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K7UGA QSL
Dear Avery,
I understand that you're looking for vintage QSL's. This one may be of interest since you are using Barry's S-Line. Barry was recovering the last men on the moon from the USS Ticonderoga. Worked him on 15 meters. He was using a Swan 500 & dipole, as I recall. I keep this one with my WZ6C/ST4 "camel mobile" card!
73, K0JS
We thank Jeff for sending in this wonderful vintage QSL card. "Vintage" ham radio operators like me and Avery certainly remember Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA, who was a very active amateur radio operator and had a large, well-appointed station at his home QTH in Arizona. What makes Jeff's card unique is that Barry was not at his home QTH when this contact was made, but out to sea on a recovery mission to pick up astronauts who had just made the trip back from the moon. In those days, the 1970s, there was no Space Shuttle and the astronauts had to "splash down" into the ocean, which provided probably the softest, safest way to get the Apollo capsule back onto the surface of the planet. Naturally, United States Navy ships like the Ticonderoga were needed to proceed to the most likely area that the capsule would splash into the ocean and be ready to pick up the astronauts and the Apollo capsule itself. What a thrill it must have been to work a station like K7UGA running Maritime Mobile!
