[Dixielandjazz] Red Blanchard

[Robert Ringwald]

Don Kirkman wrote, replying to my post about Red Blanchard:

> Hey, Bob, all I can do is simply repeat what I wrote in 2007 when Red
> was mentioned in DJML:
> 
> Thanks for this post, Bob.  You've made my day - no, my year.  I had
> the best of all possible worlds in the 1950s, living in Berkeley and
> Marin County, listening to Red Blanchard and Bill Weaver on local
> radio and catching Jim Hawthorne with T. Ernie Ford from Pasadena via
> the evening long skip.  I gradually lost track of all of them but
> Tennessee Ernie. I knew Red was a ham, but I'm not sure I ever knew
> his call.  And I've still got a few years to go to match his 60 years
> under license, but I look good to make 50 years in a couple more
> tries.  [Nov., 2010:  I did make it.  :-)]
> 
> These guys and others like them were my idols and mentored my musical
> tastes.  'Tain't their fault I turned out the way I did.  Musical
> fillip:  "Turn your radio on!"
> 
> Old age brings pleasant memories, sometimes of things that really
> happened.
> -- 
> Don Kirkman
> donsno2 at charter.net



Don,

Red's ham radio call was W6QYR.  Sometime in the 1960s he was able to change it to W6AG, the call letters which he has today.  

Before 1941, he held a ham radio license in  New York.  It would have been a W2 call.  

Red is still very sharp and very active, both on the ham radio bands, as well as on the internet.  




--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
530/ 642-9551 Office
916/ 806-9551 Cell
Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV

There are two rules for success:
1.  Don't tell all you know.