Yes, I know. It's been a while since I posted, just under a year. Unfortunately, as we all know, 2020 is not a normal year.
Aside from attending the amateur radio training session for the 2020 Boston Marathon, the Marathon was delayed until September and ultimately cancelled and replaced with a virtual event. The same goes for the 2020 Head of the Charles Regatta.
I was planning on going to my first Hamvention, but that too was cancelled. As was the May and October editions of NEAR-Fest. My last hope for some ham action was the Northeast HamXposition, but alas, it was also cancelled. As have all the monthly MIT Fleas for the year.
It's not all bad though, we've still had NSRA meetings via Zoom and continued them into summer, which usually is a break period for the club. Also, there have been virtual ham expos and fests online, such as the QSO Today Ham Expo and the HamXposition is going virtual too.
I just recently got back from a 3 month work deployment on Nantucket, I didn't really use their repeater much to do be being busy with work and mic shyness, but it was good nonetheless, and I did do alot of shortwave listening while I was there. I did manage to check in the NSRA's Sunday Night Net via Echolink a lot.
Now that I got back home, I turned my virtual scanner back on, which I've migrated to a Raspberry Pi 4 because of Wi-Fi issues with the Lenovo ThinkCentre.
But that's been my year in ham and radio in general in a nutshell.
At our September meeting of the North Shore Radio Association, it was brought up that NEAR-Fest was just under a month and that something should be organized to sell off some of the silent key stash we had (including me with three boxes of books).
At the end of September, on our usual Sunday night net, I called in via EchoLink to see if I could round up some help. Then a few days later, at the start of October, I posted on our Yahoo Groups mailing list to see if I could enlist some more help.
In the end, the club treasurer, Eric, KA1NCF, a ham friend of his who lives down the street from him, Joel, N1KTH and myself went to Eric's shed to go through the pile of SK stuff (not counting the boxes of books I had) to see what we could take up.
The boxes included a box full of kit radios such as Heathkit and one small Ramsey kit.
Also in the pile, was the Pilot A.C. Super Wasp seen in the box in my post about the initial discovery of W1OCY's hidden treasure.
On the evening of Thursday, October 9th, we met at Eric's and packed up the boxes. Next morning, I woke up early and made the hour-fifteen trip to Deerfield Fairgrounds. Brian, WO1VES, another club member who runs the Nut Net every night on our club's repeater set aside some space for me and Joel next to his Nut Net tent. However, since we didn't have a current club pass and and Joel left late, we weren't able to get in during the 8am club hour and had to wait for general admission entry at 9am.
The line to get in
Our setup early on the first day.
Within minutes, we had already sold an entire box of vacuum tubes for $100. We were selling books for about one dollar; one of the boxes being extremely heavy, nearly throwing my back out carrying it and pricing everything based on how much we felt it would go for. I printed out my January blog post about W1OCY's background and finding the hidden stash. I also chatted with some other members of the NSRA who made the journey up on their own.
We made a good amount of money the first day and realized we might need more stuff as the day winded down, including the Super-Wasp which we didn't bring up. (Including one ham who recognized what it was) As I wasn't staying overnight like Joel was, I decided to make the trip back to Eric's house and pick up more stuff after letting him know I was coming.
Myself in the front and Joel behind me
Driving back through a slight rain storm from a pitiful subtropical storm Melissa, I stopped at Eric's house and loaded up the back of the Jeep with more boxes of items, aside from the books which I brought with me to keep from getting wet. Then I headed home and got some sleep.
My Jeep loaded up for the second day
Our tent next to the Nut Net tent on the second day
I arrived the next morning around 8 and brought the items over to the tent to sell. The day progressed nicely, I popped on the RedditNet IRC chat from time to time as Internet was very spotty, dropping between LTE down to HSPA and sometimes EDGE and very often no signal. One of the others in the IRC let me know he was coming up to NEAR-Fest later the day. He did eventually stop by our tent. We sold the Super-Wasp. And we made some more money for the club. I also managed to pop in the commercial vendor buildings. Eventually, the end of the day came and we broke everything down and headed home to put what we didn't sell back in Eric's shed for the time being.
This was the heaviest box and I nearly threw my back out carrying it over to our table
Thankfully by the end of the day it was empty.
The first commercial building.
The second commercial building.
