Del Sawyer, foreground, and Marty Peters in action
A Special Operating Event at Ensor Park and Museum marking the 81st anniversary of the presentation of the 1940 Paley Award to Marshall Ensor, W9BSP, brought several members of the club to the site Saturday, June 4.
But the "star of the show," if you will, may well have been the club's mobile trailer, which has undergone some important changes in recent weeks thanks to Greg Wolfe, KIØKK, former club president, and others who have helped him with the project.
Before club members Marty Peters, KEØPEZ, secretary-treasurer, Del Sawyer, KØDDS, Bob Shaumeyer, KCØTZX, and Robert Orr, KCØKDG, ever took to the airways in search of contacts using Marshall's pre-World War II call sign, W9BSP, they were given a tour of the new-look trailer by Greg, who basically showed the operators and/or loggers what had changed on the interior and how they could best go about using the available space to their advantage.
Over a period of approximately three hours or so, our hams made 20 single-sideband contacts in the U.S. on 20 and 40 meters, and Del hooked up with two European special-event stations on 15 meters, one in England and another station in Italy.
Meanwhile, Jeff Darby, KSØJD, club president, Larry Hall, KDØRIU, vice president, and George McCarville, WBØCNK, were busy nearby teaching a class in basic antenna construction techniques, and on to the north in the parking area for visitors to the Ensor home there was a planned trunk sale going on, but the sale, unfortunately, failed to generate much interest on the part of both would-be vendors and potential shoppers.
The Special Operating Event slightly overlapped the four-hour period during which members of the club served as tour guides for the Ensor home for the first time in 2022, a responsibility that Howard Cripe, NØAZ, has taken the lead in coordinating on behalf of the club.
It was from the cozy Radio Room inside the Ensor home that Marshall taught radio by radio during the months of December and January from 1929-1930 to 1940-1941, thus enabling thousands of people to get their amateur radio licenses. Many subsequently served as radio operators and technical specialists in the Armed Forces during World War II, and some went on to put the skills and knowledge they had acquired to good use in the private sector following the war.
Because of the significant supporting role she had played in Marshall's "Teaching Radio by Radio" lessons, filling in as needed as a substitute teacher, Loretta Ensor, W9UA, Marshall's younger sister, was invited to come to New York City to see him accept the Paley Award on June 2, 1941, during a gala ceremony in the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.