"Paul" wrote in
:

I am considering the upgrade, but I might want to keep the old call.
WB6CXC isn't a great one (better in CW than on phone), but I've become
used to it over the last 30+ years. Also, it's kind of neat to hold
two obsolete licenses: the Advanced ham, and my 1st Class Phone. OK,
the 1st Phone is expired, but I still have the certificate somewhere
(like new, never used). I sort of like Morse code, but I agree it is
an anachronism now. I haven't made a CW contact in perhaps 15 years,
and the only Ham work I do is when I am at sea, with the Pacific
Seafarer's Net, or the occasional ham contact. During the last trip I
just used the marine bands and the satphone.

73, Paul



I don't even have an antenna up and there's $20K in Yaesus packed up in
boxes here, depreciating away. I tell myself how crazy it is to keep it
every time I hang up my Netgear Skype phone after talking with some of
the soldiers in a tent in Baghdad on Skype-to-Skype. I suppose if a
major hurricane like Hugo came back through Charleston, I might find a
reason to get back on the air. Even then, I stood in the eye of
Hurricane Hugo talking to worried friends and relatives way off on my
AMPS bagphone on Cellular One, back in '89. We never lost cellphone
service in a Cat 5 storm back in the AMPS days. I don't think that would
be true, today. My stepvan shop/office is self powered, so I can also
provide someone emergency comms across the ham bands to 450 Mhz, if it
comes to that. So, I keep it around....for now.

I used to run a Yaesu FT-900 into a modified Tentec Hercules II solid
state linear putting out an honest 650 watt carrier to a 15' home-brew
Texas bugcatcher with Henry Allen's largest coils on the trailer hitch of
my '73 Mercedes 220 Diesel with NO ELECTRONIC NOISES. Even on 160 meters
with dual coils and 16.8' high, it made a LOT of RF, radiated RF. "Hey,
Mister! Your antenna is on fire!", they'd shout because of the 8-10"
coronas off the capacitor hat wires and top of the stainless top whip...
(c; Great fun....

73, Larry
Look for w4csc on Skype.