At age eighteen, and fresh out of high school, I took a job on a high desert cattle ranch east of Bend, Oregon. It wasn't large as ranches go - something less than a thousand acres with cattle and alfalfa. I was the sole hired hand and my job was baling alfalfa, debugging and feeding livestock as well as mending fences. Fencing was my favorite job. I set my own pace. The boss gave me a stakebed truck, posts, wire, and all the necessary tools. It was like having a part straight out of a Zane Grey Novel. Well, somewhat. The hours were basically dark-to-dark, always six days. Sometimes seven. My love life suffered, as did my wallet - $80 per month plus room and board. I'm now 83 and that experience has yet to be matched. In the big house a large window facing west offered a full view of the Cascades Mountain Range - Jefferson, Washington, Three Sisters, and Broken Top. There are seven in all. The other three names escape me (it's been 64 years). Shortly before sunup the peaks all turned blood red, then pink. Broken Top was not my favorite, but it always fascinated me. Something drastic had happened to it. Who knows when? Each morning, following breakfast, I studied that old mountain through field glasses and wondered. In 1980, twenty-four years later, Mt. Saint Helens erupted. Blowing out her side. After the smoke and steam cleared Broken Top had a twin.
Loved your story, Eric. Are you still in the Bend area? My oldest son lived in Bend for a couple of years but he's in the Portland area now. I hope you will share more stories.
Thanks for your kind words, Beth. No, my parents lived west of Bend in the valley. I didn't care for the valley, the smog, etc.. I have more stories, orphaned stories - air force, motorcycles ham radio and such. Some of them may fit here.
@Eric Brown I was raised on a mountain alfalfa and cattle ranch in Colorado, but after moving to Oregon I lived in the remote mountains and did some contract ranch work when the big ranches were short-handed and I was between jobs. I did a lot of swather operating and branding, castrating, and calving. A few cattle drives in the John Day breaks. That was all 30 years ago. Ham radio stories. I was never much of an operator but loved building radios ever since I was 6. My dad and one of his cousins were experimental hams and I loved the idea of making something and then putting it on the air. My final project was a commercial-grade AM shortwave broadcast transmitter and double conversion superhet receiver all vacuum tube in a 50's style. What little operating I did was mostly CW because I could call CQ without 20 stations trying to break in because of a female voice. I did AM just to test my homebrews. I became a Broadcast Engineer after high school and did that for a couple of years before FM and automation.
Wow! Very successful, you. Building a double conversion super het is quite an accomplishment. I understand your need for CW. One lady can cause a pileup. I live in an apartment where antennas are frowned upon. I've been experimenting with loops on 20 and 40. My wife has a pacemaker, so I've been operating QRP for the past couple of years. Not many war stories there Most of my non-ham radio experience was maintaining navigation equipment on B-52G and tankers. It was all tubes in those days. When I finished tech school I could maintain nearly all aircraft except for U-2 and the Blackbird. But sometime after I left solid state took over. Everything with microprocessors created a lot of complications. I like John Day. But I never lived there.
@Eric Brown Yes, apts are a problem for xmitting antennas. For 20 QRP a small magnetic loop might work, but they are very narrow bandwidth. I used the mobile heli wound whips with a metal base and they worked nice on 20 cw at 5 watts. I quit operating over 20 years ago so not really up on all the stuff they have out now. I got too depressed with all the Chinese made xcvrs and very few that cared to talk about homebrew. My favorite qrp transmitter was my homebrew 2E26 driven by a 6AG7. It was really stable if xtal controlled. I worked the world on 40 mtrs CW back in the day. Of course in the mountains, I had a Vee beam, basically half a rhombic and it was up at 60 fed with a homemade 600-ohm ladder line. Seriously try a mobile heli whip with a magnetic base on a 2-foot piece of sheet iron. I once used my steel patio table as a base on it worked great with a 1:1.2 swr over about 10 kc on 40 mtrs cw at 25 watts input and about 15 watts out on the old tube xmtr. I refuse to say hertz, it hurts me too much hi hi hi! I once could copy 25 WPM but now doubt I could do 10.
I've been up and down that Oregon and Washington country. Lived two years just south of Tacoma. Never lived in Oregon but did spend some time around Eugene. Good country.