In Memory of Frank W. Gilliland 1946 to Sept. 24th, 2023 – Frank’s Story, N0IGZ – (part 2 of 2) reposted

Part 2: The Ham and the Man

KOKWC: Tell me about your early Ham days as an operator.

Frank: “I had a Kenwood 830 for HF, and I made a 10m beam. I remember making it in the yard. Gus came over and helped. I can’t remember what 2m radio I had. I must have had a million of them.  I was on it a lot.  But in the meantime, Gus said, if I get you through this, you’ve got to sell the amp. I couldn’t use it. I was limited to 100 watts. So, we went to a Hamfest in Missouri somewhere and I sold it. It was in mint condition. It had new tubes, fresh paint, it looked brand new. The Clipperton amp was named after Clipperton island. They were big in demand at that time. Dentron made them. We sold the amp, I came back, and Gus asked if I heard about 6m.  No, what’s that about? Gus was talking to the Caribbean on 6m.  The Solar Cycle was just coming up, getting strong. On 6m! The VHF band. I didn’t have a 6m radio. Gus said we will find one. Gus & I did find one for $125.  Gus couldn’t drive cause he was legally blind but he could see good enough to tune the radios.  Another Ham from Erie I had met in Parsons, he sold me the radio and guaranteed it to work.  I only had $120. Bill said I’ll give you $5. The guy said, no, no, he can have it for $120.  Then I had to borrow $5 from Bill for gas to get home.  I got me a 6m radio. Yaesu 620B. Supposed to be 20 watts out. I did good to get 15. Sometimes only 12. I think the finals were getting bad.   Of all my DX on 6m, over 525 grids, 90% of those were obtained with 10 watts. It was the peak of a cycle. Except for the people my age, people don’t know what a sun cycle peak is. We haven’t had one like that since. You work 6m when it wants you to. They call it the Magic band, and it is magic. Gus and I would get on 6m and talk till midnight on 6m.  We were sitting there talking when a station came on, 3D2. I didn’t know who it was. Gus couldn’t talk. He knew who it was. It was Fiji, in the South Pacific. We talked for 15 minutes. I worked Fiji on 10 watts. I once worked Australia on 6m with a mobile. He was also mobile. He was going home from a Hamfest when I contacted him.  That made my day.

KOKWC: Was that your most memorable contact?

Frank: “3D2 station comes to mind, and a station in Bosnia. He apologized for the guns going off. They were fighting a war. They were our guns. He apologized for the noise in the background. I could hear them going off. 105mm Howitzers. He apologized to me for the US guns. Another contact that comes to mind is a Russian contact. I worked him on cw.  He was a wood cutter in Siberia. He was by himself cutting wood with an axe.  A tractor pulling a sled brought in his supplies. I heard him again on voice but I didn’t get to talk to him on voice. Anyways, I got the card!  I need a new DX log. This one is coming apart.  There are new countries now.”  <Frank begins reading the countries he has worked on 6m. It was vast.> “Galapagos Island. I talked to him enough we were on a first name basis. It was nothing to get Galapagos then.”

Frank shows me his logbook with over 525 grids logged on 6 meters.

KOKWC: What is your favorite thing about Ham?

Frank: “6 meters.”

KOKWC: What is your least favorite thing about radio?

Frank: “6 meters because I don’t have an antenna. Probably 20.  The operators are arrogant, know-it-all’s, run humungous power, and don’t give a s*** about their neighbor. Probably 20.”

KOKWC: What was the best advice you ever received from an Elmer?

Frank: “All verticals transmit poorly in all directions. I’ve never had a vertical until this one. Except for 2 meters. And he was right.”

KOKWC: What is your opinion of digital radio? FT8, FT4, JT65?

Frank: “When you can go in and shoot gnats in a barrel, that’s FT8. I’ve run FT8. You can’t beat voice. CW I don’t do anymore. I can’t hear it. And my finger wiggling is probably not good either.”

KOKWC: Where do you think Ham Radio is headed in the next 50 years?

Frank: “Digital. There are some diehards, my age, that may live to be 100. They’ll still carry on voice.  I lived long enough to go digital. Starting to get some younger people in. They’re into computer stuff, that’s what’s going to attract them, I think. When I got in, we didn’t have computers. My first computer was a Commodore 64.  And you could talk to Elvira, and that was about it.” <chuckle>

KOKWC: What advice do you have for any new Hams today?

Frank: “Be considerate.  Some people are slow learners, slow thinkers.” <pause> “Just be considerate.”

KOKWC: Tell me something about yourself that might surprise people who know you?

Frank: “About me? I think everyone knows I don’t get around anymore. Pretty much everyone knows the do’s and don’t’s of Frank. I can’t think of anything. My wife was also an operator. She was a Technician.  Her call sign was KV0…Real Exciting Navaho. She was Indian, but she wasn’t Navaho. She was Osage with red hair. She said, ‘I like pale face scalps with handles.’ Holy ****. I’m gonna sleep with one eye open. Her name was Virgie, Toad. They all knew her by Toad on the radio. She wasn’t on much. She had two QSL cards by locals, that’s all. “

KOKWC: How did she get the handle Toad?

Frank: “When she was little, she would get in the crib on all 4, and she would do that, like a toad. Toad, Toadie, people we’ve been friends with for 30 years call her Toadie, even today.”

KOKWC: Do you have any last thoughts? Maybe something I didn’t cover, or you would like to add?

Frank: “I wished my lungs were better than what they are. I would have a better place to live and a tower up. Oswego’s not bad. Higher than Columbus, I think. Coming up that hill, it’s not as high as you think it is over Columbus. But you stay dry up here. The river is way down there. No flooding.”

Frank shows me a location he contacted on 6 meters using his ARRL World Atlas.

KOKWC: Frank, long after the vacuum tubes cool off, and dust has settled on the cover of your transceiver, how would you like to be remembered?

Frank: “Just as, I got zapped! On my QRZ page, it shows as a vanity. It’s not a vanity.  That was my call from my Technician license.  We moved away from here to Sterling Kansas and I let my license elapse. I had to go back and do all this BS over again. I didn’t have to take code. So, it shows that they had W0IGZ, N0IGZ, and K0IGZ. I could have taken the W and made everyone think that I had been in it for a super long time. Everybody knew me as I Got Zapped. So I picked N0IGZ, me original call.”

KOKWC: Have you been zapped?

Frank: “Oh hell yes!  I got knocked out. I had an amplifier. My Elmer always told me, ‘work with one hand in your pocket’. Like an idiot, I was going to move…  my finger touched that tube cap and it put me out. It knocked me out of the chair.  My wife heard the chair go down. She came in and I was out. Got a wet washcloth and I came to and I said, ‘What the hell happened?’  I see the amp, then I knew what happened. I never did it again.  I got tickled on my lip by a D104 microphone. It left a little black hole. It was funny later.”

 Conclusion:

I could have easily spent another hour with Frank just talking about cars, computers, and radios. He was certainly willing, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome.  I thanked Frank for his time and for sharing a small moment of his life with me. He told me it had been fun and brought back some good memories.

I left Oswego that day with a new appreciation for the town, it’s people, and their local treasure, an unassuming Ham called Frank, N…Zero…I…Got…Zapped.

Listen to Frank’s original audio interview in full – adult language>>>  –  Frank’s Audio Interview – 66 minutes, 45 seconds

Author: Chris - N0YH

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