Turkey Takes Toll on Ham

SAUSALITO, NV – A local ham radio operator has been cited for careless and imprudent radio operating by the Federal Office Responsible for Monitoring All Transmissions (FORMAT).

This photo of “Chick” Brown shows him asleep in his shack, while cradling a dual-band HT.

Robert “Chick” Brown dozed off during the 40 meter “Thanksgiving Day Net,” a traditional radio gathering since 1942, where hams “check-in” to offer thanks for the blessings of the past year.

As Junior Thompson offered thanks on the net for the blessing of his Kenwood TS-990 due to a large worker’s comp settlement check, Brown’s VOX opened up and he was heard snoring with 1500 watts P.E.P. delivered into a 7-element Yagi.

In a prepared release, the National Radio Retransmission Legion (NRRL) defended Brown’s indiscretion, saying it was directly related to the amount of turkey consumed immediately prior to the net and that the broadcast was purely unintentional. (Reporter’s note:  the chemical tryptophan-L, found in turkey, can induce sleep when ingested in large doses.)

FORMAT says agents immediately received world-wide complaints about “the buzz-saw noise” emanating from North American shores.

NRRL spokesman Johnson Longfellow says the “…combination of turkey, dressing, cranberries, Watergate salad, and candied yams played the devil with Brown’s metabolism, placing him in a stupor seldom paralleled in the annals of modern medicine.”

For their part, the local ham radio club “Emergency Response Team” was called away from their Thanksgiving tables and placed into action to triangulate the origin of the signal and shut it down.

Brown has 45 days to file an appeal with the Federal Office Responsible for Monitoring All Transmissions, but the sleepy ham says he’ll “…probably just pay the fine and move on, since Junior will spot me some left over worker’s comp money. And maybe I will try not to eat so much turkey next year.”

By WBØRUR, on the scene

 photo credit: GeekGuy via photopin cc