Silent Key
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When an amateur operator dies, the callbooks mark the callsign Silent Key. The license lapses, the antenna comes down, and the gear turns up on a hamfest table with somebody else's name in the log. The same thing happened to the companies that built it. Heathkit, which taught a generation to solder. Collins, the gold standard. Hallicrafters, National, Hammarlund, Drake, E.F. Johnson. Lafayette and the catalog that came before RadioShack. The Trans-Oceanic that heard the world. The code test that stopped mattering in 2007. Most of them did not fail on the merits. They were outbuilt, largely from Japan, and the hobby that fed them stopped taking in beginners. Period catalogs, FCC dockets and the filings. New film every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
