March 1, 1996

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IN THIS UPDATE . . ..

In Brief. . .

HAM COUPLE MURDERED; CAYMANS DXPEDITION GOES FORWARD IN THEIR MEMORY

Former ARRL Director and well-known DXer and contester Floyd Teetson, W5MUG, and his wife, Winnie, WN5YTR, were found dead February 23, victims of a brutal murder.

As the Amateur Radio community mourns the loss of W5MUG and WN5YTR, a DXpedition to Little Cayman Island the Teetsons were to participate in during the ARRL International DX Contest (SSB) March 2-3 will go forward as planned. "They would have wanted us to go," said Troy Ballard, W5AU, the Teetsons' close friend and a member of the Shreveport-area group (including N5OCD and N5XIQ) that will use Floyd's Caymans' call sign, ZF2FT, in the couple's memory. The Teetsons were found slain at their home near Heflin, Louisiana, February 23. They apparently had been killed February 21. The Webster Parish (Louisiana) Sheriff's Department and Louisiana State Police are investigating, but no arrests have been made.

"We're still very much in shock here," said the Teetson's good friend, Ernie Brown, W5FYZ, of Minden, Louisiana. Both Ballard and Brown felt something was amiss when Floyd failed to turn up for a regular 2-meter schedule, a lunch date and a Thursday (February 22) meeting with the DXpedition crew. Their concerns ultimately led to the grisly discovery by authorities at the Teetson's home--in a semi-rural area about 30 miles from Shreveport--after the Browns asked the Teetsons' pastor to check the house. Floyd, who would have been 75 on March 21, and Winnie, who was 69, both were beaten, apparently with a pipe and a two-by-four board. They also were stabbed with a kitchen knife. Both victims were dumped into a small shed outside their house where their throats were slashed.

Authorities believe the attacks likely occurred just after dark, as the pastor reported lights and a television set were still on in the house. Ballard said the Teetsons' house "is not isolated by any means" and was in a residential neighborhood. There were signs that Floyd might have struggled with his assailant outside the house and that Winnie, alerted to the trouble, pushed a burglar alarm "panic button" before going to help him. For some reason, the device failed to automatically call authorities, Ballard said.

Brown was dumbfounded by the tragedy. "They had no enemies to our knowledge anywhere," he said. "It's senseless." Authorities have not speculated publicly on a motive, but Brown said police have had little to say and were "becoming more tight-lipped all the time."

"It's really, really sad," said Ballard, who explained that DXpedition group at first wanted to cancel the trip when they heard the news, but then decided to honor the Teetsons' memory by going. "Floyd and Winnie both had worked very hard on it," Ballard said. "He was more excited than the rest of us, and we'd never been."

Floyd Teetson served as ARRL Delta Division Director in 1962-63. Prior to that, he was the SCM of Mississippi (1960-61). He was an Honor Roll DXer and active contester and had been a member of several multi-op contest teams operating from various Caribbean DX sites. The Teetsons were active ARRL members. A native of Wisconsin, Floyd was a retired electrical engineer who had been employed by the telephone company in the Jackson, Mississippi, area. The house where the Teetsons lived had been in Winnie's family for years. Brown said the couple moved to Louisiana from Mississippi "five or six years ago" and had refurbished the house.

Dave Thompson, K4JRB (ex-K5MDX), of Norcross, Georgia, remembers Floyd from his Mississippi days. "My radio club at that time, the Old Natchez Amateur Radio Club worked hard to help Floyd become Delta Director. Although I was just in high school at the time, Floyd made sure my views and ideas were respected and considered," he wrote in a note to ARRL. "Floyd worked long and hard to help Amateur Radio [and] stood for squeaky clean operating practices." Thompson said that in recent years, W5MUG would always pop in to give him a contact during a contest, and he concludes, "A space in my logbook will always be left open for W5MUG!"

