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General Philatelic/Gen. Discussion : Old News is New News or the Same News?

 

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michael78651

01 Dec 2014
09:51:04pm
I just bought some more air checks from WABC 770 AM out of New York City. The date of the broadcast was December 29, 1975. In one of the news reports it was stated that the post office was asking for a 3 cent increase in the cost of a first class stamp in order to reduce the post office deficit of $1.4 billion. That was almost 40 years ago!
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smaier
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Sally

01 Dec 2014
11:20:48pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

What is an air check?

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michael78651

01 Dec 2014
11:28:16pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Easier to to quote Wikipedia:

In the radio industry, an aircheck is generally a demonstration recording, often intended to show off the talent of an announcer or programmer to a prospective employer, but mainly intended for legal archiving purposes. Another category of airchecks are those recorded "off-the-air" by listeners, using consumer or semi-professional equipment.

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Sally

01 Dec 2014
11:39:58pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Ok, but when you buy one, what do you get? The actual recording....is it on tape, cd, dvd, vinyl....what do you do with them? Sally

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michael78651

02 Dec 2014
11:01:46am
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

The medium onto which the air check is recorded can be any of those that you listed. I prefer CD or MP3 discs.

What you get is an actual recording of the show as it was broadcast as the airchecks are made while the show is on the air.

There are two types of airchecks: scoped and unscoped. The non-technical translation is:

- scoped = edited
- unscoped = unedited

The scoped air checks were made so that a DJ could exhibit DJ banter between records played, or to cut down on the time by eliminating newscasts. I definitely prefer the unscoped versions. It is fun to listen to the DJs you listened to when you were growing up. You even might have heard the show when it was originally broadcast. When I was growing up, it was WABC out of New York City that ruled the air waves. Most of my airchecks are from WABC, but I do have many others from other stations around the country. In addition to the WABC DJs, one whom I really like is Robert W Morgan from KHJ in Los Angeles. He was pretty good about on par with the WABC jocks. Dan Ingram, from WABC, is accredited with inventing the rock DJ persona. I have never heard a DJ better than him. Alot of the DJs are gone now, but some are still with us.

Here's a link to the "historic" WABC web site that provides alot of fascinating information and online airchecks from this lost time period:

http://www.musicradio77.com/

I also collect old-time radio shows prior to 1960 in the days before television. I enjoy listening to them as it requires one to use imagination to picture what's going on in the story. Right now I'm listening to "Pat Novak, For Hire", starring Jack Webb and Raymond Burr.

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

02 Dec 2014
12:07:29pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

"...Air Checks ..." sound similar to the " ...QSL..." cards that Ham Radio operators send to other operators to confirm that on a certain date and time (And place, Lat. and "λ") they received contact with some other Ham Operator by some form of radio communication. Often Hams display the most distance and interesting cards, usually postcard sized, on a nearby wall of their Radio Shack as a badge of competence.


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Sally

02 Dec 2014
01:16:29pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Michael,

Wow, what a neat website. I can see how you would really enjoy listening to these broadcasts if you know the djs involved. Some of it was pretty funny and I don't even know any of the people involved. It is amazing what is available if you know where to look. Thanks for the information and posting the link.

Sally

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TuskenRaider
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02 Dec 2014
04:48:52pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Hi Everyone;

Michael, if you are into cool radio shows, ya gotta check out some air checks for Dick Sommers, the Night Lighter show on WBZ Boston. That was a very popular cult classic type of show.

I had a long-wire shortwave antenna trimmed to be exactly resonate to 40 meters ham radio band on a Allied Star Roamer short wave radio. It was aimed North/South but I was able to receive WBZ quite well most of the time. I also listened in on many ham radio chats over a three year period. I still have the radio, and it was assembled from a kit, from Allied Electronics Inc. back in the day when everything was vacuum tubes.

Keep on roamin the air waves
TuskenRaider

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Bobstamp
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02 Dec 2014
07:33:09pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Cdj1122 said, ""...Air Checks ..." sound similar to the " ...QSL..." cards that Ham Radio operators send to other operators…. "

That was my thought, cuz I'd never heard of "Air Checks" either. Here's a QSL card from a Ham who played an important role in my life:

Image Not Found

Image Not Found

The Ham was Dean Battishill. I met him in 1949 when I was just six or seven years old, shortly after my family moved from New York State to Silver City, New Mexico. My paternal uncle, Phil Ingraham, also a ham, had been in contact with Dean, probably because my paternal grandparents had moved to Silver City in 1944 or 1945. Here are a couple of pre-WWII photos: on the left, my dad standing on the radio antenna which he helped Phil to design and build, and on the right, Phil with his radio.

