Solar Storm: Homeward Bound by Vincent Keith

Author:Vincent Keith [Keith, Vincent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-10-18T22:00:00+00:00

25

RESTORING HISTORY

Jack spent most of the evening going over the information provided by Aaron and working up a task list. Eli went out just after dinner to round up the machinist, and two guys with welding gear. While he was out Art showed up to talk about radios.

Jack answered the knock at the door and found a heavyset black man in a green plaid Mackinaw wool coat and a dark brown fedora.

"Hi, come on in out of the cold," said Jack as he stepped to the side to make room.

“Art, Art Tatum”

“I’m Jack Donovan.” Jack shook the man’s hand.

“You look a little like Art Tatum, except he’d be a lot older if he were still alive,” said Jack.

“Hah! Be damned, someone who knows who Art Tatum was.”

“Big fan actually. I got it from Dad. He was a real jazz aficionado. Art Tatum was one of his favorite jazz pianists” Jack shut the door to block out the cold and reached out to shake the man's hand.

“Yeah, I got it from my Dad too. The love of jazz and the name. I guess Tatum was a coincidence, but picking Art wasn’t. It works well enough for me. I suppose I should have picked up the Piano, but I was always more of a stand-up bass kind of guy.”

“You play?” asked Jack as he motioned Art into the living room.

“Every day. Got a band… well, I had a band, not sure what’s happened to the guys since, well…”

“Yeah…” Jack nodded, “So, tell me about your station.”

“I had a Kenwood TS-440. I loved that radio. I’ve got a hundred-foot tilt over tower I use for an inverted V trapped dipole for the eighty and forty-meter bands. And a sixty-foot collapsing tower with a hex beam. That’s for everything else down to two-meter.”

“Nice, very nice. Any idea if they’re still working.”

“It’s possible, they were all grounded, and I run homemade ladder line to the dipole. I can probably get the hex beam working even if the balun is fried. Not sure about the rotator, hard to point without it, and it’s very directional.”

“Yeah, the guys down in Adin had enough spare gear in shipping containers that we could piece together a full set of antennas. I can lend you a radio to test with. But I need to get it back.”

“It would be good to get some news, and I’m willing to do the work, even if it’s only for a few days.”

“That’ll depend on a few things, how’s your CW?”

“Morse Code? Good, forty words a minute when I work at it. Twenty-five is normal, but most folks don’t copy that fast. I got a big speed boost when I switched to a paddle style key.”

“Wow, okay. On a good day, I can do maybe fifteen. Right now, I’d be hard pressed to manage five. The reason I ask is I’ve got a little Elecraft KX2 four band CW rig. It was my first radio, and it’s tiny, so I carried it everywhere. I’m ashamed to admit it, but when I got the KX3, I all but gave up on Morse code.

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