total.pardo

[From 75 METER SOUND BITES]

w2jtd, from work, shared this site with me.

this one is precious - “cq to nobody” “you go back to the days of silent radio…”

some of the other sound bites are hysterical - the audacity of some hams kills me. but is it something deeper?

this qso got to me:

“…let me ask you a question, uh, do you have a perceptual disability of some sort that prevents you from understanding english?”

“i don’t know of any, but if i do, will you still be a friend of mines (sic) too?”

“ok, well, since you don’t know of any, let me tell you one more time. when i call cq, i am not calling you. and if you continue to return my cq’s…i will complain to the fcc, and i am sure they will be happy to follow up on my previous complaints.”

“ya, no problem. cq is the biggest thing in ham radio, not only calling cq but answering cq’s - so - you wouldn’t rob me of my pursuit of happiness, would you?”

“look, ok, you can pursue your view of the world, and, um, just be warned.”

of course, i wanted to know more about the people behind this qso. one of them is a professor (the one questioning the caller’s perceptual abilities). the other is (rather was) an interesting fellow (the one quoting the declaration of independence). so much so that i needed to find out more.

a quick google search on w2vjz yielded fascinating results. Irwin L. Richardt had a fair amount of detractors. the fcc was high on that list.

first, to eham.net (for better or worse, my first stop - there are more than a few of you who may chide me for visiting that bastion of insanity and righteous indignation) where i learn about a warning noticed issued by riley hollingsworth in 2004 advising Richardt of complaints against him and tape recorded evidence regarding his rule violations. for every one negative comment about Richardt, there was at least one “attaboy.” interesting. if Richardt was such a LID, why would anyone take up for him? even on the den of miscreants that is eham.net.

then there was this youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZd2NsO7aD4

telling this ham lived in a place called liberty corner - the quick documentary details his run ins with the law over the removal of drainage marker sticks from his property, his talking on the radio, and conversation with neighbors. the rat hole gets deeper.

the US constitution ordains you and me and every American to be empire busters…

Richardt was a radical constitutionalist - one of the youtube comments - from the poster of the video, extolled the virtues of the man:

Yes Irb was a very unique individual. I used to talk to him on the ham radio back in the late 70s. It was like talking to Thomas Jefferson Irb was a radical constitutionalist. Some found it annoying but I always found it interesting. He was never mean spirited or rude, just firm in his beliefs. Yes, it is sad he died back in December 2006 RIP Irb

then there was the qrz.net forums - for every one detractor, there was one defender. amazing dichotomy.

As far as having friends, Irb Richardt received over 2000 write-in votes for the mayoral election in his town a few years back. Local folks were always stopping over his place to visit. Grade schools regularly scheduled class trips to his home for the kids to see the maple sugaring process which went on yearly. This was just not some lonely person sitting behind a worn-out DX-100 all day.

i found another link that reprinted local obituaries in its threads.

i looked back over my log to see if i had ever made a contact with this character. unfortunately no. i wish i had.

this leads me to ask - would a book about hams of this ilk make sense? could it be “sexy” enough to sell a few copies? i mean, the audience would be the few, like me, grab at the threads of information around them - leading to deeper ratholes such as this one. my initial feeling is there would not be enough audience - and there would be MORE than enough material to fill the pages. do you have a story of a “colorful” ARO? an operator who was misunderstood, a purposeful lid, perhaps another radical loner?