Susan Meckley W7KFI is a 74-year old great-grandmother who has been solo sailing around the Pacific for several years now and sending dots and dashes along the way.
She has finished recuperating in Hawaii from a car-bicycle accident – she was the one on the bike…After her engine repair, and the hurricane season, her plan is to set sail to Johnston Atoll (KH3) and then parts west on the USSV Dharma. Continue reading 'W7KFI: Solo-sailing the Pacific'»
Larry Baysinger W4EJA
I had a landline QSO today with a gentleman in Louisville, Kentucky who is as friendly as he is interesting. Forty-one years ago this week, Larry Baysinger W4EJA accomplished an amazing feat and I wanted to ask him more details about it than exist online. My email to him bounced, so I picked up the phone and was rewarded with one heck of an interesting story.
In July of 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the lunar surface as Michael Collins orbited above them in the Command Module. As the rest of the country – and the world – watched this historic event on television, Larry was receiving their communications directly, independently of NASA or the media networks. Continue reading '41 years ago this week – Apollo 11 and W4EJA'»
Years ago, a posting to QRP-L announced an upcoming kit that was gonna kick ass and take names on 20-meter CW.
Its virtues were extolled far and wide. Terms like “bullet-proof front-end” were tossed around. It was a soon-to-be-legend. It was gonna be the subject of a Ken Burns documentary (just kidding). It was going to launch a new line of QRP kits and the company producing them.
It was the Norcal 20.
It was a dud.
Nothing wrong with it being a dud, mind you – that ain’t the point here. Continue reading 'The business end of QRP'»
Mr. Clarence Faulk
I spent a few hours yesterday in the company of Clarence Faulk at his home in Ruston, Lousiana. Mr. Faulk is 101 years old and is blessed with a mind and wit that are both tack-sharp. He is a gifted storyteller with an easy-going sense of humor and is the epitome of a Southern Gentleman. To say that the conversation was interesting would be a vast understatement.
He was the founder and owner of the town’s newspaper, The Ruston Daily Leader, beginning in 1930 and has a newspaperman’s mind and eye for detail. These qualities served him well in May of ’34 when Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were finally killed in nearby Gibsland.
My purpose for the visit was to hear this story in Mr. Faulk’s own words as well as to photograph Continue reading 'Chasing Bonnie & Clyde: an eye-witness account'»
Comments (3) 
Themocracy