The Teetsons each had three children from previous marriages. In addition, Winnie's mother survives. Services for the couple were held February 26 at the Bistineau Baptist Church, where another mourner and friend, Wes Attaway, N5WA, reported it was "standing room only." Flowers or memorials may be sent in care of Rose-Neath Funeral Home, 217 Murrell St, Minden, LA 71055.

An ironic footnote: Perhaps the last letter Floyd Teetson wrote--on the day he died--was to the ARRL. It accompanied a ham radio newsletter item he wanted to make sure others heard about (see Ham Radio Works When Phones Fail, below). It arrived the same day we got the bad news.

HAMS TURN "TOYS" INTO TOOLS TO HELP FLOODING VICTIMS

After experiencing downed phone lines and power outages last December, Bob Burgert, K0PB, of Cornelius, Oregon, "went into debt and got better radios and a generator." And with his new "toys" at the ready, Burgert felt better prepared for the next weather emergency. As it turned out, the earlier discomfort was mere prelude to massive flooding along the Nehalem River a scant two months later that inundated entire communities in the coastal mountains of Oregon. The experience also turned into one of Amateur Radio's finest hours, as hundred of hams like Bob Burgert--who had drilled for emergencies like this they really hoped would never come--switched from being hobbyists to helpers.

At first, Burgert just listened as Bill Merwin, N7VZF, of Beaverton, Oregon, activated the Oregon ARES District 1 Emergency Net, which, by week's end, was still going strong, coordinating a communications effort to get help to affected families and to relay health-and-welfare traffic for anxious relatives and friends. The pieces were coming together as ham radio bridged the gap between those isolated by floodwaters and landslides and helped emergency agencies keep in touch with each other.

Merwin, a self-avowed "ham radio junkie," said his prior training paid off. "After three years of practice, all the pieces seemed to come to me as if I had them written down in front of my eyes." The net handled hundreds of pieces of H&W traffic and facilitated interagency communication. More than 300 hams checked in to help as disaster struck Vernonia, where hams provided a lifeline to the outside world.

The high waters hit Western Oregon with levels approaching the 100-year flood, said Minor Cross, KD7YJ, the Benton County EC. "We knew that we were in for problems, but this was what we had been training for," he said, echoing Merwin's sentiments. Arouond the clock, a couple of dozen hams manned the Benton County Emergency Operations Center communications room, a shelter and a sandbagging operation as water threatened to encroach on the EOC. In the end, it did not.

Ham radio communication helped rescue people stranded on their roofs, coordinate evacuation, set up and supply shelters, give road status reports, control rumors, provide river level reports and deliver drinking water. "The biggest use [of ham radio] was interagency coordination, allowing messages from rural fire departments to various EOCs, rescue boats and other jurisdictions," said Carl DiPaolo, W7EXH, the EC for Lane County.

Burgert reports that when no one had heard from the towns of Mist, Jewell and Birkenfeld downstream from Vernonia, hams went there and found 50 families homeless and a potential slide hanging over the river. "There was water and mud everywhere," he said. Hams helped keep supplies moving "until the responsibility was handed to the community agencies."

Hams also pitched in by paying for food and fuel to keep the relief effort going. "Hams were digging into their own pockets for fuel for transporting the goods, and they purchased goods from stores when they could not find them elsewhere," said Alfred "Sandy" Mikalow, K7OOZ, of Vernonia (Mikalow was among the "Local Heroes" cited in the March 4, 1996, issue of Time magazine, p 20--Ed). He reports hams also drove rental trucks to collect needed supplies and transport them to affected areas "days before any of the disaster relief agencies even showed up." Burgert and his wife Carol, N7NFM, went to Jewell to drop off loads of clothes, buckets and food. Hundreds of ham radio volunteers sacrificed in other ways to make it work. "Many operators had to deal with personal loss while providing vital services. One EC lost his vehicle to the flood waters," said Roger McCoy, W7ADV, the District 1 EC. "Many gave up paychecks to be available." Burgert reports one ham even lost his job because of his involvement in relief efforts.

