Feb. 2008

The Chirpy S-O-S of 1984

I think the year was 1984. If not, it was very close. Having nothing else to do, I was listening to the "Geritol" Net, somewhere around 3.6 Mhz one night when a chirpy CW S-O-S erupted.

"Did you hear that?", one ham asked.

"Sure sounded like an S-O-S to me", another answered.

The net went quiet while the S-O-S continued. The first thing I noticed about it was its very "chirpy" attribute.

The distressed caller went on to explain that he and others were about some sort of boat, somewhere off of the northeast coast of the United States, and there was a fire on board. If I remember correctly, the fire was started by the flares they were using to signal for help.

Someone chimed in with a return CW signal asking for more details, while others summoned the U.S. Coast Guard by telephone.

After not too long a delay, a Coast Guard representative came up on frequency, immediately declared his "rustiness" in the art of sending and receiving CW, and mentioned that others may have to help him with the distress signal. This was fine, he was assured by several of the net participants.

The distress signal continued, and having some idea of the general location of the boat-in-trouble, a Coast Guard fixed-wing aircraft of some sort was dispatched to the area.

After what seemed like an hour, here comes another CW message, with the same chirpy attribute. It said "FOOLS FOOLS FOOLS".

Well, I can tell you, that for someone who was not involved in the effort, I was mad a hell. I wasn't the only one either.

But, after all the name calling and ill feelings were made known, the general attitude of the group was "well, what are you gonna do? You can't ignore a S-O-S."

Anyway, I don't think I ever checked into the Geratol Net before or after that incident.

73,

WF5TX