Image Not Found

Skip forward to March 8, 1966 or thereabouts. I had just been evacuated from South Vietnam to the hospital at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines because of a serious leg wound. A Ham at the hospital contacted Dean, who put a phone patch through to my parents, who weren't aware that I'd been wounded. It was certainly better to hear the news directly from me rather from a letter from the Navy, which they didn't receive for another couple of weeks.

My dad worked as a radio announcer for Station KSIL in Silver City for about a year, but I never heard him mention an Air Check. But it was a very small station — I think Dad and the station owner were the only announcers/DJs/news readers, etc., and Dad really didn't enjoy radio work.

Back to Dean: For several years before he died, he sold radio vacuum tubes which he got from Russia. Imagine that, an American buying from communists!

I recently did a Google street search for Dean's house. His tall radio mast is still there!:

Image Not Found

Phil had some rather exciting times during the war, working as a radio repairman in the South Pacific. For a time, he became a member of the Australian Air Force, working to develop radio triangulation techniques to make it easier to find downed Allied airmen. He tells his story at Phil Ingraham goes to war.

Bob







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michael78651

02 Dec 2014
09:44:51pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Airchecks and QSL are two different animals. QSL is intriguing in its own right too, but never got into the HAM radio.

Thanks for the tip, Ken.

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

04 Dec 2014
05:48:32pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

" .... . A Ham at the hospital contacted Dean, who put a phone patch through to my parents, who weren't aware that I'd been wounded. It was certainly better to hear the news directly from me rather from a letter from the Navy, ...."

I need no imagination to agree with that.
I am reminded of the scene in "Saving Private Ryan" of that late 1930s sedan threading it's dusty path between the cornfields and up the road in Iowa (???) as Mrs. Ryan looks out the window over her kitchen sink, and her dramatic reaction even before the messengers of bad news speak. I've seen that movie easily five times and still get choked up as it runs its course. Similar scenes must have been played out in real life thousands of time in different venues all over the country, nay, all over the world.
A similar scene was portrayed in a much earlier film by the actor Thomas Mitchel, the father character in the movie about the Sullivan brothers. The five brother managed to get stationed together on the USS Juneau a light cruiser that was torpedoed off the coast of Savo Island during the Guadalcanal Island campaign in late 1942.
As the Navy Chaplain tells Mitchel the heartbreaking news of the tragedy, Mitchel manages to insert the sound of sheer anguish into his lines, something that I can recall despite the sixty years from when I first saw that movie.

Ham Radio operators have served the country in many ways and especially by those "phone patches". When I was stationed at an isolated base in Northern Canada there was a fellow K2DEI" in Maple Shade, New Jersey, who frequently performed that service for us. Our call sign was "W2QMU-Fixed Portable VE8" which allowed one of the US crew to operate in the Northern part of Canada.
Such kindnesses are bright spots in what may be an otherwise fading memory.

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04 Dec 2014
07:36:08pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

I well remember my uncle's call sign: I clearly remember his call sign — “W2 OSY,” with “OSY” spoken phonetically as “Ocean Sugar Yesterday”. He also used the phonetic “Old Sleepy Yokel,” but I don’t recall that. In conversations with my aunt, I learned that before the war his call sign had been “W8 MRA” — “Mice, Rats & Applesauce”.

You'll remember the terrible mass poisoning at Jonestown in 1978, when 918 people died after taking cyanide in a "revolutionary suicide". Shortly before that happened, my uncle became involved in a ham-radio exchange involving the shipment of a package to Jonestown. As I recall, he was asked by another ham to confirm that the shipment was on its way, but of course he had no idea what was in the package, which was apparently the cyanide. After the news of that "massacre" broke, Phil realized he had inadvertently had a hand in it. He immediately called the FBI to tell them what had happened from his viewpoint and that he was just a "bystander".

He eventually quit ham radio, mainly because he felt it had been hijacked by younger, often foul-mouthed operators.

