Nothing Net History – K9SA SUHFARS
(contributed by Kirby Giampa W8CD)
The Nothing Net was officially created in the late 1980’s. A group of us used to rag chew on SUHFARS about 2100 each weeknight. We would often move our group around to other repeaters; testing to see which ones we could make. Besides 443.25, we also could be found on 147.12, K8IE in Crystal Lake. At this time, our UHF repeater was located on Renaissance Towers in Palatine.
In the group was myself Kirby (KA9UMJ at the time), Big George (Flannagan KE9BG), Bob Pasquale K9BBE and Bryan Wadsworth WB9MCW. George was a Jewel truck driver. He was delivering goods to the Northwest suburbs on his 3rd shift job. Bob worked at Channel 32 TV and would be heading downtown. Bryan and myself were usually at our homes. Occasionally Andy Wadsworth would also join us when he was home from college.
Repeater hopping was fun, although the reason we showed up was because each one of us was very vocal and had opinions about everything. It was always a positive and entertaining conversation. On most nights we ended by about midnight as some of us had to sleep for work the next day.
The net ran for several years and then eventually things changed. Mostly because Big George retired and was not on the road anymore.
The repeater also moved a few times and was now at RT12 and Palatine road at Atcher towers. We decided to run a weekly net. We wanted to be different than all the other nets on the radio, so we decided to call it “The Nothing Net”. The format was similar to the one currently used. We had check-ins, repeater info, stump the chumps, scanner freqs, radio wars, what is your favorite repeater and ask Elmer. Radio wars would be a challenge between 2 stations to see who had the strongest signal. Later it was eliminated because some thought QRM was in poor taste. “what is your favorite repeater” was fun too. We had auto patch (phone dial-out) on the repeater and we would randomly (sometimes not) dial people at home and offer them a free membership is they said SUHFARS was best. I don’t recall ever giving out a membership. One day we called Bruce’s N9KHR’s mom and she said FISHFAR. We all laughed.
Some of the first net ops were KA9UMJ Kirby Giampa (now W8DCD), N9KHR Bruce Brothers, N9QYI (now KG9JP) KC Ross and KF9PI Gary Hawkins (now N4FED). Times were slow back then. Sometimes we would not get any check-ins. The net was at 907 in the winter and then 1007 in the summer. Always moved to Monday on holiday weekends. Bruce decided to make an opening/closing recording for the net. This is the same one you hear today. Bruce also created a wave file called “worm watch”. You may hear that on the repeater from time to time.
Now here in 2024, the Nothing Net is a staple of our club. We never knew it would last this long and I don’t see it ever ending. Radio-On my good friends,
73, Kirby Giampa W8DCD