What’s your most memorable contact?

[Nashua Area Radio Society]

That’s a great story Jim!  For sure, memorable contacts don’t have to be exotic DX contacts…  local ones can mean the world too.  It’s cool that you were able to make that first QSO on the radio you won!  That likely made it even more memorable! Thanks for sharing!

Matt, WE1H

[Jeff Millar]

I bought my first house in North Attleboro, MA…on low ground.

I took my IC-211 up to the second floor unfinished bedroom and set it on the floor the connected a quickly made dipole and set it on the floor next to the radio.   I sat down on the floor as well.

Some tuning around on 2M SSB showed some activity…which is unusual.  I heard a station with a Southern accent and tail ended their QSO, the 4 came back to me and I worked North Carolina on 2M SSB with 10W.  Really good tropospheric ducting that day.

jeff, wa1hco

[Nashua Area Radio Society]

Most of you don’t know me, I am new to the club and a recycled Ham.  I got my license originally in 1963.  My neighbor was Karl Miles (K1KQJ).  He got me interested in amateur radio.  I was/am a local farm boy who spent my spare time tearing apart old tv’s and radios and building stuff.  I started with a Knight Kit 60, I think that was the number.  It was a novice transmitter with am capability.  My receiver was a Hallocrafters (sp) S-20R which Karl actually designed when he worked for them.  I was not very proficient in CW so as soon as I could I moved to Technician Class. Karl helped me build a 6 meter transmitter using a 6146  from a design in the then current ARRL Handbook.  We used the screen grid am circuits in the Knight Kit to modulate it and a 50 MHz to 7 MHz converter with the S-20R to make up the system.  Karl was my first contact with it.  Soon after that Karl passed.  He and my father convinced me to go into engineering and not farming.  I let my license expire in the early 80’s because of both family commitments and the cost of building a SSB system.  After a long career at Sanders/BAE I recently got interested in amateur radio again took the tests, partitioned for my old license and still miss Karl (K1KQJ).  Note: I still play on the farm and collect tractors so some of that farm is still in my blood.

Ollie K1UIO

[Jack Ciaccia]

When I was a young General Class operator, callsign K1IVY, in 1959, I heard a familiar voice on 75 meters one evening. The familiar and distinctive voice belonged to the then famous radio and TV personality, Arthur Godfrey, callsign K4LIB, an avid ham operator, pilot, and a real advocate for the then controversial new mode of ham radio operating, called single sideband (SSB). He actually did a live SSB contact from Africa once just to show people what it could do and it was broadcasted onto his TV program. I managed to get through a rather formidable pileup and got a chance to speak with him for a short greeting, signal report, and exchange of rig info. He was running a Collins 75A4 receiver and a Collins KWS-1 transmitter into a tribander located on his horse ranch in Virginia. I was running a Heathkit DX-100 and a Hallicrafters SX-100 receiver into an 80-meter dipole at my home in Providence. I hadn’t thought too much about that QSO over the next few years or so.
Fast forward to 1966…
I was getting ready to leave Manila on a military ‘hop’ after spending 6 months working aboard US Navy aircraft carriers on “Yankee Station” off the coast of North Vietnam as a tech rep for Sanders Associates here in Nashua, NH supporting US Navy and Marine fighter aircraft with our ECM equipment used against the enemy’s SAM-2A missiles.
I decided to have dinner at the Officer’s Club at Clark Air Force Base in Manila as that was where my ‘hop’ would take off from. As I waited for my reservation for a table to come up, I saw an entourage of Air Force Officers and a couple of civilians coming into the area. I didn’t pay too much attention to them and I buried my face in an Air Force Times newspaper. As they approached where I was, I heard Arthur Godfrey’s distinctive voice and immediately recognized “The Old Redhead” who was talking with other people in the area while the entourage was waiting to be seated. So, I meandered over to where they were and introduced myself. I said, “Hi, Mr. Godfrey, K4LIB, I’m Jack, K1IVY… and we worked each other several years ago on 80!” He chuckled and was taken aback by my statement and asked if I was waiting for a table as well. I said, that I was, but there was a long wait… he said: “We have a big table… join us.” Wow! You bet… I’d love to… Thanks”. During the evening I had a chance to talk with him a bit about ham radio and I asked him what brought him to Manila this evening.
It turned out that Rockwell-Standard Corporation wanted to dramatically demonstrate that its “Jet Commander” aircraft was the finest business jet airplane ever built. William F. Rockwell Jr. its President, sought four pilots to make a world record flight round-the-world. The co-captains selected for their varying backgrounds were:
Karl Keller – highly trained engineer and test pilot
Dick Merrill – outstanding pilot
Fred Austin – air pioneering pilot
Arthur Godfrey – who devoted his private and public life to aviation and its advancement… and also was a “full-bird Colonel” in the US Air Force Reserve.
One of the around-the-world legs of this flight was this stop in Manila, the Philippines.
It was a memorable evening listening to Arthur, Dick Merrill, and the others about this adventure they were on. This is definitely my most memorable ham radio QSO and chance “Eyeball QSO” as well. You just never know who you might meet on or off the air.

Jack Ciaccia, WM0G

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