SHARC Byte News
January 1998
HAM OF THE MONTH!
This Ham of the month is Nancy Peregrine KB6LAD. She has been a ham since December of 1985. Knowing someone like Nancy is literally good for your health! She is a certified diet counselor, nutrition educator, and massage practitioner.As the fire chief, for Whale Gulch Fire Department, Nancy has served in many ways as a volunteer. In fact she and her daughter were the first to live in Whale Gulch. Moving there in the late 60’s, she built her own house, has worked in commercial fishing and worked for the restoration of the Salmon Habitat. .
One of the most intriguing aspects of Nancy’s history is the fact she led wilderness trips into the back country of the King Range and Siskyone for ten years. To top off this unique adventure is the fact that she used her own six pack Llamas!
Nancy has taught Spanish and other subjects at the Whale Gulch School.
Back when Nancy got her license, there were less than a dozen Sharc Club members. Now the club has over 70 members. Nancy got into ham radio for the same reason that many in the Sharc Club. We are geared for emergency communications
.Nancy’s daughter, Jessica who is KF6BLR. Jessica is attending the medical school at UCSF.
There are so many times that Nancy has been a Ham in service I am not going to mention the countless times...
Thanks Nancy for the help all these years!
HAMS IN HISTORY!
Origins are fun to think about. When one gets the right story it is usually exciting. I asked Buck, K6RFE, our local origin man, how the Far West Repeater Assn. got its start. Having his own book out on the Origin of the Mattole, and having lived here for all his life, I thought he might have some “input”. Here is what he wrote me...Buck was residing in Ferndale in 1955 when the big flood occurred. The phone lines were lost and there was no way to tell the outside world what was happening in Ferndale. A few weeks later K6RFE, was issued to Mr. Buck Miner and now the town had a station on the air when the next disaster might happen.
K6TMY soon was given to Dave, Buck’s neighbor. One night these two new hams attended a club meeting in Eureka. Buck says the two of them stood around and only one ham came up to them and said anything. He was another chap that Buck had known for a time. On the way home these slighted hams felt this was not the way a club should work.
The very next day Buck obtained all the names of hams in Southern Humboldt and mailed out cards asking for their presence in Fortuna the next week.
Forty folks showed up and elected officers. Buck was not one of them, and named the new club the FAR WEST. At that time Ferndale was believed to be about as far west as signals would be coming from.
The club made one mistake however. They voted to have two meetings a month. Well, if I miss this meeting I can catch the next one. This was the thinking of most hams, but most missed them all soon. The club fell off in attendance and Buck proposed they have one meeting and have a dinner or speaker and soon the club was rolling up forty or fifty at each turn out again.
Then Buck moved back to Petrolia area and within a few years the club nearly died. Two meters was showing the world just how great repeaters were and soon the money left in the bank was spent on a new venture. Thus the Far West Repeater evolved and is no doubt here to stay.
Most of the original members have joined silent keys by now, but fifty years from today someone may read this article and be happy we told the story.
Thanks Buck for the great glance back into the History of Ham Radio.