Dah-dit-dah-dit, dah-dah-dit-dah. The Morse Code stands for
“CQ,” amateur radio parlance for “is anybody out there?”
The late Prof. Ted Goble used that bit of code to begin his Friday evening “chats” with fellow “hams,” and by all accounts the
physicist's code was as precise and well-formed as his speech.
“His code was perfect,” recalls Bill Fairchild of mathematics,
himself a regular in the Friday evening sessions. “Some people never quite learn
their code. They mess up and they are hard to copy. There is an expression among hams that
someone is 'sending code with their left foot,'” said Fairchild, an
accomplished practitioner of the dots and dashes. “But we never said that of
Ted.”
The College's amateur radio station — W2UC — in Science
and Engineering N106, will be rededicated in Goble's memory on Friday, March 6, at
5:30 p.m. Prof. Goble's wife, Ethel, is to attend. The station will be in operation
during the rededication, with demonstrations of various forms of amateur communication.
When members of W2UC met on Tuesday to plan for the rededication of the
station, the talk drifted to Ted's willingness to help fellow operators, particularly
those new to the field. “Ted was a high-level physicist who would take the time to
help fellow operators,” Fairchild said. “He was a gifted mind who was oriented
toward service.” Goble encouraged a number of budding hams, and Fairchild himself
re-entered the field after a long hiatus thanks in part to Goble, he said.
Alfred T. “Ted” Goble, professor emeritus of physics, was
active in amateur radio most of his life and a longtime faculty advisor of W2UC. He died
March 12, 1997, after teaching at Union for more than 50 years.
For more information about W2UC, visit the Web site at http:w2uc.union.edu.