Most important, perhaps, the net held together to get the job done. "Bill's persistence and style turned the net into an organized system where people who spend most of their hobby time in enjoyment, quickly turned their toys into tools," Burgert said.

Bill Merwin just says he's proud to be an Amateur Radio operator. "Through it all, it was the hams who were there first, who stepped forward and made it happen."--Randy Stimson, KZ7T (Oregon SM)

HAM RADIO WORKS WHEN PHONES FAIL

Ham operators worked together in the early hours of February 13 to help save a seriously ill infant after telephone service broke down between Magnolia, Louisiana, and Little Rock, Arkansas.

The Magnolia Hospital attempted to arrange emergency air transport of the youngster to Children's Hospital in Little Rock when they discovered long-distance service was out. The ambulance service contacted James McClellan, KC5HII, an EMT in Magnolia, and asked if he could contact Little Rock. McClellan got in touch with Jeff Broome, KC5QKF, in Shreveport, Louisiana, and he was able to contact Children's Hospital by telephone. McClellan and his wife, Annette, KC5HXH, then relayed information from a Magnolia Hospital emergency room physician through Broome and his wife, Kimberly, KC4SSD, to a doctor at Children's Hospital, which dispatched a helicopter to transport the child to Little Rock. The hams maintained the ham radio/telephone link to provide treatment instructions and information on the infant's condition until a direct telephone line finally was established.

Others involved in the effort included Carl McNair, KB5WMY, of Bossier City, Louisiana, and James Womack, KC5PKH, of Haltom City, Texas.--Columbia County (Arkansas) Amateur Radio Club Newsletter; contributed by Floyd Teetson, W5MUG

AMSAT TO BE FEATURED ON DISCOVERY CHANNEL

Members of the Phase 3-D International Project Team are part of an upcoming Discovery Channel TV program, Eyes in the Sky. Keith Baker, KB1SF, AMSAT-NA executive vice president says the cable channel will present the two-hour-long special during multiple airings throughout March. The segment of the program containing the AMSAT footage runs for about six minutes. Actor Barry Corbin, who plays an ex-NASA astronaut on the TV show Northern Exposure, is the narrator.

US broadcast times (Eastern Time) on the Discovery Channel are 9 PM, Sunday, March 10, and 3 PM, Sunday, March 17. Repeat showings are at 1 AM and 9 PM, Wednesday, March 20.

Viewers will see shots of Baker as well as Dick Jansson, WD4FAB, AMSAT-NA vice president of engineering, and Stan Wood, WA4NFY, AMSAT-NA assistant vice president of engineering, shopping for "satellite parts" at an Orlando, Florida, surplus house. Jansson also is shown searching for "antenna parts" in the housewares section of a local department store. Various views and on-camera comments from all three individuals follow, along with shots of Phase 3-D team members actually working on the new satellite at AMSAT's Orlando Integration Laboratory.

Paul Gasek, the program's producer/director at Stonybrook Films in Brewster, Massachusetts, said the AMSAT segment demonstrates that "high tech doesn't need to be high cost." Baker said the AMSAT portion of the program provides "another opportunity for Amateur Radio and AMSAT to get national television exposure showing what we hams know how to do best, being creative, pushing the state of the radio art forward, and having some great fun in the process!"

On-location filming for AMSAT's portion of the segment was completed last October, just after AMSAT-NA's 1995 Space Symposium in Orlando.

For more information, call Keith Baker, KB1SF, 1324 Fairgrounds Rd, Xenia, OH 45385, 513-429-5325 (voice/FAX), or e-mail at kb1sf@amsat.org.

LETTERS, WE GET LETTERS!

