I have been on hand for at least one Field Day that began on Marshall Ensor's birthday, June 22, but this year Field Day got going on the birthday of yours truly and my first one without my mother, Margaret "Peg" Nichols, KDØVQO, SK.
I decided to mark the occasion by having Price Chopper make a cake I could contribute to the evening meal on Saturday, June 27. So I had the bakery at the grocery store produce a cake with the theme for Field Day 2026, "Amateur Radio - A National Resource," written across the face of the cake. But I also had it add the original call sign of my Grandmother Yancey, W6VQO, the call sign of my Grandfather Yancey, WAØSUE, and my mother's call sign to the top of the cake.
I have been on hand for at least one Field Day that began on Marshall Ensor's birthday, June 22, but this year Field Day got going on the birthday of yours truly and my first one without my mother, Margaret "Peg" Nichols, KDØVQO, SK.
I decided to mark the occasion by having Price Chopper make a cake I could contribute to the evening meal on Saturday, June 27. So I had the bakery at the grocery store produce a cake with the theme for Field Day 2026, "Amateur Radio - A National Resource," written across the face of the cake. But I also had it add the original call sign of my Grandmother Yancey, W6VQO, the call sign of my Grandfather Yancey, WAØSUE, and my mother's call sign to the top of the cake.
I have Howard Cripe, NØAZ, to thank for locating my grandmother's first call sign and my grandfather's call sign in the ARRL archives. He was able to determine that my grandmother was known as W6VQO when she was on the air in Charter Oak, California in 1950. Five years later she was living near Mountain Home, Arkansas and was known as W5GZV. And 10 years after that she was a resident of Grandview, Missouri and went by K0SLI. This is the call sign she was using when she and Loretta Ensor, WØUA, were in the same women's net.
According to Howard's research, my grandfather was licensed by 1970 and used the call sign of WAØSUE while he was living in Grandview. My Aunt Carolyn, my mother's younger sister, told me recently that my grandfather occasionally took some ribbing as a result of the suffix for his call sign, SUE. You've heard the old Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue," right?