I Tried To Do For My Country and My Network

WB8AXI writes "In reviewing my sixty five years of interest in radio experimentation and over thirty years as a licensed amateur, some details seem to stand out more than others in this life experience.





My interest in radio was sparked when about ten years old and my first crystal set made with a shiny glassy chunk of blue rock borrowed from my father's WORLD WAR ONE collectables trunk found under the eaves in our attic.
Experimentation soon followed with Model 'T' Ford spark coils and working friends across town without any complaints labeled 'RFI' OR 'TVI':
The local radio club in my small town offered some encouragement to our small knot of curious fourteen year-olds. The hand-ful of members shared Allied Radio Catalogs and the tantalizing 'bread-boarded' circuits pictured on the dog-eared pages of the comic-book sized magazine identified by three mysterious red letters on the imitation brown vellum cover, . . . Q S T . . . .?


We listened to WRUL in Boston on our two-tube regenerative Knight-Kits and were sure Esparanto was never going anywhere?
My occasional visits to the ham-shacks of some of the active and incisive radio club members also revealed a certain reticence which puzzled me for forty years until QST enlightened me in a brief article relative to the 'laid-back' make-up of many HAM-operators:


My story goes now to 'fast-forward' with graduation from high school, a radio trouble-shooting job in a defense plant, enlistment as radio technician in U.S. Navy, WW-II ends, some college, marriage to a pretty girl, later on three good kids, twenty years in sales, and then in early 1970's finally realizing my boyhood dream of a bonafide HAM ticket:


After a year in the beautiful, symphonic world of CW in Novice-land, my entry into the 'fone' bands revealed that the reticence of many amateur operators had not gone away:
My enthusiasm for traffic handling and net control jobs apparently motivated, 'K8BMU' the dedicated and colorful founder of a still popular Midwestern seventy five meter traffic net to appoint me as his first Net Manager:
The most challenging part of this 'hobby-job' was trying to recruit and retain active, willing [NCS] Net Control Station operators:


Inspired by the words of 'John Fitzgerald Kennedy' it became my agenda to call upon my background as a former Dale Carnegie instructor and active TOASTMASTER to help myself and other interested net members in overcoming our shyness in achieving our goal of becoming good Net Controls:


As the new Net Manager, the challenge was all mine and the thrusts in my agenda were varied:
My week-long 'on-the-air' seminar for Net Control orientation was met with much opposition from all quarters: It seems that some amateurs do not take too well to someone offering any suggestions because after all, 'WE ARE LICENSED HAMS'! Who can add anything to that?



Charged with the challenge; "What Can I Do For My Country and My Network?", my next move [at my own expense] was to design, produce and distribute a gold embossed NET CONTROL CERTIFICATE to each and every one of our NET'S over three hundred past and present Net Control Operators: The engraved message under each call-sign recognized and thanked each named amateur for his valuable services as a Net Control Operator for our great, GREAT-LAKES-EMERGENCY & TRAFFIC NET:



Next, appropriately engraved plaques were awarded annually to Net members who made significant contributiions to the NET:
Next, was an award for the 'LADY OF THE YEAR' amateur radio operator:
Next, was my annual production of 'ON-THE-AIR' radio rallies lasting all Sunday afternoons and highlighted with new voices and personalities by alternating my NET CONTROL OPERATORS every fifteen minutes: WOW! , What a FUNDAY we all had on SUNDAY!



My college courses in speech communication revealed that one of the most prevalent fears we HUMANS experience AND MAINTAIN is that of speaking in public': The oft-heard 'mic' shyness is only one facet of this phobia:
It was no mystery to me, since the experience had been mine also:
One of the greatest problems presented to my Net Control students was the harassment and 'raspberries' flung at them by hooligans in our own net membership, during their nightly stint as a Net Control: It was also my own personal experience to be subjected to these nasty taunts by net members on my first night as the [NCS] or Net Control: It was really sad to hear our own people knocking-down someone who was trying to do something positive: Why would amateurs 'beat-up' someone attempting to do what they themselves might be incapable or fearful of doing themselves? . . . . .
My next move was to design some guidelines which would assist the net members desirous of becoming confident Net Controls for our NET:
My unique training format for the 'SILENT-NET-CONTROL', followed by my format for the 'BACK-UP NET CONTROL' instilled confidence in some net members and attracted a small cadre of novitiates:


My most successful training aid, however has been my widely distributed and accepted audio-orientation-tape entitled: "So Ya Wanna-Be a Net Control?": It is my feeling that it is utilized by the HAM- operator in the comfort and privacy oif his own shack and he therefore gradually builds his self confidence by listening to the helpful guidelines and formats:
In this tape, guidelines, formats, suggestions and examples are presented in an easy-listening conversational monologue by a veteran Net Control Operator and probably accounts for it's popularity: This ninety minute audio tape with musical background is available to licensed amateurs who desire to develop more confidence and courage in order to become 'savvy', efficient and 'well-liked' Net Control Operators:
Try-It, You Might Like-It!


WB8AXI, F.M. [HANK] FABER
E-Mail; fmfaber@worldnet.att.net"