The Old CW Trucker

     Jim, formerly WA0CML and now W0CML, is a CW buddy of mine
from way back who lives in Denver.  The funniest trick I ever
pulled on a ham with Jim.  Due to his call, I say Curly, Moe, and
Larry.  In fact, I call him Curly for short but he won't let
anybody else call him Curly but me.  Probably because of what I
did to him one day.  Jim was a cross country trucker and worked CW
all over the place.  I often worked him from Denver as he traveled
around the United States.  So, one day, a whole bunch of us are
talking on 146.58 simplex which was our favorite, off repeater,
hang out.  When Jim is in a truck or car or boat or anything that
is mobile, he has his receiver tuned to the CW parts of the band.
He has it loud enough that you can hear the band noise as he talks
on two meters, which he doesn't work all that much, but he does
occasionally.  So, as I said, a whole bunch of us are horsing
around on 58 simplex and Jim breaks in.  I asked him if he were
leaving town on a trip and he confirmed that he was.  I could hear
his receiver clearly in the background As others in the 2 meter
simplex group talked to him.  I waited until he started
transmitting.  Jim is an old AM phone operator from way back so he
makes long transmissions and cranks up the HF radio pretty loud.
Of course, the truck engine makes him turn the radio up loud but
he'd likely do it anyway.  I knew he would likely be listening on
40 meters, due to the time of the evening, so I tuned up my HF
rig, put a carrier on, and tuned my VFO up the band until I could
hear my own signal coming through his receiver as he talked on 2
meters.  I then dropped the solid carrier and began sending his
call sign, knowing eventually his mind would pick it up, because
all CW operators can do more than one thing at a time.  Multi
tasking didn't start with Bill Gates is what I mean.  Suddenly,
Jim almost yelled into the microphone over 2 meters.  "Hey, you
guys!  Somebody just found my frequency I'm listening on and is
calling me.  I then punched out my call sign and Jim went to CW
and I talked to him and told him what I did.  Jim still tells this
story to this day and it happened back in the early eighties.
You should have heard the other guys on the channel when I
explained what I had done to Jim.

Phil.
K0NX