At last year’s Dayton Hamvention, a contingent of KP4s made a plea that I attend the ARRL’s Southeastern Division Convention, which was also going to be the Puerto Rican National Convention, & give a talk about tower work. Flattery got them everywhere, apparently, & I made arrangements to attend.
With Angle, WP3R, serving as my host, & Joe Taylor, K1JT, & Jim Breakall, WA3FET, also on tap as speakers, it was going to be a fun time I thought, & that certainly proved to be the case.
The weather was absolutely perfect (I infer this may be the case more often than not down there!), with temps in the mid-80s & little humidity, & almost always a gentle breeze cooling things off. Jim gave his talk inside, & things were a bit stuffy on Saturday. So on Sunday, Joe led off in a tent outside, & I immediately followed, although on the printed schedule, I was supposedly later, after lunch. But hey, who’s complaining–there was an eager audience. In fact, it was one of the best-received talks I’ve ever given. If these guys were acting, there should be some additional names in the Oscar nomination pool.
I’ll leave out the funny bits–like the water fountain falling off the wall in the Charlotte airport as I bent to get a drink. Or the cancelled flight to Newark, & the heroic effort made by American to get me to Philadelphia instead. Or my stupidly losing the 3X5 card where I’d printed out all the needed addresses & times for things, which I inadvertently threw away in the plane flying down. And the frustrations of NOT knowing Spanish, or only enough to get myself in trouble. If I’d gone down there one day earlier, I could have gone up to the feedhorn of the Aericibo Observatory dish, damn it! But they were running experiments & access was impossible.
One good outcome–I’m going back to do the ARRL DX CW Test from WP3R’s station. If you’re reading this, watch for spots & try to work me, or is that “too much” solicitation…?
stay tuned…
