[Dxbase] Mention of Gus Browning

Thu Dec 1 05:42:16 EST 2005

Boy that brought back some memories.
What a operator Gus was.
No disrespect to today's dxpeditioners, but that was in the day of 'big box' separate 
receivers and transmitters.
No computers for logging. No corporate sponsorships.
He was a one man operations, carting all that equipment around to some of the most (even 
today) rarest of DX locations. And cases of Coca Cola, which was all he drank on those 
trips. (Avian wasn't available back then <grin>)
I always wondered if he took the bottles back for deposit?
And what a cw op. Gus would usually transmit around .022, listening up.
He had the uncanny ability to pull out 2 or 3 calls, and send.
"WA9VOL, W9XX, W9YY, all 599 K"
Then he would handwrite the logs and take the next couple.
For hours on end till the pile vanished.
I can't remember if he used a bug or keyer, keyers were still pretty big boxes back then.
He would take 'Real Tailends', not today's "I'll call constantly no matter who he came 
back to" you hear so often today.
In fact, if you called out of turn, or when he asked someone for a repeat, you got a stern 
reprimand.
Gus gave me quite a few new countries, and you never had to worry about getting a qsl. I 
never got to meet Gus in person. Always regretted never getting a chance to shake his 
hand.
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There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can't.
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Bill H. in Chicagoland