A Ham's Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas,  
And all through two-meters,  
Not a signal was keying up  
Any repeaters.

The antennas reached up
From the tower, quite high,
To catch the weak signals
That bounced from the sky.

The children, Tech-Pluses,
Took their HT's to bed,
And dreamed of the day
They'd be Extras, instead.

Mom put on her headphones,
I plugged in the key,
And we tuned 40 meters
For that rare ZK3.

When the meter was pegged
by a signal with power.
It smoked a small diode,
and, I swear, shook the tower.

Mom yanked off her phones,
And with all she could muster
Logged a spot of the signal
And the DX Packet Cluster,

While I ran to the window
And peered up at the sky,
To see what could generate
RF that high.

It was way in the distance,
But the moon made it gleam -
A flying sleigh, with an
Eight element beam,

  And a little old driver
Who looked slightly mean.
So I thought for a moment,
That it might be Wayne Green.

  But no, it was Santa,
The Santa of Hams.
On a mission, this Christmas,
To clean up the bands.

He circled the tower,
Then stopped in his track,
And he slid down the coax
Right into the shack.

While Mom and I hid
Behind stacks of CQ,
This Santa of hamming
Knew just what to do.

He cleared off the shack desk
Of paper and parts,
And filled out all my late QSLs
For a start.

He ran copper braid,
Took a steel rod and pounded
It into the earth, till
The station was grounded.

He tightened loose fittings,
Resoldered connections,
Cranked down modulation,
Installed lightning protection.

He neutralized tubes
In my linear amp...
(Never worked right before-
Now it works like a champ).

A new, low-pass filter
Cleaned up the TV.
He corrected the settings
In my TNC.

He repaired the computer
That would not compute,
And he backed up the hard drive
And got it to boot.

Then, he reached really deep
In the bag that he brought,
And he pulled out a big box.
A new rig? I thought!

A new Kenwood? An Icom?
A Yaesu, for me?!
(If he thought I'd been bad  
It might be QRP!)

Yes! The Ultimate Station!
How could I deserve this?
Could it be all those hours
That I worked Public Service?

He hooked it all up
And in record time, quickly
Worked 100 countries,

All down on 160.
I should have been happy,
It was my call he sent.
But the cards and the postage
Will cost two month's rent!

He made final adjustments,
And left a card by the key:
"To Gary, from Santa Claus.
Seventy-Three."

Then he grabbed his HT,
Looked me straight in the eye,
Punched a code on the pad,
And was gone - no good-bye.

I ran back to the station,
And the pile-up was big,
But a card from St. Nick
Would be worth my new rig.

Oh, too late, for his final  
Came over the air.
It was copied all over.
It was heard everywhere.

The Ham's Santa exclaimed
What a ham might expect,
"Merry Christmas to all,
And to all, good DX."

(c)1996 Gary Pearce KN4AQ
Permission granted for any print
or electronic reproduction.

A Ham's Midwinter's Night Scene
- or -
'Twas the Flight Before Christmas

Written by Chuck Gysi, N2DUP with extreme apologies to Major Henry Livingston Jr. (1748-1828) (previously believed to be by Clement Clarke Moore)

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the shack
Not a radio was on -- anywhere on the rack;
The antennas were tuned by the op with care,
In hopes that DX soon would be there;

The harmonics were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of tropical isles danced in the op's head;
And mamma with her logging pen, and I in my call-sign cap,
Just settled in for contesting after a short nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the shack to see what was the matter.
Away to the antenna farm I flew like a flash,
It looked like a scene right from TV's "M*A*S*H."

The moon on the breast of the slick coating of ice
Gave the appearance of what didn't seem too nice,
When, what to my wondering ears should appear,
But the delightful sounds of DX, almost too near,

With a quick fix to the downed long wire,
I got back to the shack; but had a quagmire;
More rapid than pileups, the call signs came,
But the out-of-turn DXers called; much of the same;

"Now, second call district only, now third," the DX station called;
"How about Europe only; now South America," he apparently stalled.
To the top of the log, to the top of the pile,
Stations made it through the hash - with a flick of the dial.

