With permission from Eric, I really enjoyed this article..



O.O.

By

Eric P. Nichols, KL7AJ



I don’t know what possessed me to become an O.O. for the second time…some thirty-five years after the first time. No, O.O. does not stand for Office Obie, though at times I did feel like him. It’s for Official Observer, sometimes affectionately known in our world as a “radio cop.” It was a thankless task, fraught with danger and despair, but someone had to do it.

Now, at this juncture, in good cop drama tradition, I’m supposed to say something like, “The names were changed to protect the innocent,” but I won’t, because they were guilty.

It was a dark and stormy night…no, actually, come to think of it, it was broad daylight in the middle of summer, not too long ago, when I was scanning the bands in search of a potential perpetrator. It had been a quiet week; nothing more demanding than sending out a few reminders about band edges and identification…and an expired license or two. I was looking forward to nothing more than a quiet weekend with the XYL.

Fate had another idea in mind, however. As I was about to end my beat that Friday afternoon, making one more pass across the bottom of 40 meters, the signal slapped me upside the head like a wet towel in a junior high locker room. The kind of signal that showed an O.O. what he’s really made of. I was reminded of Thomas Paine’s famous words, “These are the times that try men's souls.”

It was a dreadful signal, vaguely resembling a bludgeoned and senseless corpse of CW. It was smothered in a horrifying porridge of key clicks, chirp, and raw A.C. hum, all at the same time. I hadn’t heard the likes of it since the Cold War days. I found myself both terrified and intrigued. I was ready for a fight.

I steeled myself for the confrontation that surely would ensue. Any man who had the audacity to present such an abominable signal on the air would be capable of anything. While normally, I would simply fire off a postal missive reminding the miscreant ham of his wayward ways, this…this called for real-time interdiction…a phone call.

I checked the federal database for the call sign, which despite its horrendous on-air form, was reasonably intelligible….KL7DIL. It would take all the self-restraint I could muster to not remind him that his call sign was LID spelled backwards. The poor sap in question was a James Hartley….an ironic name for someone with the most unstable oscillator I’d ever heard. It was a local call. I shuddered at the prospect that this ham lived somewhere in my town.

The call went down like this:

“Hello?”

“Is there a James Hartley there?”

“Speaking….”

“Mr. Hartley. This is Eric Nichols, KL7AJ. I am the official observer for this region. Do you have the amateur radio call sign, KL7LID?”

“Uh….yes. Is there a problem?”

“I believe there is. I have been monitoring your signal. It has an utterly unacceptable amount of chirp, key clicks, and A.C. hum, and other minor defects too numerous to count. I won’t mention your so-called fist.”

“Oh my. Are you going to revoke my license?”

“No, Mr. Hartley. That’s not my jurisdiction. I’m just here to warn you that you are being watched.”

“I’m terribly sorry. I haven’t been on the air in forty-five years, and I’m a little rusty. Maybe my rig is a bit rusty too. I’ll look into it right away.”

”That would be wise, Mr. Hartley. I won’t take any more of your time. Thank you for your cooperation.”


I could hear the beads of sweat dripping from the poor sap’s brow as he hung up the receiver. It was far too easy. I was expecting much more of a fight. Something gnawed at the back of my brain as I shut down the rig and headed for the kitchen. Something just didn’t sit right, and I knew I’d have to figure it out, or it would eat me alive.

I tossed and turned that night like a mouse at a cat convention. The XYL evicted me from our love nest to spend seven tormented hours on the living room sofa. I had to remind myself that I had asked for this job. Twice.

The alarm clock rattled me out of my dreamless slumber….or my slumberless dream. I still don’t know which. It was seven in the morning. I slapped the clock into stunned silence and staggered back to darkened shack, driven by an unseen force. I fired up the receiver and spun the dial to 7.060 MHz…the scene of the previous day’s crime.

To my bleary amazement, there was KL7DIL in QSO with a ham in Detroit…and his signal was just as clean as a hound’s tooth; his keying as precise as a Chopin etude. It made no sense. There was no way our friend Hartley could have cleaned up his act so fast. I’d had a few boat anchors of my own in my day, and I know they just didn’t come back from the morgue smelling like a petunia. Hartley was up to something.

I deduced that there was no choice but to pay a personal surprise visit to the enigmatic Mr. Hartley. I had to know what his racket was. At least I had his address. It was in an ancient downtown section of Fairbanks…a place once known as Sourdough Slough. I hadn’t been there in years. For a brief moment, I considered bringing in some backup….but then my senses returned. This was my battle, and my battle alone.

