K2SSB

Stanley S. 'Stan' Hazen
Charlottesville, VA

QCWA # 31163
Chapter 155
K2SSB - Stanley S. 'Stan' Hazen
First Call: W1SCF issued in 1949

I grew up in metro Boston. In 1926, my father went to M.I.T. as an undergraduate, and never left. {If you have access to any volumes of "Who's Who in America', for the ca. 1980 era, look up Harold Locke Hazen.)

My mother (born Katherine Salisbury), was born and raised in Syracuse, New York. In 1926, with a Phi Beta Kappa in chemistry from Mount Holyoke College, she went to M.I.T. as a graduate student! One of my father's roommates was a Syracuse friend of the Salisbury family. He introduced them, and they were married in Syracuse, and they remained married until his 1980 death. I'm their first-born (of four), born in 1929, in Cambridge.

As an early teenager, a good friend of my next door neighbor was George Russell Cogswell, Jr. His father, George Russell, Sr - who always went by Russ - was a long-time licensed ham - W1AJW. "One American Jaywalker". [George now has his call, and lives on the shore of Chesapeake Bay.]

Russ was very active, mostly on the "old" Five Meter Band - with a home brew transmitter that ended with an HY-75. He and his fellow hams called themselves the "Five Meter Minute Men"

I entered Williams College in 1947. Physics would become my major. One room in the basement of the Physics lab had been outfitted with a home-brew 1 KW transmitter - ending with a 250-TH. There were a half dozen graduate assistants, World War II returnees. So, naturally I became involved with the station,

My first try at the exam was between terms in 1947/48. Of course back then one had to appear in person before an FCC examiner - at 1600 Customs House, Boston. My first try was unsuccessful. I was just one character short of one solid minute receiving.

My roommate at Williams was John Brown - now an SK - W8DIW -"Eight Damsels in the Wilderness". I copied W1AW all the rest of the first half of the spring term, and, in April, appeared again before the examiner. This time I passed, and received W1SCF - "One Salty Cod Fish" - on April 25. I took and passed my Class A exam in Boston the next summer.

Operated only CW from Belmont, Mass, with a home-brew 6AG7/6L6/829-B - this last bought for perhaps $5 war surplus from the original Radio Shack on upper Washington Street, Boston. - it was a few years later that Radio Shack was bought out by Tandy Corporation, and we know what happened after that!

In 1957, having completed my Master's at Boston University - and married a year earlier, I moved to Rochester, New York to begin what would become 27 years at Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories. As you may recall, at the start of 1958 the FCC announced that, having been through the W's and K's twice in the Second Call area, it would begin issuing WA calls. As I certainly didn't want "one of them", I immediately put in for a modification (then mandatory if one changed call areas). What should come back - by pure luck! but K2SSB - the Advanced Class version of an expired Novice call. I was operating only CW at the time - the reaction of one SSB pioneer in Rochester - K2JFV - a Senior Research Chemist at KRL, was, "There's no justice - that this that call should go to a confirmed CW operator! {Actually, it rolls off of a "bug" quite elegantly!)

When I worked at Eastman Kodak I knew another ham radio operator who also worked there. It was Jack Williams - a Senior Research Chemist. It was he who was K2JFV, the sideband pioneer in the area. He prided himself in having the latest in Collins ham gear. Another man who, I think, worked closely with Jack was Louis "Red" Minsk, K2OUS - "Old Used Shoes". I got to know both of them in my earliest days, as they were good friends of my first office mate, K2RAA, John Marchant. John went on to be a Division Head in Kodak Research Labs, and, I think, probably dropped out of amateur radio quite early. I recall that Jack moved "back" to Alberta, but never knew anything further. **Ah, history!!!** Another man who worked right down the hall from my first job was Pete Trapolino, K2RIT. After I transferred to a different work section in KRL, in 1960, I lost track of both of them. I think that John, after he began to advance in KRL management, let his ham license lapse. I suspect that Jack became an SK some years back, considering that I'm now 90, and that I was 28 when I began work at Kodak.

