I received the following email and the above photo from Bob and Veronica Garnier. Bob is a native Hamiltonian from the White Horse area, now calling Brisbane, Australia home. Bob recalls his and Veronica's years as amateur ops, and also recalls "RIR" as we called him "Rhode Island Red."
Bob, I couldn't get past 35 words per minute in morse, and you navy coast guard guys were always the best when it came to ultra high speed C.W. I spent 3 years in the Army Security Agency where I reached 35 wpm, and with that speed was assigned to copy the Russians during the cold war. Russian ops are also aces with the bug. Thanks so much for writing. It is a pleasure to hear from you. I have been concentrating on my local history website, www.glover320.blogspot.com and will be adding more to my amateur/broadcast radio site in the future.
73's to you and 88's to Veronica.
Tom Glover
WA2RVU
BOB WROTE:
Greetings from Brisbane Australia
I just finished chatting with my good friend Byron, w7swc in seattle on skype. We got around to talking about the "old days" of amateur radio and Byron said "I wonder if w2rir was ever reissued"
(w2rir was my wife's father) so I did a google of w2rir and up popped your website on Rhode island red a local legend. I know everyone on that photo, it brought back memories. W5MLU is my wife's godfather. All the guys in photo were local Trenton burg guys, w5mlu met a gal from Villa Platt La while in the army and after ww2 moved to Villa Platt.
My wife was WA2IMR, then KP4BIE, then KH6FRT, and finally VK4SM.
I started out WA2AFT first lic in 1957 (Hamilton High West class of 60)
held KP4BHR, KH6FRT, VK4EA.
I was born a Hamilton guy, norton avenue in the white horse area of Hamilton. Moved around a lot due to 10 years in the Coast Guard where I was a distress radio operator. Have certificate for 40wpm which as you know is about as fast as you can get. My last duty in CG was Hawaii and it completely spoiled us, after leaving the CG we just couldnt resettle in Trenton area. Missed the warm climate so we moved to Australia on what was going to be a 2 year job assignment but after 2 or 3 weeks we knew we had "found our final home". Its been 38 years now and have made the long flight back to Trenton 14 times. No one left now, last time back we paid our final visits to all the graves so doubt that we will be back any more. Just too long on a plane for my old bones....
Anyway - starting to ragchew too much, just wanted to drop a short email to let you know your webpage was viewed down here and it sure brought back memories of all the old gang...
Regards
Bob & Veronica Garnier
(we both are no longer licensed hams, it was part of our lives for many years but the internet is now where we communicate, no antennas to worry about blowing down hehe)
Being 'over the hill' is much better than being under it!
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