To " A Keeper"

In fishing terms, a keeper is a fish that falls within the legal limits, ergo, can be kept.

To A Keeper

Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, work shirt and a hat; and Mom in a house dress, lawnmower in one hand, and dish towel in the other. It was the time for fixing things: a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, and the hem in a dress. Things we keep.

It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, re-heating leftovers, renewing; I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.

But when my mother died, and I was standing in that clear morning light in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more.

Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away...never to return. So... While we have it, it's best we love it... And care for it... And fix it when it's broken... And heal it when it's sick. This is true: For marriage... And old cars... And children with bad report cards... Dogs and cats with bad hips... And aging parents... And grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it. Some things we keep, like a best friend that moved away or a classmate we grew up with.

There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special... And so, we keep them close!

I received this from someone who thinks I am a 'keeper,' so I've sent it to the people I think of in the same way... Now it's your turn to send this to those people that are 'keepers' in your life. Good friends are like stars... You don't always see them, but you know they are always there!!!

Back to Ham Radio

I believe I was able to acquire my amateur radio operator's license back in 1970. Being in the elctronics technical curiculum of my high school, we were given the opportunity to join the Don Bosco Amateur Radio Club. Our callsign was Delta Uniform One Delta Bravo Tango (DU1DBT). I was able to get the class A license. Upon graduation, I was volunteered by Fred Hashim, DU1EH, to the National HQ of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines as a radio operator. I met his friend Dr. Romeo Castaneda, DU1RC. These two expanded my knowledge of ham radio. Discussions were never very technical. I learned about a lot of things from these two gentlemen.

I joined the US Navy in 1976 an was away from the ham radio world up until 2008. 32 years of technical progress is quite hard to catch up with. I thank God that my technical rating in the Navy allowed me to keep up with quite a bit. So, on the 14th of May, I finally took the Class C examination and eventually passed the test. Even with the process of getting the license, much have change. When you get your operator's license, your call sign is also issued to you. So I was given the call sign DW1OLV. The DW1 means I am a Class C operator from the region 1 of the Philippines. The suffix OLV is a random set of letters. But this in total identifies Roberto Jose C. Vicencio as an amateur radio operator with the aforementioned station.

Technology is the backbone of ham radio and as such, it has set the pace in the advancement of the field of communication, next to military research. So it was not a very big surprise when I learned of Echolink and CQ100. The two being VOIP-based programs that gives ham operators the chance to "get on the air" via the PC-internet method. This is a boon to many since this gives the ham operator the opportunity to have QSOs (contacts) with other hams even if they do not have any ham radio gear. Many still operate the HF/VHF/UHF gear but the HF radio operators are sorely affected by the 11-year sunspot cycle. That is the reason why many operators, particularly seniors, are moving in the CQ100 program in order to maintain contact with other hams around the world.

So it is with this on my plate, that I return to the world of ham radio. I have been gone too long.

CQ CQ CQ DE DW1OLV CQ CQ CQ Delta Whiskey One Oscar Lima Victor calling CQ and standing by.