The North Florida Amateur Radio Society meets Thursday. September 9th at Hogan Baptist Church, 8045 Hogan Rd. The meeting begins at 7:00pm.
The Jacksonville FREE Hamfest is Saturday, October 30th in the Terry Parker Baptist Church parking area. The fun starts at sunrise with free admission and tailgate spots. Free FCC testing starts at 11AM. See the hamfest page for more.
SKYCRAFT SURPLUS: Skycraft Parts & Surplus in Orlando is moving to 5021 Edgewater Dr. It includes a huge electronics inventory and is a favorite source for many hams. Some Florida hams travel long distances to wander through the huge inventory and Skycraft is a busy place during the weekend of the Orlando hamfest Website order pickup is available during the move at Skycraft's warehouse, 700 Harold Avenue in Winter Park. The new location is expected to open around September 7th. The website is SkycraftSurplus.com
WB4YTJ MAKING SLOW PROGRESS: Wayne Norton, WB4YTJ is recovering from injuries sustained during a fall. A mainstay of the W4IZ repeater and host of the Monday night VHF WWD net, Wayne is at a nursing facility. He will need surgery in a month or two to get back to normal. We wish him a speedy recovery.
JOE BARNES, N4JBK: Joe was a police officer who retired after 20 years service with the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office. He passed away unexpectedly in August. First licensed as a teenager, Joe was active in many phases of ham radio, especially DXing.
MIKE PARNIN, N4EPD: Like Joe, Mike was a DXer. He went on DXpeditions primarily to the Caribbean. Mike died unexpectedly last month. Both were active members of the North Florida DX Association (NFDXA).
SSB: Bob, KS4CA sends this link to a video about the history of Single Sideband. SSB began supplanting full bandwidth AM in the 1950s and became the dominant ham radio voice mode by the mid 1960s.
WAYBACK JAX HAM RADIO: Thanks to Ron Hays, the JaxRadio.net website recently received a collection of logbooks, a 1936 Callbook, several old QSTs and other items that his grandfather used. John W. Jacobs, W4EBE made his first CW contact in April 1936.
During World War II, J.W. was part of the War Emergency Radio Service (WERS)--a forerunner of RACES. While ham radio was silenced during the war, some operated under WERS authorization to provide communications related to air raid protection and natural disasters. His station was in the McCoys Creek area near Riverside.
W4EBE worked for Columbia Baking Company, a regional company, as Chief Clerk and Broadcast Correspondent--according to a 1935 company newsletter. He remained active until early 1972 when he was killed in an auto wreck.
Before FCC deregulation started in the 1970s, Amateur Radio log requirements were extensive. Even CQ calls and test transmissions required logging.
ODD CALLSIGNS: The 1936 Callbook included both U.S. and DX listings. It also carried HF press, time & weather stations plus experimental and HF commercial station lists. And a few hams were issued 1x4 calls! These indicated portable operations. W5ZZAI and W5ZZAL were in Texas. 6th district calls included W6ZZBQ, W6ZZBR, W6ZZCM and W6ZZFG.
There were no W0 calls at all though "special experimental stations" had W10 (W Ten) prefixes. Some states were split into two districts (Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, etc.) and W6s included California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. All continental U.S. ham calls started with W. Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories used K prefixes. Calls beginning with W#X denoted experimental stations and W#Y calls belonged to school stations.
Police radio calls (which became popular circa 1934) are listed. Most police stations used calls similar to AM broadcast stations. Jacksonville's city police station, one of the first in Florida, used WPFG on 2442 Kc. All police communications then were one-way only. The AM broadcast band ended at 1500 kc. and some cities used channels just above 1500 kc. which could be received on ordinary broadcast receivers.
CLOTHESLINES: Florida law allows residents to have clotheslines even if HOA restrictions forbid. Jerry, KB4CKC sends a link to this USA Today article. Some enterprising hams use metal clotheslines to sneak in an antenna when CCRs do not allow outside antennas.
Even commercial systems sometimes rely on stealth antennas.
FCC HAM LICENSE FEES: New $35 filing fees for most Amateur Radio license applications apparently will not begin this year. Eventually applicants will use an internet portal to pay but there have been delays in getting the portal set up.
DE N4UF
**Tube-type Transmitters, Receivers, Test Equipment, Accessories.
**Hasselblad Camera Equipment
Contact Bob Meadows, W4RRD at 904-264-2946
E-mail rpmeadow@bellsouth.net
President----Roger Knight, KI4PIL
Vice President----Billy Williams, N4UF
Secretary----Chris Russell, KF4AAF
Treasurer----Jerry Tabor, N2GLF
Activities Manager----Todd Lovelace, K1KVA
Director----Randy Bahr, KI4RHQ