Remember the days of the phone patch?
In the late 1960's, during the Vietnam war, a group of us hams went out to
Barry Goldwater's ham station at his home in Paradise Valley Arizona in
shifts to handle phone patches between our troops stationed in the South
Pacific islands, Korea, and limited other QTH's in Asia and their loved
ones here in the states. Senator Goldwater's ham call was K7UGA. If you
read what I just wrote carefully, you will notice I referred to Senator
Goldwater's ham station, not his ham shack. Believe me; it was far from a
shack. It was a totally separate building from his house. In fact, I was
never in his house, just his ham station. When you walked into the front
door of his ham quarters, you were walking into a fairly large room, about
20 feet wide by about 30 or more feet long. It had a really large fireplace
on the right end with a beautiful mantel that went above the fireplace the
entire length. Senator Goldwater's Kachina Doll Collection was displayed on
that mantel and was a very precious collection. Off on the left end of this
main room was one step up to another little room that was a kitchenette
with a very well-stocked refrigerator with all kinds of non-alcoholic
beverages that we could drink when we were operating our shift. Of course,
he had cups for cold water, and I think there were some snack items too,
but I never snooped around in his kitchenette.
When you walked into the front door and straight ahead was his ham
equipment. It was the entire Collins station, receiver, transmitter, and
amplifier. On the wall right above his ham gear was a large Bronze bust of
General Chiang Kai-shek of Taiwan.
Senator Goldwater's antenna tower was something you simply had to actually
see to believe. First, his house and ham station were on top of a high hill
in Paradise Valley, just outside of Scottsdale, Arizona, which is just
outside of Phoenix. The tower was on high ground to begin with, but it went
up another 75 feet to the huge, multi-element, tri-bander perched on top of
the tower. When we rotated the beam, the entire tower rotated, not just the
beam, but the entire tower. The base of the tower was bolted to the motor
that was geared to slowly rotate the mast. The bolts were the largest bolts
I have ever seen. The head of each bolt was at least 15 inches across.
That was quite an experience. At times, we were all sobbing and crying.
Why? Because we were connecting our soldiers up with their parents, Moms
and Dads, and their girlfriends and wives. Each soldier only had just a few
minutes to talk because we had so many to get patched into the states. The
fellows were on places like Wake Island, Guam, Korea, and other Far East
places. They didn't want to stop talking. The wives and girlfriends were
crying and resisted hanging up in fear that they might never hear their
loved one's voice ever again. The girls would cry out over and over: "I
love you! Please, please be careful and take care of yourself! I love you;
I love you; I love you!!" Just the memories make me choke up writing this.
I'm sharing this with you because it is one more aspect of ham radio that
never got much attention at the time, and frankly, there aren't too many of
us left that participated in these overseas phone patches that served a
very special purpose and role in ham radio and is an important part of our
ham radio history.
Ron, K8HSY
Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky University
Ph: 270-782-9325
Email: [log in to unmask]
Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee
Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support Program
(MMS) Committee
President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)
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