My Dad...my Elmer
Not every Ham has the privilege of having
another Ham in the family. A few of us were blessed to have a Ham
as their Dad. (I also have a younger brother who is also a Ham.)
I guess I can thank Dad for my fantastic time as a Ham and also
in shaping what would be my career as well.
As a young boy, I can remember Dad studying to
write his Amateur exam. The time period was the early 1960's;
those were the days when the Radio Inspector at the Department of
Communications gave the exam. The "student" had to know
the electronic theory, the regulations and 10 wpm sending &
receiving the International Morse code. I can remember the 33-1/3
rpm LP "code practice" record that Dad had purchased
from Heathkit. His first call sign was VE3EHE but later on, he
exchanged that call sign for VE3CRW and kept that call sign as
his permanent one. (When the "VA3" call signs became
available, he paid to get VA3CRW as well.)
Memories are many and varied. I can remember him
using Morse on the air with his DX60 Heathkit transmitter. A
while later he got his 10M endorsement for SSB and some time down
the road, he passed his advanced exam and received privileges of
operating/transmitting on voice on the HF bands below 10M. He
used AM first, as SSB was still in its infancy. When he graduated
to SSB, I believe he had a Heathkit HW101, just as hundreds of
other Hams used at that time in Amateur history. I can remember
him working stations across Canada and saw some of the QSL cards
he received from DX stations... so I know that working DX was
part of his Ham activities.
Field Day was also an annual event for a number
of years. He was very active in the 75M SSB Nets in and around
Ontario. Some of the nets were the ONTARS Net, the Ontario Phone
Net and the CJ net. Ham radio and the 80M nets became part of our
"camp life" and my brother Bill's fishing camp. The
generator and Dad's radio became our life line of communications
and our touch to the outside world.
During my time working at Canadian General
Electric in London, Dad and I grew closer together because I
think he was proud of my accomplishment in becoming a radio
technician. I sometimes think that poor Mom must have felt we had
ganged up on her when Dad and I talked about radio stuff over
coffee in the kitchen. He was kind enough to let me use his HF
station on the weekends. I would talk to Hams in Europe; Mom
especially enjoyed it when I made contact with guys in Scotland.
Dad had his certain ways of doing things and one
of them was how to roll and unroll coaxial cable properly. A
sharply-worded instruction session ensured that I would never
forget how to do it the right way and I thank him for teaching me
an important lesson. I fear that I have had to instruct others in
the same manner about the same thing at Field Day here in BC!
Dad's move into the Queensway Retirement Home
was necessary but I know he felt a tremendous loss when he had to
give up much of the hobby that was such an important part of his
life for so many years. Thankfully he still had contact with some
of his local friends through his small radio in his room. It
meant a lot to me to be able to help him with getting his last
radio link working as well as possible when I was home last year.
One of the memories I shall treasure of last
year's visit with him was overcoming the barrier of giving Dad a
hug and crying on his shoulder when I said good bye. He reassured
me by saying, "Now, now, now", almost with a British
accent. I can hope that he was still able to see that I was still
just a little boy at heart who had always loved and cherished his
Dad.
My Dad became a Silent Key on April 1, 2008.
73 Dad and see you down the log.
de VE7NI