VY1JA J 'Jay' Allen Whitehorse, YT Canada QCWA # 30674 Chapter 10

I was introduced to radio at the age of 9, when my father brought a college text on basic radio theory home to satisfy my curiosity. The theory was a challenge, but with the radio text and an early ARRL handbook, I learned the basics, and was fixing tube type radios through age 14 when I met John Davidson, now K8JD. John, was not just receiving signals, he was transmitting them. He had a simple crystal controlled tube type transmitter, built on an RG Dunn cigar box.

Not long after, I was reviewing the morse code which I had learned from an instructor at Boy Scout Troop 2 in Southfield, Michigan. The code came back and I was soon sitting in the FCC office in Detroit, Michigan writing a novice examination.

John and I studied while I waited for my Novice license to arrive. By the time I held WN8CAL in my young hand, we were ready to take our general class examinations. As WA8CAL and WA8AFS, we both began study for our Extra class examinations, and were ready at the earliest testing we could arrange after our minimum time was up. We both passed and received nothing for our efforts, except a certificate. (There were no added privelages back then for taking the 20 wpm code test or Extra Theory.)

The recession in 1974 Detroit, found me as a non-working man with a family. I had been unemployed for 13 months, and besides driving my lovely wife, Ann, nuts by just being around too much, I was beginning to loose my self esteem. I had to do something. I followed work to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada where I worked as an electrician, and later an instructor at Saskathewan Technical Institute, while Ann and I developed a 54 head dairy farm. I became an electrical contractor and ran a backhoe and trenching service. You would think with a name like Success Electric that VE5DB had it made, but a strain of mastitis hit our herd that would not respond to antibiotics. We lost it all, and started over in Alberta, call VE6DN. I worked for a really excellent contractor, RD Electric. When the owner,Clarence, ran out of work, I had to tell him to lay me off. He just did not have the heart to do it. I finally got the pink slip, filled it out and gave it to him to sign. People like him are hard to find. From there, I found work with Alberta Power, the local power utility.

Eventually I took a transfer to Yukon and VY1JA was on the air. I retired for 3 years and will re-retire after 9 years, December 31, 2015 from working in Alert,Nunavut and Ft McMurray Alberta. There is no looking back for Ann and me. We love Yukon for its fine people and beautiful setting.

If you are an old timer or know one who operated in the early 60's on 80 or 40 meter CW and can find a log entry from WN8CAL or WA8CAL, please send me a QSL for the wall. I do not collect cards, but a 2 or 3 cards from that time would be special. The only one I have is from John, K8JD (ex-WN8AFS). Thanks for reading. Comments? to (my call) at arrl dot net

Contest operation has been a strong attraction since I was introduced to it in ~1992. The station built up to a TS-850, an older Alpha amp and a 4 element quad at 138 feet. That station has gone along with my ability to climb that high. I have ordered an Omni-VII, bought an Alpha 9500, and hope to have a two element quad at 55 feet or so, which is the higher than I want to climb at this age. As an operator, I suffer confusion and stumble, so the station will be set up for remote control and I am looking for remote operators, good with CW, to keep VY1JA on the air in contests to come. W1NN, Hal, has agreed to be the first op... for 2015 SSCW. If you are someone backed by a good contest club and can help, please contact me. Hal ran the VY1JA ARDXCW2015 remotely from his Tokyo location and it was a successful learning adventure. Special thanks to Hal for activating the station for that event, and for resolving many the early remoting issues, with the help of Carl, of N4PY software, and John Henry, KI4JPL, of TenTec.

'J' in Nunavut as VYØJA

Remote Operation