Twitters! Hamfests! And! Some of the Faces Behind the Voices!

Make a point to download both this week's and last week's This Week. After acouple of TWIAR and TWIARi launch delays, (and you can certainly head on over to http://www.twiar.org/ for the inside skinny on that story) there are two new Random Access Thoughts to tune into and turn on with. Last week's RAT for the week ending May the 9th was the first fresh production from the House of N2FNH for 2009.
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The topic of note is a Thoughtfully Random Access view of the current hot-to-trot social network Twitter. MNOAOS Zach, along with a quorum of Krasnovs, Marilyn, Cigman and Mother Radio, discuss significant aspects of Twitter in a one-of-kind and time-intensive-to-edit presentation, vocalized in Tweet form and laid out in phrases of less than one hundred and forty characters. Although only about five minutes in length, I worked hard for no money so please download, please listen and please make me happy.
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For the week ending May the 16th and that's today as I diligently and digitally describe all this, the second brandy new Random Access Thought for 2009 ready to air and is entitled "Springtime is Hamfest Time". The younger Mister Baran and I, along with my cheap forty nine dollar Radio Shack audio cassette recorder, dropped by the East Greenbush Amateur Radio Association's big little hamfest which was held last Saturday in, where else? East Greenbush, New York. A ten or less most wanted list of remarkable characters who made it to the final print, aside from MNOAOS and I included Dennis KB2SBL, Bill W2XOY, John WB2HZT, Sid Wolin, Frank N2FF, Mike KB2VQS, Tony W2BEJ, Woz N2SQO, Frank WB2PUH and Glenn WB2FOB. All these voices, along with a hot, steaming pile of crazy sound effects, make for an enjoyable ten minutes. Speaking of voices, here are a few snapshots of some of the faces behind those voices:

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SHE WASN'T THERE BUT I GOT YOUR ATTENTION!
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THE RATMASTER AND HIS SON! BILL N2FNH AND ZACH!
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AUTHOR OF THE ANCIENT AMATEUR ARCHIVES AND RAT REGULAR BILL W2XOY!
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A MAN OF 3000 WALKIE TALKIES! DENNIS KB2SBL!
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A MESS O' RADIOS! AND MOST OF THE FOCUS OF THIS WEEK'S RAT ON TWIAR!

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A MAN OF MUSIC! PUSH HIS BUTTON ELSEWHERE ON THIS PAGE! MIKE KB2VQS!

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FLUNGING AND EEE-BEE-BEEING! TONY W2BEJ!

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CEASE COMMUNICATIONS IMMEDIATELY! GLENN WB2FOB!
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eQSL! Who Knew? Part 2! So Nu?

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This is funny to me. I went back to http://www.eqsl.cc/ and updated my personal profile. After plugging in what apparently passed for pertinent data, the unseen machinations of the eQSL robot machines promptly generated for me personally, a generic eQSL, which is displayed here within the bounds of this very specific blogulation.
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This generic, yellowishy-hued eQSL brought back a very specific Memorex of my Father's own yellowishly-hued aQSL or Analog QSL Card, printed with thick black stock ink on a fairly thick paper stock, almost like cardboard. My Dad's QSL Card was dollar store quality, decades before the advent of the dollar store. No pix. Just the bare facts.
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Back then, my Father was a factory worker at Colgate-Palmolive-Peet in Union City, New Jersey. Colgate-Palmolive is still around but Peet beat a hasty retreat sometime in the late sixties or maybe he was bought out but I digress. My Father, like most hams, was cheap. We saved a lot of money on household cleaners, soaps and experimental test products that never had the chance to gather dust on a supermarket store shelf. Further, most of these freebies were brightly packaged with foreign language descriptive, but Ajax was Ajax, Fab was Fab and Colgate toothpaste was the same no matter what the lingo.
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Somehow, the OM got the guys in Product Labelling to fabricate these third world yellowishy-hued three by fives with the thick stock black ink. Sadly, I no longer have any of these but seeing something so similar pop up forty eight years later on a twenty-first century computer screen gave me pause to reflect.
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eQSL! Who Knew?

