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 Previous: AAA Official Says LMCC Backing Off 70 cm Request |  Next: W1AW Levitates 120-foot Tower |
By Ralph Katz, KB8ZOY
Ann Arbor, Michigan
KB8ZOY@compuserve.com
September 1, 1998
It all began with a stop to the rest room Saturday at the Dayton Hamvention. It wasn't until after 20 minutes or so of wandering the exhibit floor that I realized I felt a little "light." My Yaesu FT-50 H-T was missing! Back at the rest room it was no where to be found. Nobody there had found a radio either, and there was no note or anything to indicate someone had found it. I also came up dry at the Hamvention desk and at the ticket window.
It didn't turn up later either. Unfortunately, my name wasn't on the radio. Resigned to never seeing it again, I located a police officer and filed a lost property report so I could at least file an insurance claim.
But what better place than Dayton to be in a position of having to replace a missing H-T! I decided to get another FT-50. After all, I'd already invested the time learning how to use it and owned all of the accessories. With the cash remaining in my pocket (it had been earmarked to buy a TNC), I got a good deal on another FT-50, charged the battery, and was back in business.
Two weeks and several fruitless calls and e-mail messages later, I filed my insurance claim and tried to put the whole business behind me. But this was not to be the end of the story.
A few weeks later, I was in the middle of the "week from Hell." My car had spent three days in the shop, and I had finally gotten home around 10 PM some $1300 poorer with the problem still not fixed. My mom, who was babysitting the kids, mentioned something about a call from South Carolina. "Did you lose something in Dayton?" she wondered aloud.
Practically ignoring my mom, I tore across the house for the phone like a madman. After five tries, a couple of busy signals, and a few "all circuits are busy" messages, I finally made the extremely pleasurable acquaintance of Mike Brown, N0VNM, on the other end of the line. I identified my missing H-T and serial number to his satisfaction, and he offered to send it to me. I offered him a reward for returning the radio, but he refused. He said he'd ship it out in the next day or so. "This is incredible!" I was thinking. "How on Earth did he find me?"
Flash back to Dayton, where Mike and his brother Marty Brown, N9TZM--responding to nature's call--found my radio in the men's room. Rather than to leave matters to chance, he held onto it and tried to find the owner himself. Marty stayed behind while Mike checked with the main desk, without luck. I suspect that I missed Marty outside the rest room by no more than five minutes, and I missed Mike at the main desk by no more than 10.
Mike and Marty did not know how to use the radio, but they were resourceful enough to figure out how to turn it on. I had programmed a memory channel for one of several simplex frequencies that club groups from Michigan had prearranged. The radio displayed the mnemonic "D8N1," for "Dayton 1." They did not catch on to this, but they did hear people using the frequency, so Mike put out call after call, trying to find out if anyone was missing a radio.
Little did they know that its owner, wandering the flea market without a radio, had no way to contact his friends to let them know what had happened. Having failed to locate the owner, Mike and Marty went about their business, and ultimately Mike took the radio home with him.
Mike really did yeoman's service trying to track me down. After the Hamvention, he contacted the Hamvention and Hara Arena folks several times, but no one had reported a missing radio. He put out messages on all of the Internet ham radio groups he could think of, as well as on packet. Finally, he looked up the serial number in a national police registry of stole merchandise--all with no success.
In the meantime, he had played around with the radio a bit, but finally ran the battery down. With a little ingenuity, he hooked it up to his 12 V power supply, which happily recharged the battery as well. He thought it was a nice radio but already had decided that he didn't really want another H-T. Mike considered his IC-02T just perfect for his needs. But Marty had his eyes on the FT-50 and was secretly hoping the owner would not turn up.
Then, Mike recalled that his wife, Dee, N0ZTV, had the programming software and cable for her FT-51. Using those tools, Mike was able to download the memories from the FT-50 and did some more poking around.
Some Yaesu radios have an Auto Range Transpond System (ARTS) feature, whereby two properly configured radios left in ARTS mode will poll each other, and the radios will beep when they come into range. While polling, each radio identifies itself periodically by sending a call sign in CW. I had never used ARTS, but I had entered my call sign into the radio, and Mike found it! A little more sleuthing and he soon had my e-mail address and my home phone number. The rest is history.
The circle is now complete. Mike sent me the radio. I sent Mike a check for postage and his phone call and canceled the insurance claim. I also made Marty a good deal on the new radio, and I hope he is as happy with it as I am with mine (I programmed in his call sign, N9TZM, before shipping it.) My radio now has a printed label bearing my call sign. But the best part was the privilege of having met a couple of hams with as much integrity--and ingenuity--as Mike and Marty Brown. |
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