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W4IZ MILK WAGON

Herb, N4MJN brought a copy of November 1969 QST to the last meeting. Included with the 1969 Field Day results on page 59 is a picture of the W4IZ communications truck with the Gator Bowl in the background--taken using a fish eye lens.  

W4IZ finished sixth nationwide in the three-transmitter category with 13,790 points and 1902 contacts.

In the mid 1960s, NOFARS member Johnny Anderson, WB4GCM owned a refrigeration repair business and Foremost Milk was one of his customers.

He talked Foremost into donating an old surplus milk truck to NOFARS.  Johnny and several other members equipped it with an array of gear including amateur TV.

But insuring the vehicle was expensive.  The truck broke down several times and getting it back on the road involved considerable effort and money. 

The June 1969 Balanced Modulator reported "plans are being discussed to 'sell' the NOFARS communications van to the City of Jacksonville for $1, President Harold Hobbs, WA4VZF, announced recently.  NOFARS would retain exclusive operating privileges from the multi-transmitter vehicle as well as control of its use in all except major emergencies.  Harold says the transition would be made so that NOFARS will not have to bear the burden of licensing, maintenance, insurance and operation of the vehicle."

The truck broke down several more times.  Its final breakdown was on an out-of-town trip when NOFARS assisted astronomers during a total solar eclipse on March 7, 1970.

Amateur Radio operators went to eight observation points which were set up along the eclipse line in northern Florida and southern Georgia.  Florida locations included Steinhatchee, Perry, Madison and Jennings with Georgia observation points in Waycross, Haylow, Offerman and Jesup. 

The February 1970 Balanced Modulator reported that "NOFARS role is to provide a communications network with a base station here in Jacksonville to keep master time with WWV or CHU.  Exact times are very important to astronomers when phenomena of this type occur.  Also it is very important that scientists are at a location free of cloud cover.  With NOFARS providing weather reports from the different locations, the best spot can be selected hours before the eclipse.  A bus will then take scientists to the best location."

After the eclipse, one participant, NOFARS past-president Landon Hoyt, W4PLE reported in the May 1970 Balanced Modulator--"we started the big day off by setting up Harold's (WA4VZF) station at the Gator Bowl.  As the sun came up, we gathered weather data for the Jacksonville Astronomy Club and issued final instructions to eight observation stations set up along the centerline of the eclipse."

The operation went very well.  Participants in the ad hoc net marked exact times for eclipse totality.  Audio recordings of the net were submitted to the Naval Observatory for detailed, scientific analysis, according to W4PLE.

Lan concluded that "the entire event was a credit to the amateur fraternity." The sunlight went away around 1:30pm and so did the first W4IZ communications truck. Lan reported that "W4IQT, WB4GCM and WB4IAG rode in the club van and K4YLE backed them up in his mobile unit in escorting a convoy of buses to Waycross, Ga.  Unfortunately, the club van suffered an engine failure on the way which forced it to be left behind."

The city towed the truck back to Jacksonville but the eclipse project was the last gasp for the W4IZ communications truck. That final breakdown turned out to be beneficial.  A better W4IZ communications vehicle would soon be outfitted.  I'll write about W4IZ Communications Truck II next month.

PRECISE TIME: Today we take correct time for granted but keeping time was comparatively crude in 1970. Most watches and clocks were seldom even close to keeping time to the exact second.   At WJAX AM/FM radio where I worked then, we had to use an elaborate analog clock wired into a Western Union network so that we could backtime our commercials and station IDs to slide into NBC network news exactly at 00:00 straight up on the hour.  Even with that expensive system, it was challenging to run a tight show.  The system corrected itself every hour or so by causing the minute hand to sweep around the clock dial. And the clock's second hand would jump around too.  A weird sight to see.

SOLID STATE DIGITAL CLOCKS: These didn't become common until several years later.  Early basic solid-state digital clocks cost around $100. Heathkit sold them and I remember NOFARS awarding one as a door prize.  $100 equals maybe five or six hundred dollars today.

Plug-in digital clocks used the 60 Hertz power line as a calibration standard so these maintained reasonable accuracy but DC powered ones used a reference quartz crystal oscillator and accuracy depended on the quality of that oscillator.  Phase locked loops were not yet perfected in consumer equipment, and these oscillators often were drifty.  This caused accuracy to suffer.

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