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It's another typically bland early Sunday afternoon here in the little village down by the Hudson and there's a QSO currently in progress on the local 87/27 machine. Local lad Lee K2HAT has just advised the gregariously glib Glenn WB2FOB that the latter has eighty electronic QSL "cards" waiting for him at http://www.eqsl.cc/
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Glenn expresses his total amazement as he confesses to having no prior knowledge of the website and then begins to wonder how many QSOs he has had over the years that had resulted in no QSL, some of which may have been inboxed at this Internet based paperless repository, just waiting to be unearthed, or unfiled, as the case may be.
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I am eavesdropping on this conversation airing over my vintage Uniden Bearcat 800XLT as I am wading waist deep through my daily steaming e-pile of e-spam. Since I am presently online, I tab over to eQSL, register and login. Remarkably, I learn there are two electronic QSL jpegs addressed to N2FNH.
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One such confirm came from Mark KA4MAY of Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. The date of the QSO was June 24, 1989! Twenty years ago! I haven't kept written logs in years but it's a fair bet the exchange took place since at the time, thanks to a healthy sunspot maximum, I was working a ton of stations on ten meter single sideband, almost all of it in the mobile with the then new Uniden President HR-2510. This was the controversial mobile rig, that with a simple modification, went from being just a 28-29 MHz multi-mode, to a more versatile 26-30 MHz multi-mode. I had that radio. I loved that radio. AND! I still have that radio! And yes, it was duly modded. Would you expect otherwise?
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The second eQSL was a little mystifying: an alleged 20 meter QSO with Richard N5ZC of Amarillo, Texas, dated January 17th, 1998. This claim is in jeopardy since I was a Technician at the time and what's more, I had no HF gear usable on twenty. There is an outside chance that the conversation did take place though. From 1996 through 2004, I spent the majority of my discretionary ham time doing packet radio, and all that discretionary time probing various international packet networks linked together by way the Internet. Many of these gateways offered access to local radio ports, most often VHF, UHF or SHF outlets but on occasion, there were also HF ports. And quite often, I did HF by proxy through these shortwave links. As an example, I was able to connect to a PBBS in Shanghai via a 15 meter HF link from a telnet server near Kyoto.
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During the time frame specified on the eQSL, I was heavily mining a remarkably rich regional packet environment in the Dallas area and had several keyboard-to-keyboard chats. However, the N5ZC eQSL offers no reference to a packet QSO.
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I feel the same way about eQSLs as I do about homebrew prepared reception cards. Both are OK, but kinda bland. Like the weather here in the little village by the historic river. But nothing beats bounding over to the mailbox and finding a crisp, or even even crunched, custom-made QSL CARD!
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Lotz-O-Slotz!

VACATION?

