a "mentor," I guess you could call her an Elmer in ham
radio terms, who's a Town Meeting member - she's an attorney - and she
came to us and said, "Help me help you." And she advised us to get a
hundred signatures on a petition, and go to the Town Meeting, which we
did, and the Town Meeting gave us $500 towards a new home which we're
appreciative of, but it really doesn't get us a new home. She's been
working with us, and I went to the Board of Selectment meeting with her
advice, and asked them for some time in one of their upcoming meetings,
and they gave us fifteen minutes to explain what our dilemma is. They
were very sympathetic - they gave us twenty, twenty-five minutes, and
they didn't watch the clock. We had a good discussion. I had asked that
as many club members as possible show up, to show that we're serious,
and they were quite impressed - we had twenty to twenty-five of our
members there, and they commented on that. Generally, I think they were
quite sympathetic. We need a point of contact, and we asked who that
should be, and they said, "Contact the Town Manager after the first of
the year" which I fully intend to do.
PAUL: They have gotten some support from the city:
WEISMAN: What we're looking for - I told them if we had a broom closet
we could set up a radio station - but we're really looking for something
larger, perhaps twelve by twenty, or twenty by thirty, something like
that would be ideal, because that would allow us to have enough room to
hold VE tests, and also to give lessons there, to people who want to
upgrade.
PAUL: Weisman also explained why they are looking for rent-free,
city-sponsored space:
WEISMAN: Our big fundraising event is a swap meet or flea market in April,
and what we do with that money is that it helps support the club, but we
like to take about half of it, and use it for college scholarships for
kids. We give three or four college scholarships a year. The college
scholarship chairman of our club has told me that we've given away over
$20K already.
PAUL: According to Weisman, If you are in that area, the best thing you
can do to help is to attend club meetings to show support, and also show
up to council meetings, so that they understand the amount of interest.
More information can be found on their website at www.w1fy.org.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Paul Braun, WD9GCO.
**
BREAK HERE: Time for you to identify your station. We are the Amateur
Radio Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world, including
the KB3LSM repeater in Evans City, Pennsylvania, just north of Pittsburgh.
**
VIRGINIA FONE NET, AN 'OM' AMONG NETS
NEIL/ANCHOR: As we talk about time marching on in the new year, how about
a look back at an AM PHONE net that got its start in the 1930s?
JIM OWEN: We think that it's the oldest continuously operating phone net
in the United States, maybe in the world. No one operated during the war,
so we were off the air then, but when amateurs could operate, we've been
continuously on there.
KENT: That's Jim Owen, K4CGY, of the Virginia Fone Net. Jim started
checking into the net in 1960, but became a regular net control in about
1964.
JIM: I probably hold the record for the most net controls, I'm up to 2162
now.
KENT: According to research by Phil Sager, WB4FDT, there were two nets
formed in January 1934, both called Virginia phone net. Jim describes
what phone operation might have been like in the 1930s.
JIM: It was experimental, I know from talking to some of the old guys.
They came up with just about any scheme they could to modulate their CW
transmitters. They didn't have money for modulation transformers, so
they used screen grid modulation, and a few even used antenna modulation
where you put a carbon microphone in the antenna lead. That's way before
my time, but they worked. They got them on the air, and eventually new
things improved, and especially after the war, there was a lot of gear
available.
KENT: Jim says the net has run nearly continuously.
JIM: The only times we've ever skipped is when one of the emergency nets
took over the frequency.
KENT: The net has slowed down a bit.
JIM: As most phone nets go these days, there's not a whole lot of traffic
from the public. 30-40 years ago, someone wanted to get a message to
grandma on the west coast; they would come to us, because they didn't want
to spend the money to a phone call. Now they just text. Its morphed into
a net for old friends and new friends. Whatever you'd talk about on ham
radio.
KENT: Jim recalled hearing about the very early days of the net.
JIM: One of the members, W4BAD, Doc Tamer, was on spark in 1916. Doc
passed in the mid 1970s. He gave a lot of information on how they were
operating back then, and what he was running. These old timers were good
to talk to. Now I guess I'm one of the old timers, hey that's the way it
goes; people come and go, and nets are the same way. Fortunately, we've
managed to make it all these years, and we hope to go a while longer.
KENT: The words of Jim Owen, K4CGY, talking about what might be the
world's oldest phone net, the Virginia Fone Net.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Kent Peterson, KC0DGY.
