It started like any other morning on 3.965.
Coffee cups clinked, signals faded in and out like sleepy eyelids, and the old-timers checked in one by one—each with a good morning, a signal report, and a half-hearted joke about the price of eggs.
Then someone casually mentioned they had a doctor’s appointment the next day.
Then another chimed in.
Then another.
Before long, six operators realized they all had appointments in the same medical building—different floors, same Friday morning, same poor parking lot.
“Well, fellas,” said Old Roy (WX7NSA), “sounds like we oughta just call it a net.”
That would’ve been the end of it. A chuckle, maybe a joke about getting a group rate on colonoscopies. But unfortunately, Buzz Kill was listening.
“Back in my day,” said Buzz, keying up with his usual vigor, “you didn’t need fifteen doctors and three apps to check your blood pressure. You just laid down on a cold tile floor and let nature take its course.”
And just like that, the frequency was his.
For the next twenty-three minutes, Buzz lamented everything wrong with modern medicine: prescription refills, nurses under 40, digital thermometers, hip replacements, medical billing, parking garages, the scent of waiting rooms, and the moral decline of Jell-O flavors in hospital cafeterias.
Every time someone tried to sneak in, Buzz would rekey—usually right over them—and say something like, “And another thing about these wrist blood pressure machines—they’re in cahoots with Big Sleeve.”
By minute twenty-four, desperation had set in.
That’s when Jeff (A0AA) cleverly engaged in a side relay with Larry (K9NXR) on a backup simplex frequency. From there, it escalated into a full-on resistance movement. Duplex relays. Cross-band backups. Covert texting. Even Morse code on the old 40m keyer. The entire group silently agreed: if you can’t stop Buzz Kill, you go around him.
At 8:31 a.m., the plan was hatched.
“Gentlemen,” said Roy, now back through a whispered relay from Chuck on 2 meters, “we are gonna have ourselves a tailgater. Right there in the medical parking lot. Friday morning. Right after weigh-in, but before the prostate exams.”
“Copy that,” said Larry. “I’ll bring my old Drake TR-4 and two slightly used CPAP hoses.”
“Got a box of unopened syringes from my horse vet days,” said Mule (Q1XY). “They’re sterile… mostly.”
Jeff announced he’d be setting up a six-foot folding table with a pile of off-frequency HTs and an old knee brace labeled “AS-IS.”
Buzz, blissfully unaware, was now comparing medical billing codes to Enigma ciphers.
Roy suggested they use the rooftop of the clinic as a makeshift antenna ground. “We’ll string a G5RV between the urology wing and the MRI bay,” he said. “Good for NVIS, and the nurses can hang their scrubs on it afterward.”
“Hey, can I sell one of my hearing aids?” asked Reggie (KA2ZZ). “Only squeals on odd harmonics.”
Everyone agreed to bring lawn chairs and ID tags that read “Patient First, Ham Second.” They were to check in via clipboard and get a wristband showing their signal report from the last five QSOs.
By 8:45, plans were finalized. Flyers were mocked up over the repeater. Talk-ins would begin at 0730 local, net control to be established from the bloodwork line.
Then Buzz finally took a breath.
“I tell ya, fellas, there’s no fixing this medical system unless you rip it out by the roots. Which reminds me, I’ve got a mole on my back I’ve named after my ex-wife…”
But no one was listening anymore.
They were too busy prepping their mobile stations and digging through the garage for unopened boxes of orthopedic supplies.
And the next morning, in that sun-drenched Alabama parking lot outside Suite 304, as six old pickups backed into position with dipoles raised high and walkers for sale beneath pop-up canopies—radio signals once again carried what mattered most:
Laughter. Friendship. And a suspiciously clean bedpan labeled “collector’s item.”