Since the inception of electronic delivery of The ARRL Letter in January (and our posting on the ARRL Web site at http://www.arrl.org/ ), several readers have taken the time to e-mail us with their comments. Here's a sampling:

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PUSUN HUIZINGA, WQ0U, SK

Pusun Huizinga, WQ0U, of Littleton, Colorado, died December 31, 1995, as the result of injuries received in an automobile accident. She was 48. A Korean-American, Pusun detailed her entry into Amateur Radio in a July 1993 QST article, "Ham Radio as a Second Language," which tells how she first saw ham radio as a way to improve her English skills. Her husband, George Huizinga, WG0V, now of Golden, Colorado, and children survive. Memorial donations to Courage HANDI-HAM (Courage Center, 3915 Golden Valley Rd, Golden Valley, MN 55422, 612-520-0515) or blood donations in her name are invited.

In Brief:

  • Richard Eastman, K1OJH, of Billerica, Massachusetts, was one of Time magazine's Local Heroes in the March 4, 1996 issue (p 20), and one of two hams so spotlighted (see Hams Turn "Toys" Into Tools To Help Flooding Victims, above). The magazine relates that Eastman, while managing a CompuServe forum, became aware that one of the participants, the Rev. Kenneth Walker of Scotland, thought he might be having a stroke. Eastman got Walker to type his telephone number and then contacted police in Scotland. They reached Walker, who may have suffered a seizure. In Eastman's words: "This was a simple thing, with an interesting twist since it was 3,000 miles away."

  • If you'd like to check out the city of Peoria, Illinois, in advance of the ARRL National Convention September 13-15, 1996, point your browser to the city's home page at http://peoriacvb.peoria.il.us/.

  • The president of the Korean Amateur Radio League, Rhee Joong-Geun, HL1AQQ, paid a visit to ARRL headquarters February 15. Nao Akiyama, NX1L, was President Rhee's host during the visit. Rhee met with Executive Vice President Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, as well.

  • Ham radio activity between Israeli and Arab bloc countries continues to both aid and reflect the easing of tensions in the Middle East. HaGAL International newsletter reports that Hams in the gulf state of Oman have proposed cooperation with Israeli hams in relaying traffic, and Oman has made available its satellite station. In addition, hams in Israel report messages from hams in countries that formerly would have nothing to do with Israel. Tunisia has rescinded its ban on contacting Israeli hams, and contacts with neighboring Jordan have become commonplace.

  • Alinco Electronics has donated VHF radios for use at the HANDI-HAM Radio Camp March 3-10, 1996, at Malibu, California. The HANDI-HAM Radio Camp helps handicapped individuals to enjoy Amateur Radio by providing ham radio license instruction and testing. The objective is that each participant pass the examination given at the camp's conclusion. "HANDI-HAM camp has proven itself to be a very positive program with a successful track record," said Doug Wynn, KB6YZD, Alinco's sales manager. "We're glad to be in a position to assist their efforts." Alinco encourages anyone wishing to support the camps to contact HANDI-HAM at Courage HANDI-HAM System, Courage Center, 3915 Golden Valley Rd, Golden Valley, MN 55422, 612-520-0515.

  • ARRL Contest Manager Billy Lunt, KR1R, has a list of over two dozen plaques for the ARRL International DX Contest that have no sponsors. It's $50 to sponsor a plaque, and sponsorships are first-come, first-served. If you or your club or business would like to sponsor one of the plaques, call Billy at 860-594-0252, or e-mail blunt@arrl.org. Among those available are the W/VE 3.5 and 28 MHz CW plaques, the 3.5 MHz and 7 MHz World Phone plaques, and the multi-unlimited phone plaques for Asia, Europe and South America.

The ARRL Letter is published by the American Radio Relay League, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111, tel 860-594-0200; fax 860-594-0259. Rodney J. Stafford, KB6ZV, President; David Sumner, K1ZZ, Executive Vice President.

Electronic edition circulation, Kathy Capodicasa, N1GZO, e-mail kcapodicasa@arrl.org.

Editorial, Rick Lindquist, KX4V, e-mail rlindquist@arrl.org.

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