It was a tense drive across town; I still had no idea what I’d encounter. As I neared the Slough, I kept my eyes peeled for a telltale tower. Not too surprisingly, I came up bupkis. This crank was keeping a low profile. I had to rely on the address, 904 3rd Avenue. It was a shabby little hovel…but so was every other house in the Slough. I parked across the street from the residence and trained my spy goggles on the sky over Sourdough Slough. It took but a moment before I spotted the wire running between the chimney and a birch tree in the back yard. Guilty as charged.

I put away my spy goggles and exited the old flivver, taking a quick glace behind me as I crossed the road. All was clear. I approached the rickety wooden gate guarding the walkway to the front door, I scanned the premises for vicious guard dogs…or neighbors. There were none.

I stepped onto the porch and rang the doorbell. A faint female voice inside said something indecipherable. A moment later the door opened, and I was greeted by a gray- bearded sourdough-looking feller…appropriate for someone living in Sourdough Slough.

“Good morning, Mr. Hartley. I’m Eric Nichols. We spoke yesterday.”

“So we did,” said, Mr. Hartley, suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”

“As I said yesterday, I’m an Official Observer. I’m here to observe.”

“Officially?”

“No, actually. You just got my curiosity glands wobbling a bit. I’m just a fellow radio amateur.”

“Ah. Well, I suppose it’s only right that I show you some ham hospitality. Would you care to come in and…um…er…observe, Mr. Nichols?”

“That would make my day, Mr. Hartley,” I said.

The mysterious Mr. Hartley led me down some decrepit stairs to the basement, where surely I would be greeted by a room full of boat anchors. As my eyes adjusted to the near darkness of the dungeon, the mystery deepened. There was nothing to be seen but a starkly modern radio station, equipped with a half dozen of the most modern-looking computer controlled rigs.

“Where are all the vintage radios?” I queried.

“I have none,” Mr. Hartley said. “What you see is what you get. After I got back on the air, I decided to go completely high tech. Life is too short for….well, too short for much of anything, I suppose.”

It takes a lot to confuse this old sleuth, but Mr. Hartley had me at a disadvantage. I couldn’t recall the last time that had happened.

“How do you explain your horrendous signal yesterday?” I further queried. “And, even more, how do you account for your astounding improvement this morning? I was….observing.”

Mr. Hartley directed me to a well-worn swivel chair at one of the computers. “Take a seat, Mr. Nichols.” I complied. Mr. Hartley proceeded to light up a pipe. “Mind if I smoke?”

“No, I don’t. Go ahead.”

“Good. Cuz’ it wouldn’t make any difference, anyway. This is my house and I smoke when and if I want to. And I want to.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

Mr. Hartley took a few drags on his pipe and exhaled some smoke rings, thoughtfully.

“The last time I was on the air, it took everything I had to put out a decent signal. I spent a few decades working on power supply filters and VFO temperature compensation, and keying wave-shaping. I had achieved perfect T9 signals the hard way…before I went QRT back in 1966. That’s a whole ‘nother story in itself. Well, when I finally got back on the air a few months ago…started listening around….I noticed that everyone had perfect T9 signals. I did some poking around and learnt that the kids these days are all using software defined radios. They all were putting out perfect T9 signals with no effort at all. Well, I figured I wasn’t all that decrepit yet, so I came up to speed pretty quick on some of this SDR business.”

“So I see,” I said. But I didn’t.

Mr. Hartley went on. “So, after I figured out how to make a computer do radio, I started putting out easy T9 signals myself. But pretty soon I discovered that none of these SDR radios have any character. They all sound good, but they all sound the same. And furthermore, it occurred to me that a lot of these whippersnappers have never even heard anything but a T9 signal. So I decided to fix that.”

“So you found some old boat anchors and put them on the air?”

Mr. Hartley laughed. “No, no no! I simply reconfiggered these SDR radios to simulate chirp or key clicks or A.C. hum. It’s a snap to do this with just a few keystrokes!”

I scrunched up my brow for a moment in disbelief. “You mean you use SDR technology to intentionally create radio defects that hams have spent decades trying to eliminate?”

“You got it, Mr. Nichols! Isn’t technology wonderful?

Mr. Hartley grabbed a mouse and clicked on a virtual slide potentiometer on one of the displays.

“I can create drift…a little or a lot.

He clicked on another slider.

“I can dial in a little A.C. hum….or completely unfiltered half-wave rectification.

He clicked on another slider.

“I can make upward chirp or downward chirp.”

He clicked on yet another slider.

“I can make tiny key clicks or I can make big ones. Or I can do all of them at the same time. Shucks, I can simulate a full-blown spark transmitter, if you like.”

“No, I don’t like. But I’ll take your word for it,” I said. I heard the horror in my own voice.