Along the ladder line, the signals did fly,
When they met the inverted vee, they flew to the sky,
So up to the 20-meter band I tuned the dial,
Looking for DX and contesters to add to my log file.

And then, in a tweak, I heard the call -
The prefix didn't match any I've ever heard.
As my XYL scribbled the call in the log – NP0LE,
We knew right away who this matched to a T.

He said he was air mobile, and he signed slant V02
His voice seemed to indicate he was in a hurry, too;
A bundle of toys he said he had in his sack,
Including some called Icom and Kenwood – with a power pack.

His signal increased as we chatted away,
The distance was lessening, not to our dismay.
As we exchanged our 5-9s as the morning neared,
He said those words that we had feared.

It was time to shut down; turn off the amp,
Finishing logging and turn out the shack's lamp;
For soon in our town, a visitor would arrive,
And we were still too awake and alive.

We hurried out of the shack, flew up the stairs,
Headed straight to bed without any cares,
We knew the time was drawing quite near,
That some new toys would arrive – and we left him a beer.

On the scanner that sits right next to our bed,
"I'm entering RST's air space," we heard as he said;
It was time to fall asleep; think of the packages we would find,
But as I laid there, I couldn't get it out of my mind …

I needed his QSL card, the one for aero mobile,
I'm sure this op's card would be anything but dull.
And I heard as I started to drift into a daze,
"Good DX to all and to all Happy Holidays."

 

Copyright 2002 by SCAN Communications Co.. – www.scancomm.net
Permission granted for non-profit print or electronic reproduction only as long as this copyright notice is replicated word for word. Author’s e-mail is N2DUP@arrl.net

If you are or were a sailor, you will probably like these by author unknown:

TWAS SHORTLY BEFORE CHRISTMAS
AND ABOARD THE FORRESTAL
CQ HAD NOT SOUNDED
WE WERE HAVING A BALL

UP ON THE FLIGHT DECK
PLANES SPOTTED CLEAR
THE FLIGHT DECK OFFICER
WAS CHECKING THE GEAR 

WHEN DOWN FROM THE NORTH
ON A COURSE STRAIGHT AND TRUE
CAME A TWENTYFOUR TRADER
AND HER WHISKEY CREW

THE GEAR WAS ALL SET
AND TENSIONS WERE HIGH
IN THE HOPES THAT ST. NICK
PLUS TWO WAS NEARBY

THEN LOW ON THE WATER
WHAT SHOULD APPEAR
BUT A CHARLIE ONE ALFA
APPROACHING THE GEAR

WITH PRECISION AND SKILL
THEY CAUGHT NUMBER TWO
THE FLIGHT DECK BECAME
A HULLABALOO

UNLOADED IN A SECOND
AND STRAIGHT TO THE WAIST
BECAUSE OF HIS LIST
HE HAD TO MAKE HASTE

THEN LAYING A FINGER
ASIDE OF HIS NOSE
A THRUST OF THE CAT
AND SKYWARD HE  ROSE

UP ON LAND LAUNCH
AS HE FLEW OUT OF SIGHT
CAME “MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT”.

WHEN DISCOVERED BY RADAR ABOUT FIFTY MILES OUT
SANTA’S CHARLIE ONE ALPHA, WAS COMING ABOUT

WITH A CAGE FULL OF GOODIES, AND HIS HELPERS TWO
HE WAS ABOUT TO SET DOWN FOR THE INDY CREW

SORRY SANTA, THE LSO WISPERERD INTO HIS EAR
AS HE TOOK IT AROUND, WITH EIGHT BOLTERING REINDEER

ABOARD THE INDEPENDENCE, THE TENSION WAS HIGH
IN HOPES THAT ST. NICK WOULD NOT PASS THEM BY

THEN LOW ON THE WATER WHAT SHOULD APPEAR
BUT SANTA’S CHARLIE ONE ALPHA MAKING A SECOND TRY FOR THE GEAR

AFTER TRAPPING AND TAMING AND UNLOADING WARES
WITH A TWO FINGER WIND UP, HE CLIMBED UP THE STAIRS

AS HE ROSE TO THE SKY, HE WAS FUMNIN AND FRETTIN
THIS WAS BOUND TO BE ONE FLIGHT HE’S NERE BE FOGETTIN

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