QSL Card from Midway Island
Gooney Birds of Midway Island
Midway Island is actually Midway Islands, comprised of two distinct islands those being Sand Island (1440 acres at low tide) and Eastern Island (the smaller at 450 acres). In 1963 these two islands had distinct call signs starting with KM6. Two club stations existed on the islands with KM6BI on Sand Island and KM6CE on Eastern Island. Individual hams had KM6 call signs. Short story Midway stations (all 7 of us at the time) were a distinct radio entity and considered rare DX.
In 1963 I was a newly commissioned Ensign assigned to Midway and at that time was 21 years old. My first day on the Island I visited the Officers Club and was asked to show my ID. The bartender was an off-duty sailor who starts by saying: we don't serve underage dependents, and I said I am not a dependent where he said I need to see your ID. The next morning when we held "morning quarters" I could see the stark look of terror on that sailor's face when he discovered I was his Division Officer.
At this time, if you were a licensed ham and changed your physical station location you were required to change your call sign. My call sign issued 4 years before my assignment to Midway was K3IXU and the move to Midway generated KM6DD, a first-time issue of that call sign and my Midway call sign. Today there are many KM6 stations mostly in California. You no longer can visit Midway as it is a protected wildlife sanctuary -- but if you could the call sign is KH4. There are about 100 people on Midway today.
At first, I was excited about my assignment to a rare DX location and of course its historical significance that came with the island that occurred only some 21 years earlier. It took only about a week to discover that Midway was like a prison sentence.
You couldn't leave the island; there were limited facilities and only six single women on the whole island -- all schoolteachers. Of the six the two younger ones were booked for dates months in advance the two older ones were protected by nature and the two in the middle were in their late 40's, somewhat unattractive and looked shop worn. These schoolteachers were accorded "officer status" and lived in the BOQ (Bachelor Officer's Quarters) and ate in the officer's mess.
One of the two teachers in the middle group was also the home economics teacher. After about two weeks on the island at dinner one night she saunters over to the four-person table where I was sitting and introduces herself. She then asks the usual questions: where are you from etc. and then says I am the home economics teacher. Her next statement was I bake a lot of cookies so if you like chocolate chip cookies I am in room XXX. I thanked her for the offer and made a note about not going to dinner at that particular time ever again. Gulp she was my mom's age and really dumpy looking! Good thing I was a ham as I had a great hobby for a remote rare DX island.
BTW during that 13-month tour of duty I read 120 books and that was a diversion from the Home Economics teacher who undoubtedly had more than cookies on her mind.
The hobby side of ham radio was secondary to the mission of the Midway primary ham stations and that was phone patches Later I became custodian of KM6BI, and we were on the air 24/7 as there were 3000 personnel on Midway and ham radio was the connection to the outside world. BUT that was my 1st taste of the rudeness of some hams.
Often when calling CQ with specific emphasis on stations with phone patch capabilities at a desired location we would get a response from a strong station and after a brief signal report exchange, I would say here is the phone number. The response back was I don't have phone patch capability I just wanted a signal report from Midway. Often the person sitting right there in the shack who wanted the phone patch was horrified that they had queued up to get on the phone patch list and were in contact with a ham who could make a local call only to get such a big disappointment. Regrettably such contacts were often with stations on the east coast and in the 2-call area. A whole new meaning to NY Rude!
Midway of course is the home to the Gooney birds where two species exist in the island -- the Laysan and the Black Foot. There are birds on Midway that exist nowhere else in the world. So, yes bird watching yet another diversion from chocolate chip cookies.
There was a good deal of scientific study of the birds including one while I was there. The US Navy banded six Gooney birds and took them to Seattle where they were released. Three days later they all showed up on Midway -- they had a navigation system superior to anything the Navy had. Oh, another documented curiosity is that Gooney birds' nest within 1/2 yard from where they were born. That also is documented -- a built in GPS.
Like the Tale of Two Cities, my tour was the best of times and worst of times. The Navy Exchange (PX) carried but two sizes of everything. Yes, you guessed it: Too Small and Too Large. Sears catalog sales did a booming business on Midway. The Bank of America had a branch on Midway so you had checks and bank drafts where you could simply mail order and include a check. I even bought a VOM kit from Allied Radio using that system -- it was fast -- about a 3-week turnaround.
One thing I enjoyed was standing OOD duty. A Civil Engineer Corp officer is a staff officer and normally does not stand duty as the OOD. Because of the small number of officers on Midway this was an exception. Why I liked OOD duty was that I would inspect the main galley and ate a meal there. This duty I took seriously, and I made a full inspection and always gave high marks to the staff on the report that was submitted up the chain of command. The chow really was superb!
Typically, the last item on the duty list was a complete tour of the base at 2300 Hours. After my 3rd OOD tour, the Commissary Officer suggested I make a stop at the main mess hall as my last stop. I did that and awaiting me was a bag of hot fresh donuts -- what a way to end my tour. I learned a valuable lesson during my Navy years -- you treat people right and you get the benefits. Many of my fellow officers hated inspecting the mess hall and eating a meal there. Too bad guys, no donuts for you.
The not so good part of the OOD tour was those damn teenagers. The base XO had a teenage son who was always sneaking off to abandoned bunkers on the island for a bit of party time with the several YL teenagers on the island. The XO's XYL would call the OOD to find her son. The abandoned bunkers were great for what he was doing but dangerous because of their instability. I usually found him and suggested he go home. Now the tricky part how to include that in the incident report without identifying him. The code words used: unidentified teenagers were removed from abandoned bunkers. I guess the XO's kid never met the Home Economics teacher.
Them that know can make things go.
73's
Pete N6QW