Of the PRC 320, insomnia and a police officer

Last night I woke up at about 0200 which is pretty damned rare. I generally sleep pretty well both home and at sea. While some guys at sea have bouts of channel fever, the malady only effects me about every five years or so and doesn't last very long.

I was at home which made this sleeping disorder rarer yet. I think it has been well over a decade since this has happened to me. Anyway, I hit the rack at about 2330 and went out like a light.

BAM! at 0200 my eyes slammed open, I was awake, alert and in an instant I knew I wasn't going to go back to sleep very easily so I figured that I just ought to get up and do something. I know that the last thing I wanted to do was try and fight myself back to sleep because it never seems to work. Just get up and do something until you get sleepy.

I drank some juice and had a bright idea. I'd go to the mall parking lot with my PRC-320 and see who was on the air. I crammed a freshly charged battery in the rig, tossed it in the Miata and off I went. In a few minutes I was on the rim of the mall parking lot, The mall was built on a hill and seemed like a good place.

It wasn't long before I was yakking with a guy on 80 meters from out in Ohio somewhere. I guess a lot of hams are insomniacs or something. He got a hoot out of the fact that I was on the air from a parking lot in the middle of the night.

As I was yakking, I saw a set of headlights and instinctively knew it was a police patrol. I picked up the PRC-320, repositioned the 2.5 meter antenna and my arms in the backpack straps. With the rig on my back I knew it would make it easier to move it around. Then I reestablished contact with the ham in Ohio and told him what was going on and explained to him that if anyone asked him who he was he was to politely give his call sign and hometown.

Sure enough, the car rolled up to me and the officer rolled down his window. As he did, I keyed the headset and told the guy in Ohio to stand by.

"What's going on here?" asked the officer.

"Impromptu Ham radio communication drill," I said. "I'm running portable on this little backpack rig."

"Who areyou talking to?" he asked.

"Some guy in Ohio," I replied.

"On that little military rig? Hey, are you legal? I thought those military rigs were on special channels." the officer asked.

"Nope, if I stay on ham frequencies it's legal. This little rig is HF. A few hours ago I had a guy from Ukraine give me a signal report on this set," I replied.

"Really? Ukraine?" he seemed impressed.

"Yeah, he could hear me, I couldn't hear him. Someone passed the report on to me."

"And now your are connected to some guy in Ohio?"

"See for yourself," I said. I reached out with the handset like it was a telephone receiver and a mischievious snicker appeared on my face. "Here," I said. "It's for you."

I was treated to the look officers give to people that they think are on the edge of being a smartass with them. I simply grinned. "Try it."

He took the handset and I told him that the push to talk switch was sensitive and you had to release it completely. He keyed the set and spoke into it. "Is anybody here?" he asked.

I knew the guy on the other end had answered him by the look of surprise and awe on the officer's face.

He handed me back the handset. "I'll be damned," he said. "That's pretty good, I like that. I gotta go. Stay safe here and be careful. You got a cell phone?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Keep it in your pocket," he said. "This really isn't the place to be at this hour. Just keep your eyes open."

'"Roger that," I said and he drove off.

I continued my conversation with the guy in Ohio for a few minutes and felt myself getting sleepy. I signed off, went home and went out like a light.

All in all my little impromptu DXpedition was a success. I was actually glad the officer was not a ham. I communicate with a Massachusetts police officer quite often and I'd bet that if the officer I met last night WAS a ham that I would have never gotten any sleep at all last night. We would have been up for the rest of his shift talking about guns and radios all night.




my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/