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PROLOGUE: There's a cramped four shoulder-wide little Chinese take-out slot in a wall down at the decaying strip plaza right on the corner here in the village at which I've been stopping by at least once a week ever since I relocated back in 2006. This Chinese take-out is the standard fare that serves the standard fare with the thick, greasy, gooey, artery-choking, junk Chinese food that just about everyone loves to inhale. And true to stereotype, the Boss Lady and her motley minions, including her electronic cash register-wielding ten-year old son, could only manage the slightest grasp of our ever-so-slowly-but-most- assuredly fading English language.
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So difficult was it to exchange typical menu selections by word of mouth, that a mountain of brightly colored menus printed on cheesy, just-a-bit-more-than-toilet paper stock was stacked high on the counter with a worn-to-the-nub Number 2 standing sentinel, impaled in a close proximity plastic tub of invalid rice. In an effort to make each visit as easy and efficient as possible, I would always request the same three food items: two pork egg roll:one quart sweet and sour chicken:one quart won ton soup. This never flagging consistency in menu selection soon jelled into the YOOZHU...the usual.
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In time, this never flagging consistency in menu selection would no longer require any sort of spoken word at all. The scene opens: I walk in. I spy her. She regards me. She questions with but a single nod. I affirm with the same. Observant patrons intercept the Q & A but appear mystified. So focused and so closed circuit the signal. The same signal that also bound me to the same take-out order time and time again. The YOOZHU.
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Picture a fiery, frenetic far eastern woman, say in her late thirties, not unattractive, stiff black hair, severely restrained in a tight bullwhip ponytail. Tiny, but not an oompaloompa. A whirling, swirling Asian Ricochet Rabbita, built like a petite brick shit house, barking out food orders to the minions in her hometown dialect, which was all Greek to me. Her ten-year son, at various assignments: answering the phones, manning the cash register, doing his homework at one of the few tables, at ease, an addict, doing time, in the dim blue flicker of his Nintendo DS Lite.
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Many cooks and ancillary grunt personnel would appear and then disappear with disturbing regularity. This winter, an college-age dark-haired, fair-skinned, white guy enlisted part time, answering the phone and making the deliveries. He spoke the house language like a homie but seemed to regard his employer with just a little less than disregard.
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But always, the Boss Lady, her son and her husband, or maybe he was just the boy's father. They were always there.
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This has changed.
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ITEM No.1: Four weeks ago, I arrive at the take-out on a bland Tuesday afternoon, only to find that the Boss Lady, her son and her husband, or maybe he was just the boy's father, were not there. Who was there was a young studious looking Asian girl, just barely in her twenties, wearing politically incorrect-to-mention Coke bottles. Demur she was, but she spoke the King's English quite well. Her presence and the Boss Lady's absence allowed me to opt out from the YOOZHU so I got an H2 instead, which is a big aluminum deep dish of pork fried rice with a boatload of those blood-red colored meat strips that look like carvings of car seat vinyl piled on top. I thought ask where the the Boss Lady might be, but jepped the query instead.
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ITEM No.2: Two weeks ago, I arrived at the take-out on a bland Friday afternoon only to find the same as before. No Boss Lady, no son, no husband, or maybe just the boy's father. Who was there was the same young studious looking Asian girl. Being a creature of some habit, I got another H2. I thought again to ask where the Boss Lady and the family might be and this time, I did it. "Where's the boss?"
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The young studious looking Asian girl, now startled, nervously adjusted her Coke bottles and groped for the Engrish words that might frame an answer. She then sputtered: "She went to the place!" "Vacation?" I intoned with a arched Spockian eyebrow. At the word "Vacation", a Scooby Doo double take. Then, as if under threat of US Government sanctioned water boarding: "No! No! She went to the other place!" The inquisition was over. It was all too clear. She was truly rattled. I have found that "Vacation" in the ubiquitous Chinese buffet carries with it an unspoken, onerous meaning. I wanted to know what this "other place" was but I had already pushed my luck. I left the Chinese take-out with my H2 concealed in an unmarked brown paper bag.
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ITEM No.3: This past Monday, another typical bland afternoon, I couldn't resist. But things had changed again. At the counter, another young Asian girl, also just barely in her twenties. But she was not studious looking, did not wear the Coke bottles. Could barely utter more than a few words in the local lingo of the land. Curiously, she looked a lot like the Boss Lady, maybe a younger sister, maybe a younger cousin. More delicate and China doll-like. Prettier. Less hardened, less muscular and less sweaty. Her minimum pronouncements would provide no answers. But as I left the Chinese take-out with my new YOOZHU, my H2, concealed in an unmarked brown paper bag, the young college-age, dark-haired, fair-skinned white guy was on his way in. "WHERE'S THE BOSS?" I shouted. "MANHATTAN! PERMANENTLY, I THINK!
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EPILOGUE: Here are the focal points.

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Much like the larger Chinese buffet, employees at Chinese take-outs at strip malls and down on the corner appear and then disappear with disturbing regularity.
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The English word "Vacation" spoken within the environs of a Chinese buffet bears a remarkably significant meaning and tone that is not synonymous with "deportation". This appeared to be further verified during my recent stop-bys at the local Chinese take-out.
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The reference to "the place" and "the other place" seems to match the delivery guy's reference to New York City but mere mention of it also appeared to evoke an intense, far-less-than-positive response from the currently installed prettier, less hardened, less muscular and less sweaty counter girl. Thus, "the other place" just may be the final cattle car off ramp to...Vacation.
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And...Vacation...is another story.
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