Bob

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Suzanne

07 Dec 2014
02:09:19am
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Hi guys, maybe you can answer this.

Years ago our neighbours used to have a radio. I honestly don't know if it was a ham radio or just a CB radio. Anyhow, late at night starting around 11pm or so, the guy that had it used to boost the signal some how, and we would hear him though our tv. At first he denied it, and then said that "IF" that was true it was our fault, that we should have had something on our antenna ( that sounds funny now ) to stop the signal from coming though. Do you know if that's correct or not?

Anyhow, I got even with him. One night his wife was away, but we didn't know it until we heard him talking about her on the radio. We copied down everything he said. They had had a fight and she walked out on him.
A few days later, I happend to see that she was home and the two of them were out in the yard. I went over and said I was glad to see that she was back home and I hoped that they had sorted out their problems, after having the fight. I mentioned more details as well about what the fight was about, and other things.

We never heard him through our tv again.

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michael78651

07 Dec 2014
03:08:16am
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Sounds like a HAM radio. I have a neighbor who is a HAM operator. To my knowledge, it is the HAM operator's responsibility to prevent interference with the HAM radio signal and neighbors' televisions, radios and other electrical devices.

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

07 Dec 2014
09:19:57am
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

I have bet it would be a CB (Citizen's Band) operator. Most Ham operators are nothing of not polite and would have controlled their trans missions or were there something wrong with your TV antenna helped you correct the problem.
Much like stamp collectors, Hams have their group behavior code and a ham-fisted Ham operator would not be around long, any more than we would tolerate a member who was known to be less that honest.
I remember one individual who frequented a certain open chat room who was considered a "shady" dealer and several times I noticed that when ever he tried to arrange a trade or sale with someone, one of the long term members warned the newbie to be careful. When that individual was not on-line his slippery doings were discussed more or less openly.
CB operators on the other mike, had no formal training or testing in either procedures or electronics. All that was needed was an inexpensive license and the money to buy a CB radio.
The easy way to figure that out would be to note whether the person transmitting used a "handle" or a station call; sign similar to the ones mentioned here in other threads. (Example: "K2DEI" King Two, Dog Easy Item") and mentioned the frequency he was using, routinely.

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michael78651

07 Dec 2014
10:57:34am
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Some people, especially truckers, did buy signal boosters for their CB radios, but those didn't cause too much problems with interference since they were mobile, unless he was using the CB at home. If that neighbor had a large antenna at his house, that would indicate that he was a HAM operator.

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Mike

07 Dec 2014
06:51:50pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

We had several CB friends, when we lived in Tampa, with huge antenna's I think were called "Moonrakers". They were on the same idea as some of the Ham equipment, but for the 11 meter band instead of the 10 meter band.

It's funny that this subject has come up when it did, since today I found a box of QSL cards dating from the late 1970's, when my wife and I used to chat all around the world on my "President Washington" SSB CB radio and the only power assist was the D104 microphone. I even had a great mobile radio that I used to talk everywhere with, using a magnetic mounted antenna.

Yes Doodles, it is the radio operators responsibility to prevent "bleed over" from his equipment to anyone's electronics. You can call the FCC, in the US, to complain, but do not know who to call in Canada. If it was a CB radio, he was probably talking skip in the first place, which is illegal for CB's, so they might have fined him or even confiscated his equipment, if they had caught him. Ham operators can talk anywhere their signal will reach, on the 10 meter band and use up to a "full gallon" of power (1000 watts), where a CB was only legal for maybe 20 miles, using 4 watts.
Mike

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Suzanne

07 Dec 2014
08:38:25pm
re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Thanks everyone. I had just been curious. It was years ago, so no problem now. All I know is his antenna was quite tall, and he annoyed us to no end. We didn't want to say or do anything because he and his wife, especially his wife were the type of neighbours who did whatever they pleased, until they got caught doing it, and then they would blame everyone but themselves if they got into any type of trouble. Then things would start happening around the neighbourhood. Broken windows, gardens destroyed, scratched cars. And no one could ever catch them doing anything.

We never heard when he signed on so I don't know what handle he used. The tv would just start to crackle a bit, and then get worse. You could tell he was doing somthing because after about a half hour of the crackle and broken picture, we would start hearing him talking.

Also we lived about 1000 feet from a truck inspection and weigh scale, and once in a blue moon we would get a bit of a crackle or even maybe hear a few words from the truckers on their CB's, but that would only last a few seconds maybe. Maybe a half dozen words and then it was gone again. That never bothered us.

