W7PHO Net History

 HOW THE NET GOT STARTED

One night K7LAY, Bob Hudson, was listening to Bill, W7PHO, "chewing the rag" with VR4CB, Colin Blair, Honiara, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. This was on 15 July 1961. Since Bob was a relatively new DX chaser his tongue was "hanging out" so to speak. He broke Bill after his QSO was finished and about to close his station and as a result with Bill's assistance not only had a contact with Colin but received QSL shown below. Bill worked DX (a lot of it) night after night as other through out the states joined in the Family Hour DX Net was born. W7PHO, was not only helping his fellow hams work the DX, but acted as QSL Manger for the DX stations on the Net. This time Bill had a big Wilson beam at 85 feet usually headed west, Bob being his first Assistant Net Controller. With his 2 element Quad headed east he would relay the guys into the net. Bill ran the net with an iron fist and would really bring the hammer down on the hams that got unruly. When rare DX would show up. He would tell them to go watch TV or what ever and come back the following day. He never black listed a ham no matter how unruly they might have been. Bill would remind then what ARRL meant. (American Radio RELAY League.) In both Bob's and my opinion Bill's net was run, probably the best ever.

VR4CB QSL