I'm already looking for NEAR-Fest XXVII in May. Hope to see you then!
73!
P.S.
For an album of photos from the first day of NEAR-Fest, click here.
For an album of photos from the second day of NEAR-Fest, click here.
Back in January, I posted about silent key ham W1OCY and his trove of old ham radio items plus other odds and ends that went undiscovered for 8-9 years in a warehouse in Peabody, Massachusetts.
I missed out on our club's February meeting due to work commitments, but got an update at our club's March meeting.
At the time, we hadn't sold anything, but now I can report, that we've sold a lot of stuff and made a nice profit for the club, which is important because we just installed a UHF DMR repeater through the New England Digital Emergency Communications Network (NEDECN).
We're still not done, I have still have some of the books in storage as do others. If you need more information or are just interested, email me here.
W1OCY, Everett E. Chapman, is a silent key. He died in 2010, just two days shy of the new year at the age of 85. He was born on April 30, 1925 in Glen Cove, NY and grew up in Vermont and New Hampshire.
He served his country in the United States Navy during World War II and was part of the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Dartmouth College. He was at least an Ensign based on items we found in this "treasure." I don't know if he reached any higher ranks, I've tried searching through US Navy Registers online and so far, I haven't found anything.
He graduated from Dartmouth in 1948 with an A.B. and entered the business world in 1955 working for Dynatrol and other places in the aerospace industry such as Raytheon based on his collection of papers we found.
He didn't have much family, didn't marry, at least from what I can tell and obviously no kids. He was survived by brother Donald, who is still alive and will turn 90 on April Fools' Day this year.
He was an Extra-class ham. In fact, his license just expired in May, but hasn't been cancelled because no one has brought his passing to the FCC's attention yet.
And it seems that's how this "treasure" trove of old ham radio equipment and books went undiscovered for nearly 8 years before it was found.
I am member of the North Shore Radio Association, and it appears maybe at one time, so was Mr. Chapman based on a empty binder that was found with a tab labeled North Shore Repeater Association, the club's old name.
Anyways, one of club members, Jim Palmer, KB1KQW, works for Peabody, Massachusetts' public access cable station, Peabody Access Telecommunications/Peabody TV. PAT is based in an old industrial park, known as the Foster St. Complex, located next to the Eastman Gelatine plant.
Jim was asked by the landlord to take a look at stash of old radio equipment found in one of the adjacent buildings.
What was found could be nothing short of "hidden treasure."
W1OCY had tubes galore, old radios that are older than most of us, homebrew equipment and books, books galore. I was told it was on six pallets, but it was managed to get condensed down into four pallets.
I've only taken a brief look at the radios as so far my only night helping (due to my work schedule) was sorting the books.
Everett was an interesting and eclectic ham, suffice to say. He had many, many books on amateur radio and electronics, but also books on the Civil War, military uniforms, military horse saddles, military belt buckles, woodworking, machining, model trains and various types of engines. Not to mention the piles and piles of periodicals such as Science and Mechanics and good ole' Popular Mechanics.
So what do we plan to do with this "treasure"?
Auction it and sell it and raise funds for the club. We plan to list some of the stuff on eBay, we also plan on hitting up the local ham fests and fleas to sell it such as NEAR-Fest and Boxboro, the ARRL New England convention. I suggested the Flea at MIT. Some stuff will probably be bought to Hamcation and Hamvention too.
From Saturday June 23 to Sunday June 24, I participated in my very first ARRL Field Day. I also helped set up for an hour on Friday the 22nd.
Field Day is best summed up as an emergency preparedness exercise with a contest aspect to promote amateur radio to the general public.
I participated in field with my local club, the North Shore Radio Association. It was held at Endicott Park in Danvers, Massachusetts.
One of the attendees was Dr. Mark Patterson, WB2OIL from Northeastern University's Global Resilience Institute who was there to interview fellow hams on their opinions on Field Day and how it pertained to emergency response. Despite my limited time of being a ham, I still gave my input.
We had a SSB voice station, along with two CW stations and new this year, an FT8 digital station.
I only did operating on SSB voice, operating on 80 and 40 meters. I managed about 19 contacts.
The club as a whole managed 2852 contacts.
I enjoyed Field Day and it's pushing me to get my General license so I can experience the wonders of HF from my own home.
Granted I need to set up everything first before I do that.
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