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michael78651

01 Dec 2014
09:51:04pm

I just bought some more air checks from WABC 770 AM out of New York City. The date of the broadcast was December 29, 1975. In one of the news reports it was stated that the post office was asking for a 3 cent increase in the cost of a first class stamp in order to reduce the post office deficit of $1.4 billion. That was almost 40 years ago!

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Sally
01 Dec 2014
11:20:48pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

What is an air check?

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michael78651

01 Dec 2014
11:28:16pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Easier to to quote Wikipedia:

In the radio industry, an aircheck is generally a demonstration recording, often intended to show off the talent of an announcer or programmer to a prospective employer, but mainly intended for legal archiving purposes. Another category of airchecks are those recorded "off-the-air" by listeners, using consumer or semi-professional equipment.

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Sally
01 Dec 2014
11:39:58pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Ok, but when you buy one, what do you get? The actual recording....is it on tape, cd, dvd, vinyl....what do you do with them? Sally

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michael78651

02 Dec 2014
11:01:46am

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

The medium onto which the air check is recorded can be any of those that you listed. I prefer CD or MP3 discs.

What you get is an actual recording of the show as it was broadcast as the airchecks are made while the show is on the air.

There are two types of airchecks: scoped and unscoped. The non-technical translation is:

- scoped = edited
- unscoped = unedited

The scoped air checks were made so that a DJ could exhibit DJ banter between records played, or to cut down on the time by eliminating newscasts. I definitely prefer the unscoped versions. It is fun to listen to the DJs you listened to when you were growing up. You even might have heard the show when it was originally broadcast. When I was growing up, it was WABC out of New York City that ruled the air waves. Most of my airchecks are from WABC, but I do have many others from other stations around the country. In addition to the WABC DJs, one whom I really like is Robert W Morgan from KHJ in Los Angeles. He was pretty good about on par with the WABC jocks. Dan Ingram, from WABC, is accredited with inventing the rock DJ persona. I have never heard a DJ better than him. Alot of the DJs are gone now, but some are still with us.

Here's a link to the "historic" WABC web site that provides alot of fascinating information and online airchecks from this lost time period:

http://www.musicradio77.com/

I also collect old-time radio shows prior to 1960 in the days before television. I enjoy listening to them as it requires one to use imagination to picture what's going on in the story. Right now I'm listening to "Pat Novak, For Hire", starring Jack Webb and Raymond Burr.

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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
02 Dec 2014
12:07:29pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

"...Air Checks ..." sound similar to the " ...QSL..." cards that Ham Radio operators send to other operators to confirm that on a certain date and time (And place, Lat. and "λ") they received contact with some other Ham Operator by some form of radio communication. Often Hams display the most distance and interesting cards, usually postcard sized, on a nearby wall of their Radio Shack as a badge of competence.


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Sally
02 Dec 2014
01:16:29pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Michael,

Wow, what a neat website. I can see how you would really enjoy listening to these broadcasts if you know the djs involved. Some of it was pretty funny and I don't even know any of the people involved. It is amazing what is available if you know where to look. Thanks for the information and posting the link.

Sally

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TuskenRaider

02 Dec 2014
04:48:52pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Hi Everyone;

Michael, if you are into cool radio shows, ya gotta check out some air checks for Dick Sommers, the Night Lighter show on WBZ Boston. That was a very popular cult classic type of show.

I had a long-wire shortwave antenna trimmed to be exactly resonate to 40 meters ham radio band on a Allied Star Roamer short wave radio. It was aimed North/South but I was able to receive WBZ quite well most of the time. I also listened in on many ham radio chats over a three year period. I still have the radio, and it was assembled from a kit, from Allied Electronics Inc. back in the day when everything was vacuum tubes.

Keep on roamin the air waves
TuskenRaider

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Bobstamp

02 Dec 2014
07:33:09pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Cdj1122 said, ""...Air Checks ..." sound similar to the " ...QSL..." cards that Ham Radio operators send to other operators…. "

That was my thought, cuz I'd never heard of "Air Checks" either. Here's a QSL card from a Ham who played an important role in my life:

Image Not Found

Image Not Found

The Ham was Dean Battishill. I met him in 1949 when I was just six or seven years old, shortly after my family moved from New York State to Silver City, New Mexico. My paternal uncle, Phil Ingraham, also a ham, had been in contact with Dean, probably because my paternal grandparents had moved to Silver City in 1944 or 1945. Here are a couple of pre-WWII photos: on the left, my dad standing on the radio antenna which he helped Phil to design and build, and on the right, Phil with his radio.