My first wife died, sadly, in 1966, of metastatic breast cancer - leaving me to care for our six-year-old son. A year and a half later I married her double first cousin. She bore a daughter who'll be 52 in August. Before Ellen was born, my son was feeling very much "out of it", because all of his school chums had "baby sisters", and now he had one also. To this day they are very devoted to each other. That all that a father can wish for!

My second wife died, of cause unknown, in July of 1990, just a couple of months after Ellen graduated from college. So, I lived alone for five years. I met Sheila in July of 1995, singing choral music in SW Massachusetts.

She had been married right out of college, in 1964.They have identical twin sons, born in 1969. His first job, with a Ph.D. in English from Princeton, was with the English Department at the University of Virginia here. They split up in the early 1980s, and he is now mostly retired from the English Department at Harvard. Sheila has been here the whole time since they first came here.

Sheila and I met in 1995, singing choral music at a summer "Choral Festival" in SW Massachusetts. It "took" at once, and we were married here in July of 1997. Rochester or Charlottesville? As I had no particular attachment to Rochester, it made sense for me to move here, which I did, on 29 April/1 May 1997.

And talking further about "old times, you can find Charlottesville, Virginia, on any decent atlas. Its "Claim to fame" is that it is the home of the University of Virginia, which was founded By Thomas Jefferson. The home that he built for himself, Monticello, is just a few miles SE of the city. It is featured on the reverse of our 5-cent coin - he is on the front.

He did not want to be remembered as a president. His gravestone - at Monticello - contains the only things for which he wanted to be remembered - Founder of the University of Virginia, author of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Of course, before I moved here, all that I knew about Monticello was that it was on the "nickel" coin.

It turns out that Amtrak from New Orleans to Boston comes right through C'ville. It is diesel from New Orleans to D.C., but electrified from there north. Now that I have given up long distance driving - it's 2-1/2 days to Boston - we go by Amtrak. I have flown my last - at my age, I don't dare take chances with the reduced cabin air pressure. It is twelve hours to Boston, and, from Washington, D.C. north there are eats on board. No change of train going north, all the way to Boston. And my daughter Ellen meets us there - only seven miles from her West Newton home to the Westwood train station on Mass. Route 128.

As a side comment, during WWII, my father was on partial leave from M.I.T to the U. S. Government, working for the National Defence Research Committee - N.D.R.C. He frequently went to Washington. Being a scientist - an Electrical Engineer, he often "timed" the train - it frequently exceeded 125 m.p.h. I do the same, using a G.P.S. gadget. I "clock" the same speed, even along the Connecticut coast line! [Look up Harold Locke Hazen on the Web.]

On one of our last trips north - two years ago, Ellen was in Newark, New Jersey, being tele-recorded on CNBC. When we got there, we saw her on the "Telly" at their home. [She returned from Newark later that evening.]

Here in C'ville, we're only 60 miles WNW of Richmond. I have an outside rotatable beam antenna secured to a chimney, so it is 40 feet high. We get Richmond TV with 100% reliability. All we watch is public TV, anyway. Both Richmond and Harrisonburg - over in "The Valley - the Shenandoah Valley, west of the Blue Ridge - have local "translators" that carry their programming. [I think that we're just too far from D.C. to receive their stations directly. - probably 80 miles.]

We were initially hoping to go no north for the high school graduation of Ellen's oldest, Alexandra - or "Alex", as she prefers to be called. The Corona Virus has changed all of that!

As for what Kodak "is" now, there are probably several good summaries on the Web. Try looking for "Kodak Park" as well. In the early 1990s, Kodak declared Chapter Eleven. What was Kodak Park, which was originally park land, is now devoted to small fine instrument manufacture, I think.

And my ham call? Give up that delightful K2 call? Not on your life! So, here I am having turned 90 last summer! Hard to believe!

Everyone has a story, and this is mine!

73,
Stan

April 12, 2020