Jack Kilby Weekend — October 12-14, 2001
Great Bend, Kansas
Communication with Outside Offices Made Possible by Stations in Great Bend.
Amateur short wave radio operators in Great Bend have been performing a valuable service for oil companies here and have been aiding the construction department of the Kansas Power company in establishing communications with offices in outlying territory as telephone communications were unable to be established due to weather conditions.
There are six amateur stations in Great Bend but those operated by J.R. Evans, 12th and Monroe, and Richard Livingston, 2717 Forest, have been ahndling the bulk of the work. However, the operators of the other four stations have been co-operating by offering their services after their regular working hours and loaning some of their equipment to Mr. Evans and Mr. Livingston. Livingston, who is employed at the Cook Furniture and Music company, was allowed to remain at home today from his work to take care of the messages radiating from Great Bend.
The amateur operators are working free of charge and donating their time. If they received any pay for the work it would be against rules and regulations, they stated today.
Most of the work is concerned with communications in nearby towns, although through contacts, messages to Tulsa, Chicago, Wichita and other cities further away have been sent. The communications are relayed in most cases because certain operators at various towns talk with operators in the larger cities at a scheduled time each day.
The Kansas Power company has been checking on the conditions of their lines through messages to Concordia, Jetmore and other cities. The Atlantic Refining company last night transferred information to Tulsa by means of the amateur short-wave stations. Return contact with Chicago was obtained in less than a half hour last night for a message for the booster station at Heizer. Some of the other cities contacted have been Dodge City, Hutchinson, Arkansas City, Winfield and Protection.
The operators of the stations are glad to aid any persons who have important message to send or desire to receive word. However the messages must naturally be limited to those of an important nature, otherwise the load would be too heavy, they said.
Weather conditions throughout Kansas, parts of Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado and Nebraska are much the same as they are here and telephone lines and some power lines are out throughout the area, they stated. Talking to Larned this morning, Mr. Livingston, said that drifts eight feet deep were being reported. Highway crews were attempting to open the roads blocked by snow drifts but they would fill up about as fast as they could be cleared.
Mr. Evans' station is W9DKI, and Mr. Livingston's is W9GWN. Other operators in Great Bend are: Charles Larkin, W9LDZ; Paul Suellentrop, W9TSH; Harold LaRue, W9TUG; and Rusty Daley, W9QZS.