This morning when I made my rounds we were approximately 120 nautical miles from the equator and Jarvis Island. It was a nice smooth cruise and the ocean was calmer than yesterday, at least it felt like it. It did rain some today but it was still hot and humid. Reading some of the comments from the mainland, it looked like it snowed in the mountain region and the Pacific Northwest was still in the 40’s come night time. It’s hard to fathom cold weather since I was lucky to skip most of it this year.
No picture today but I will take several tomorrow to show you the equator and of course Jarvis Island. When I was a kid my main interest was short wave and ham radio. I got a novice ticket at age 13 and spent quite a few Friday nights and weekends at the MARS station at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I enjoyed my time there instead of the junior high dance at school or the teen club. A year before I lived at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. I went to the teen club every Friday and Saturday nights and to dance with or have an opportunity to talk to a cute girl. Unfortunately that was few and far between. Nevertheless, I was persistent, went every weekend and suffered the same results.
That summer I flew to Japan to visit my grandfather and he gave me a Sony transistor radio that had a short wave band on it. Hearing radio broadcasts from various countries impressed me and my time at the teen club had faded as well as interest in socializing. I tried the teen dance at school or clubs several times in Albuquerque and encountered plenty of rejections and the curse seems to have followed me from the Philippines so my social skills sank even further. By this time my father had purchased and assembled a Heathkit SB-310 “Professional” short wave receiver and I was in nirvana.
Perhaps that was the first sign that I had already entered into nerd kingdom. But to fight that perception I had tried out for my junior high football team and maybe for one last time I could be a member of the “beautiful” people and join the ranks of jocks that were always getting the girls. It was not to be as I was knocked to my ass during a drill by one of those “beautiful” people and I turned my pads in and quit the team. My father was upset that he had bought me $20 football shoes. In retrospect that knockdown on my ass by a popular athlete was a metaphor telling me I didn’t belong there.
That was over 40 years ago and after I got my novice ticket, I recall hearing many CW (Morse code) signals from exotic islands in the Pacific. Veteran amateur radio operators had QSL or verification cards of contact on the club walls. I was impressed by cards from KM6 Midway Island, KS6 American Samoa, KB6 Baker and Howland Island, KJ6 Johnston Island, KG6 Guam and Saipan, KX6 Kwajalein, KW6 Wake Island and KP6 for Palmyra and Jarvis Islands. As time progressed and I got a higher class license I talked to many of these places.
The US Military still had personnel working at these exotic locations up until the 80’s and you would occasionally hear them on the air. I had never thought I would see these places in person and I did stand next to the ham radio station I talked to in Kwajalein but could not get a hold of the person who had the keys. This summer I would like to find a ham station at Midway but I do not have an HF radio to take with me. I know I will have time to operate from there and it is now a restricted area not open to the public except for NOAA and Fish and Wildlife personnel so it has become rarer.
When I sailed on the Ka’imimoana I used the old telex HF station we had in the ET shop as my maritime mobile ham radio station. I talked all over the world from that ship and the Europeans loved to make contact with me. I did have regular conversations with a station in Fiji and another in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. DX (long distance contacts) was great from the ocean. I had talked to countries I have never made contact before when I was land based.
I’m no longer on the Ka’imomana and even when I was there last January I did not pick up the handset to make contacts. I am still interested in ham radio but living in a condo in Seattle does not allow me room for a good antenna and the Hi’ialakai only has one HF transceiver part of the GMDSS suite. I need to renew my license in 2012 and plan to keep it. I will apply for a call sign from Western Samoa because after retirement I plan to be on the radio much more and if living in Western Samoa, you bet I will be on the air again quite a bit!
My genesis in what I do today evolved from that twelve transistor Sony radio my grandfather gave me 42 years ago and the first novice ticket at age 13 a year later in Albuquerque. This led to working for NOAA sailing in a scientific research vessel visiting the islands I talked to on my ham set.
Oh, and to “HG” who knocked me on my ass over 41 years ago during run drill that convinced me to quit football. I never saw your name on any NFL roster and I know you are the same age as me. But I still remember your name as I was very impressed by your hit. I would have never made it to the NFL either as I didn’t even make your junior high team! And to all the girls who told me to get lost when I asked for a dance…thank you too as it paved my way to the beautiful wife I have now waiting for me back in Washington State. And most of them I do not even remember their names and since they are the same age as me, maybe it is best we remember each other as teenagers.
With this I bid you goodnight and 73’s from maritime mobile Hi’ialakai near the equator in the open seas from the South Pacific.
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