Image Not Found

Skip forward to March 8, 1966 or thereabouts. I had just been evacuated from South Vietnam to the hospital at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines because of a serious leg wound. A Ham at the hospital contacted Dean, who put a phone patch through to my parents, who weren't aware that I'd been wounded. It was certainly better to hear the news directly from me rather from a letter from the Navy, which they didn't receive for another couple of weeks.

My dad worked as a radio announcer for Station KSIL in Silver City for about a year, but I never heard him mention an Air Check. But it was a very small station — I think Dad and the station owner were the only announcers/DJs/news readers, etc., and Dad really didn't enjoy radio work.

Back to Dean: For several years before he died, he sold radio vacuum tubes which he got from Russia. Imagine that, an American buying from communists!

I recently did a Google street search for Dean's house. His tall radio mast is still there!:

Image Not Found

Phil had some rather exciting times during the war, working as a radio repairman in the South Pacific. For a time, he became a member of the Australian Air Force, working to develop radio triangulation techniques to make it easier to find downed Allied airmen. He tells his story at Phil Ingraham goes to war.

Bob







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michael78651

02 Dec 2014
09:44:51pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Airchecks and QSL are two different animals. QSL is intriguing in its own right too, but never got into the HAM radio.

Thanks for the tip, Ken.

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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
04 Dec 2014
05:48:32pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

" .... . A Ham at the hospital contacted Dean, who put a phone patch through to my parents, who weren't aware that I'd been wounded. It was certainly better to hear the news directly from me rather from a letter from the Navy, ...."

I need no imagination to agree with that.
I am reminded of the scene in "Saving Private Ryan" of that late 1930s sedan threading it's dusty path between the cornfields and up the road in Iowa (???) as Mrs. Ryan looks out the window over her kitchen sink, and her dramatic reaction even before the messengers of bad news speak. I've seen that movie easily five times and still get choked up as it runs its course. Similar scenes must have been played out in real life thousands of time in different venues all over the country, nay, all over the world.
A similar scene was portrayed in a much earlier film by the actor Thomas Mitchel, the father character in the movie about the Sullivan brothers. The five brother managed to get stationed together on the USS Juneau a light cruiser that was torpedoed off the coast of Savo Island during the Guadalcanal Island campaign in late 1942.
As the Navy Chaplain tells Mitchel the heartbreaking news of the tragedy, Mitchel manages to insert the sound of sheer anguish into his lines, something that I can recall despite the sixty years from when I first saw that movie.

Ham Radio operators have served the country in many ways and especially by those "phone patches". When I was stationed at an isolated base in Northern Canada there was a fellow K2DEI" in Maple Shade, New Jersey, who frequently performed that service for us. Our call sign was "W2QMU-Fixed Portable VE8" which allowed one of the US crew to operate in the Northern part of Canada.
Such kindnesses are bright spots in what may be an otherwise fading memory.

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Bobstamp

04 Dec 2014
07:36:08pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

I well remember my uncle's call sign: I clearly remember his call sign — “W2 OSY,” with “OSY” spoken phonetically as “Ocean Sugar Yesterday”. He also used the phonetic “Old Sleepy Yokel,” but I don’t recall that. In conversations with my aunt, I learned that before the war his call sign had been “W8 MRA” — “Mice, Rats & Applesauce”.

You'll remember the terrible mass poisoning at Jonestown in 1978, when 918 people died after taking cyanide in a "revolutionary suicide". Shortly before that happened, my uncle became involved in a ham-radio exchange involving the shipment of a package to Jonestown. As I recall, he was asked by another ham to confirm that the shipment was on its way, but of course he had no idea what was in the package, which was apparently the cyanide. After the news of that "massacre" broke, Phil realized he had inadvertently had a hand in it. He immediately called the FBI to tell them what had happened from his viewpoint and that he was just a "bystander".

He eventually quit ham radio, mainly because he felt it had been hijacked by younger, often foul-mouthed operators.

Bob

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Suzanne
07 Dec 2014
02:09:19am

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Hi guys, maybe you can answer this.

