A CW friend of mine lives a few miles from my QTH and we talk
occasionally on a 2 meter repeater.  We've known each other via
CW, mostly, for probably 20 years.  The other night, I was
watching something on the history channel when the 3 to 4 minute
commercial bracket of advertisements came on.  Turning down the
television sound, I turned up the radio just a few inches away
that is sitting on a bookshelves.  I was listening to an American
guy in Honduras working Europeans on 40 meters when I heard the
station say he was getting to much QRM on the frequency and then
he sent the word up.  I figured he meant for the Europeans to
start calling him up the band but after a minute or so, I realized
he was saying that he was moving up the band.  I began slowly
tuning.  When I got to 7020, I heard this super loud station.  I
figured it was the U S pile up calling the guy in Honduras and
since the signal was like 30 over nine, it was probably a W6 or
something in the pile up trying to call the guy.  As I centered
the signal in my CW filter pass band, I heard my own call sign
coming over the air.  I said, "Hey, who is using my call?"  Then I
thought maybe my keyboard, or the radio, had gotten bumped into a
memory that was the one which sends my call.  Then I remembered
two things.  My keyboard was not turned on and I didn't yet know
how to program a CW string into a radio memory.  But there was my
call, big as life, super loud, coming over the receiver.  Then my
friend gave his call sign and I started laughing.  He was calling
me blind; knowing that I didn't have a key hooked up yet.  I went
to the 2 meter rig and called him on the repeater we use.  He was
laughing when he answered.  Yes, he admitted, he was calling me
blind and figured if I ran across him, I'd get a big kick out of
his funny that he pulled on me.


Phil.
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