"CW-DAVE....."
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I've known CW-DAVE for [pause while I'll pull out my abacus] 27 years now [ed. - where'd those years go by?] and he was my Elmer. I got a job in the early '80's as a computer field tech and he was one of those assigned to ride with me just to make sure I didn't blow anything up. The company sent me to their lengthy 4 week training class so when I returned I was filled with their mantra on repair which I took to heart and used on each call. I remember one specific service call on a paper feeder which had a history of failing every few weeks and Dave was riding along with me. Immediately I pulled out my VOM to check voltages when Dave kinda chuckled the way only Dave could do and looked to see what was so funny.
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"You know, there's a faster way to find the bad board so we can close out this call", he said, with a slight drawl.

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"What's that?" I asked

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Dave dug around in his portfolio case [he didn't like to lug around the 50lb case most of us did] and came up with a small paper clip. Bending it just so, Dave replaced the blown fuse with the paperclip, I put the thing back together and he told me that we could go now and would find out exactly what component was bad within a week - "The easiest way to find it was to burn it up" he told me, adding "And it saves on callbacks". Sure enough, about a week later the client called in a service call on the sheet feeder and sure enough there was a crispy board. I replaced the board and never got another call from them about that again.
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Some time later, after Doug and I figured out we were friends, we started driving around with mag mount antennas on our cars. Dave came up to us and said he had something to show us in his car. We followed him out of the shop into the parking lot and he opened up the door so we could peer in at his mobile radio. It was the strangest looking CB I'd ever seen and I figured it must be some strange gray market brand - "ICOM??", I thought, "What kinda name was ICOM?". That's when we found out that he was a HAM radio operator, and what we were looking at was a 2 meter FM mobile. Even though it was hot and humid outside our interest was peaked, and Dave gave us a demonstration by calling one of his friends who was down near NASA on a simplex frequency. I was amazed that he could talk that distance from his car and began to think H-A-M.
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Dave, knowing we were CBer's, would occasionally insert something HAM related into a conversation, and then one day when we were just riding around took us to MADISON ELECTRONICS in downtown Houston. Walking in my jaw dropped as I gazed at a ton of radios both new and used and when we began to drool, Dave knew he had us. It wasn't long after that when we started studying for our Technician license during lunch breaks, with Dave pushing and testing us all the way. Doug and I took our exams at the same time, passed, and got call letters very that were very close (KB5CEJ/KB5CEM). After that, he started teaching us Morse Code and after what seemed like a long bitter re-programming of our brains, we passed the 5wpm so we could at least talk on 10 meters.
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Throughout the passing years, Dave and I have kept in touch; he's always a good one to throw questions at, and if I wanted to know about what a certain radio was like he was the man to ask because CW-DAVE bought and sold radios constantly - always wanting to try something new. I would estimate that he has owned and operated at least 70% of all the HF rigs every made, from COLLINS and DRAKE all the way up to the latest and greatest. Even if we weren't friends, I'd give him the title of "THE HAM'S HAM" and I look forward to another 27 years of bugging him with questions.....
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73

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WOODY

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