“Would you like to see more?”

“Uh, no thank you. I think I’ve seen enough already.”

“Well, suit yourself. I think you’re missing out on some great technology. Never too old to learn.”

“Thanks but no thanks, Mr. Hartley. I’d best be on my way,” I said. I staggered back up the creaky staircase and saw myself out of the house. As I regained my senses, I realized this was one for the books. I also realized it was time to resign my second term as O.O.

As I said, these are the times that try men’s souls.

Remind me, if someone asks me to be O.O. again, I should respectfully decline.

Funny story, to be honest I did not even know there was such a thing as an O.O.  

Based on what I hear at times on the radio it seems that they do not have enough of them lol.  

And, if someone called me or came to my house and was not with the FCC and could prove I am not sure I would talk to them.

The OO card I received in the mail several years ago for "out of band" operation is one of my favorite QSL reports.    

Contesting near a band edge (with an SDR) got me that card.

I got an OO card a few years ago... out of band, I was working a contest, clicked a spot, called, got a report, gave one, moved on.... a few days later I get a post card. The contact was worth it. ;)

I haven't seen anyone ask for the flowgraph...?

I understand the OO critiquing a poor signal, but the comment in red seems rather rude, to me.  And even if his fist was that bad, the OO should have approached the operator with a more constructive attitude, offering advice and help, rather than snide remarks.

Frankly, I'm glad he's not an OO anymore.

I've received two OO postcards so far. One was a hand-slap for not ID'ing perfectly every 10 minutes. I perversely found it immensely satisfying for some reason. I guess it can be fun to be bad

The second was even more of a surprise. It was an attaboy for having an extremely clean signal and exhibiting outstanding operating practices. I didn't even know they gave out attaboys!

Nevertheless, OO's seem totally superfluous, and even a bit ridiculously childish, to me.

They remind me of hall monitors or taking names when we were in grammar school.

FWIW, i've always thought there is no such thing as a perfect operator.  Everyone makes mistakes.  As long as its not deliberate or malicious, let it slide.

Does this mean that most other stations have a 10 kHz wide signal and have no clue about operating practices? Them OO guys need to get a life. LOL.

I've gotten more than a few OO cards.

I deserved all of them, except four... :P


One was for "operating with more than the minimum require power" which made me laugh, because a third party gets to decide my ERP now? (contact was a 70+ year old guy working in a national forest, on 2w with an antenna that was probably better suited to a HT. He kept asking QRO.)

One was for "failure to identify every 10 minutes" when the QSO didn't last 10 minutes (I have logs).

Two for "operating too close to the band edge" which boggles the mind.



Yes, so many of the OOs are like that. There was a local who was an OO for a while. He used to get really angry at people dead keying the repeater.

I need to step up my game a bit. I dont have a O.O. card.

I got an OO report card once for being out of
band

my rig was stock, not mars modded

some people need to get a fuckin life

Attached File

Believe it or not. I was on an international flight from the Dominican Republic that landed in Charlotte. Obviously we had to go through customs and passport control. So we got off the plane and were walking through a long corridor to get to the passport control first. Naturally, people pulled out their phones and were making calls.
There was an older fat guy sitting there, in a small chair, yelling at people: "This is a secure area, no phones with cameras are allowed to be used. Put down your phones!"
Imagine what would happen is a foreign spy took a picture of the long, empty hall!

I call this a Barney Fife Syndrome. I'm sure that guy got an "Atta Boy" for "doing his jAb"

here's mine....

Post your call sign and I can get you (from a later poster's specimen):

Frequency Instability.  I've been wanting to DJ the big knob while transmitting.  I could call it spread spectrum experimentation.  Like DJ Jazzy Jeff on the tuner.

Chirp.  I could definitely play recordings of parakeets for the OO's pleasure.

Hum.  Oh yeah!  I can hum a GREAT ditty.

Key clicks.  No problem there.

Broad signal.  I'll go AM at 100W right next to a rare DX pile up.

Distorted audio.  That's what my AM will sound like when he tunes it in SSB.  I could really overmodulate my AM and see if I could take up an extra kHz too.

Over deviation.  See the AM thing.

Out of band.  I'll tune my wacky overmodulated AM right at the band edge.

Improper ID.  Been wanting to CQ as the "Rubber Duck" calling "Pig Pen" on overmodulated AM while scratching the tuner knob.

Language.  That Duck does have a foul mouth.

Causing interference.  NO!  I'm just using AM which is perfectly allowable on 20M.

Carrier?  Why yes, my AM does have a beautiful carrier doesn't it?

Other.  I think I could add greatly to this list if I wanted.


Yes, this is totally in jest!