Years ago our neighbours used to have a radio. I honestly don't know if it was a ham radio or just a CB radio. Anyhow, late at night starting around 11pm or so, the guy that had it used to boost the signal some how, and we would hear him though our tv. At first he denied it, and then said that "IF" that was true it was our fault, that we should have had something on our antenna ( that sounds funny now ) to stop the signal from coming though. Do you know if that's correct or not?

Anyhow, I got even with him. One night his wife was away, but we didn't know it until we heard him talking about her on the radio. We copied down everything he said. They had had a fight and she walked out on him.
A few days later, I happend to see that she was home and the two of them were out in the yard. I went over and said I was glad to see that she was back home and I hoped that they had sorted out their problems, after having the fight. I mentioned more details as well about what the fight was about, and other things.

We never heard him through our tv again.

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michael78651

07 Dec 2014
03:08:16am

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Sounds like a HAM radio. I have a neighbor who is a HAM operator. To my knowledge, it is the HAM operator's responsibility to prevent interference with the HAM radio signal and neighbors' televisions, radios and other electrical devices.

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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
07 Dec 2014
09:19:57am

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

I have bet it would be a CB (Citizen's Band) operator. Most Ham operators are nothing of not polite and would have controlled their trans missions or were there something wrong with your TV antenna helped you correct the problem.
Much like stamp collectors, Hams have their group behavior code and a ham-fisted Ham operator would not be around long, any more than we would tolerate a member who was known to be less that honest.
I remember one individual who frequented a certain open chat room who was considered a "shady" dealer and several times I noticed that when ever he tried to arrange a trade or sale with someone, one of the long term members warned the newbie to be careful. When that individual was not on-line his slippery doings were discussed more or less openly.
CB operators on the other mike, had no formal training or testing in either procedures or electronics. All that was needed was an inexpensive license and the money to buy a CB radio.
The easy way to figure that out would be to note whether the person transmitting used a "handle" or a station call; sign similar to the ones mentioned here in other threads. (Example: "K2DEI" King Two, Dog Easy Item") and mentioned the frequency he was using, routinely.

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michael78651

07 Dec 2014
10:57:34am

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Some people, especially truckers, did buy signal boosters for their CB radios, but those didn't cause too much problems with interference since they were mobile, unless he was using the CB at home. If that neighbor had a large antenna at his house, that would indicate that he was a HAM operator.

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CapeStampMan

Mike
07 Dec 2014
06:51:50pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

We had several CB friends, when we lived in Tampa, with huge antenna's I think were called "Moonrakers". They were on the same idea as some of the Ham equipment, but for the 11 meter band instead of the 10 meter band.

It's funny that this subject has come up when it did, since today I found a box of QSL cards dating from the late 1970's, when my wife and I used to chat all around the world on my "President Washington" SSB CB radio and the only power assist was the D104 microphone. I even had a great mobile radio that I used to talk everywhere with, using a magnetic mounted antenna.

Yes Doodles, it is the radio operators responsibility to prevent "bleed over" from his equipment to anyone's electronics. You can call the FCC, in the US, to complain, but do not know who to call in Canada. If it was a CB radio, he was probably talking skip in the first place, which is illegal for CB's, so they might have fined him or even confiscated his equipment, if they had caught him. Ham operators can talk anywhere their signal will reach, on the 10 meter band and use up to a "full gallon" of power (1000 watts), where a CB was only legal for maybe 20 miles, using 4 watts.
Mike

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doodles69ca

Suzanne
07 Dec 2014
08:38:25pm

re: Old News is New News or the Same News?

Thanks everyone. I had just been curious. It was years ago, so no problem now. All I know is his antenna was quite tall, and he annoyed us to no end. We didn't want to say or do anything because he and his wife, especially his wife were the type of neighbours who did whatever they pleased, until they got caught doing it, and then they would blame everyone but themselves if they got into any type of trouble. Then things would start happening around the neighbourhood. Broken windows, gardens destroyed, scratched cars. And no one could ever catch them doing anything.

We never heard when he signed on so I don't know what handle he used. The tv would just start to crackle a bit, and then get worse. You could tell he was doing somthing because after about a half hour of the crackle and broken picture, we would start hearing him talking.

Also we lived about 1000 feet from a truck inspection and weigh scale, and once in a blue moon we would get a bit of a crackle or even maybe hear a few words from the truckers on their CB's, but that would only last a few seconds maybe. Maybe a half dozen words and then it was gone again. That never bothered us.

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