Tribute to Charles Morgan

Tribute to Charles L. Morgan - K1GZL
July 5, 1932 - March 22, 2024

He has been a personality on the air for many years and Nick LZ1JY used to call him Uncle Charley from LZ1KDP.
He has been my close friend from the early 1970's. He is known by many people with his very loud signal from wire beams. Jim WA3FET

“Charley, K1GZL, was a legend in Ham Radio for many years. He was most famous in the 1960's for running the Antarctic Phone Patch net where he made countless connections of people stationed in Antarctica to their loved ones back home via Ham Radio connected to the telephone network called a phone patch. He did most of this from New Gloucester, ME, and had a 3 element full size wire Yagi up on telephone poles there.

I used to listen to him even before I got my Ham Radio license, and when he would come on and tune up, then you knew it was him since his signal was louder than the Radio Moscow shortwave station. He sometimes would just come on top of Radio Moscow and would take them out.

When he moved to Berlin, NH, he put up a huge quad antenna on 20 meters beaming to Europe and Asia. He used to talk to Father Moran, 9N1MM, in Nepal on a regular schedule. Father Moran then came to visit him at his Berlin, NH, location. He had a schedule with a station in India that was only using curtain rods in his home for an antenna. That was how good his location and antennas were.

He also talked to the technical university in Sofia, Bulgaria, LZ1KDP, and all of the students there including Nick Ikonomov, LZ1JY, who still kept in contact with him until this day. They called him Uncle Charley since they admired him so much.

I got to meet him on the air in the late 1960's and kept schedules with him up until the present. He was a weather enthusiast and kept records of snowfall at his location for more than 20 years. His present location of Clarksville, NH, had an average snowfall over that time frame of 195 inches. Many times his forecasts for locations in the USA were more accurate than the mainstream weather forecasting services.

He was a master of wire beam antennas and had experimented with numerous configurations over the years. His method was trial and error and measuring the field strength with a hand-held meter tediously adjusting lengths and spacings until he peaked up his signal.

He was also famous for making recordings of his contacts and playing them back, first with a reel to reel tape recorder and then cassettes. He made many recordings of Capt. Mike Pelly, KX4WC, on many trips across the USA on a Boeing 767 aircraft in flight.

He was not a contester but allowed myself and Bruce Long, WA3PTU, to come to his Berlin, NH, location and do the Phone Sweepstakes contest in 1978. Most of the operation was on 15 meters only, and we were in the multi-op category. We set a record for New Hampshire in this category that still holds to this day.

Another highlight in the 1970's was talking to him on 80, 40, and 20 meters using the 1000 ft Arecibo dish on these frequencies. The dish was aiming straight up and had many bounces to get to him from Puerto Rico. It caused a huge echo effect. This was done with Rey Velez, KP4REY, and Angel Vazquez, WP3R, and myself from the control room of the Arecibo Observatory with a Collins KWM2 transceiver and 30L1 amplifier.

There are many more stories to tell but this will give a glimpse into some of the highlights of legend of Charley Morgan, K1GZL (Giraffes, Zebras, and Lions).

I was fortunate to visit him a half a dozen times in both his Berlin and Clarksville, NH locations.

His distinctive voice and great personality will be missed for sure on the air.
Prof. Jim Breakall WA3FET”

R.I.P Charlie, K1GZL SK. Condolences to all.
Ángel WP3R

WA3FET, K1GZL in 2018.

From Charley's QRZ.com page

Looking out over top of my QTH at early morning undercast down in the valley.

Looking up through 20 M Quad with snow and rime ice on trees.

Looking through center of antenna farm -- various antenna combinations.

Looking at moring undercast down the valley through bottom of last director of 17 meter six-element Quad.

Looing up the hill at my QTH with antenna farm on right and behind my QTH.

Looking at new 20 meter quad from front to back covered with rime ice from winter storm before Xmas 2015.

Looking thru new 4 element 20 meter quad with view down the valley in background (without undercast, see photo 1 & 4).

PERSONAL:

I was born in Elizabeth, NJ, July 5th, 1932, and lived there until went off to join the military. My first license was granted in 1948, and I have been active in amateur radio since then with the exception of a two year stint in the Navy. I joined the naval reserve in 1951 and went on active duty early in February 1952. My primary billet was a Code Tech (CT) and served in that capacity stationed first at Wahiawa on Ohau.

I served on three Essex class carriers during this period: the Lake Champlain - CVA 39, Kearsarge - CVA 33, and finally, the Essex herself - CVA 9. Our primary mission was to copy Chinese and Russion CW radio traffic off the coast China. I spent some time in Japan and loved to travel in that country when on leave. Our ships also put into Hong Kong, and I got to know that city while on leave.

After my discharge in 1954, I moved to Lake Mohawk, NJ and then SW Maine where I organized and ran the Trans Antarctic Traffic and Phone Net on 40M, providing a radio phone patch link between personnel stationed in the Antarctic and their families back in the U.S.

Subsequently, I moved up onto Cate's Hill (elev 1800') in Berlin, NH where I had an extensive multi element Quad antenna farm from which I worked stations around the world. After 10 years there, In 1982 we had the opportunity to move up here to Clarksville, NH (elev 2030') in the North Country of NH, where I have lived until the present. The view in the picture above is from my QSL card and was taken from the hill behind my house looking across the valley at the morning undercast toward the SW. My current QRZ picture was taken in October 2012 at age 80.

TECHNICAL STUFF:

In my shack, the principal radio is an Icom 7300 although I have a Yaseu FT-890 and FT-840 as backup. My exciter feeds a new addition to my shack -- a full legal limit Ameratron AL-82 amplifier. I normally run it below full capacity at 1000+W keydown. The mike is an oldie-but-goodie Heil Classic using the #4 element. I do not use a final tuner, so most of my antennas are cut for the advanced or lower portion of the respective bands where I operate most frequently.

My current antenna farm includes a mixture of fixed multiemement wire quads, wire beams, and dipoles aimed at the quadrant between NW and SW. The QTH is on the SW face of Ben Young Hill (elev 2400'), which does not give me a good shot into Europe, but it is an ideal location for communications with most of the U.S. and into Oceana and especially Austrialia and New Zeland.

On 75/80M I use a three element wire beam up at between 45-60' (the ground slope downward beneath them), which is centered on 3.720 Mhz. On 40M I use a three element, diamond-shaped, bottom fed wire Quad at the same height. Both of these antennas are vectored toward the U.S. southwest and on toward the South Pacific.

On 20M I use a five element (four loops plus a quaggy element up front), diamond-shaped, bottom fed wire quad. This antenna is positioned at the edge of a significant drop-off and aimed toward the southwest and eastern Austrialia/New Zealand. On 17M we use a six Quad similar to the 20M antenna in construction and azmuth.

Finally, we have a mixture of other antennas including an NVIS "cloud-warmer", 40M three element wire beam pointing vertically 90 deg straight up, for bouncing signals off the ionsphere to get into the mountain valleys up to a couple of hundred miles away. The last major antenna is a 13 element, rotatable 2M beam used principally for contacting distant repeaters around the North Country.

We're on the air most evenings between 0000Z and 0300Z on 80M (winter) and 40M (summers) plus different times in the morning or afternoon on other bands. If you hear me talking, give me a call, I'd love to talk to you. 73 . . . CharLEY (not ie).

Tribute courtesy of WA3FET, WP3R, K8CX
Photo of WA3FET, K1GZL and QSL card courtesy of WA3FET