Friday, November 15, 2013

W9BSP: A HAM'S HAM, A TEACHER'S TEACHER

     His name was Marshall H. Ensor.  He was a shop teacher in Olathe, Kansas; except for a stint traning radiomen during WW II, he spent most of his life there.  He spent it talking to the world and not just idle chatter, either -- Marshall Ensor (and his sister Loretta) spent evenings sending code practice and "teaching radio by radio," a free-for-the-listening lecture course over the powerful W9BSP - W9UA transmitter.
     I'd read all this in back issues of ARRL's magazine QST.  What I didn't know is the house where they lived is now a museum and the grounds around it are a park.  That big transmitter, in its fine-furniture cabinet, is back on the air again.

     As a shop teacher, he reached thousands.  There's no way to know how many people, all over the world, he taught about radio.  Tens of thousands?  (This modest man admitted in a resume sent to the U. S. Navy, "Reputed to have trained more radio operators than any other individual in the United States.") And all from a farmhouse in Kansas.