The Mueller-Harder Family

Today, Karen and I drove to New York to attend John’s award dinner. Neither of us was quite sure what to expect, as we have no experience with either pollsters or fancy award dinners in New York City.

The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research was awarding John for his 1973 book, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion. John used based much of the book on public-opinion poll results archived — mostly on IBM cards — at Roper, Gallop, and other sites. This was long before the internet, so “sites” of course means boxes and shelves and filing cabinets at each of these organizations. (The Roper Center was at that time still located at Williams College in the beautiful but out-of-the-way town of Williamstown, Mass.) John was one of the first to use archived Roper Center data (in the case of War, Presidents and Public Opinion to compare the progression of public opinion through the Korean and Vietnam wars); the data had hitherto been considered ephemera.

Karen and I had a delightful time, met many fine people, ate delicious food, got to spend a little time with John, and met some of Warren Mitofsky’s family — practically neighbors of ours, from Montpelier, Vt. Bryan Mitofsky owns the not-to-be-missed Coffee Corner.

It was a fun evening, and definitely worth the drive down to “the city.”

Clara showed up in the FCC database today — as KB1POW! Her first contact was with Timothy (KB1NBR) on 70cm. Yea, Clara!

Clara’s school picture.

After many hours of study — both on her own and with each of the other family members, — Clara passed her FCC Amateur Radio exam for a Technician’s license. We’re all so proud of her!

Special thanks are due to local Volunteer Examiners in the area, Fred Messer WA1LIE, Jo Messer KB1EPT, Carla Straight KB1MFQ, and Ken Blair KB1GPQ for their flexibility and encouragement.

Now we just wait for Clara’s new call sign to show up in the FCC ULS database.

This appeared in the May, 2006, issue of the ARRL’s QST magazine:

“This is the special event station K1D I put together for the 24th Milton Hamfest and ARRL Vermont State Convention in February. The station was manned (kidded) only by under-18 operators. From the left: Timothy Mueller-Harder, KB1NBR (age 8); Ron Rossi, KK1L, control operator, and Erik Mu[e]ller-Harder, KB1NBQ, Timothy’s father. Erik and Timothy had just gotten their licenses the week before.”
— Carl Dow, AB1DD

937A PST MAR 29 63 0B053 BC189
B LLC049 PD WUX BOSTON MASS 29 1207P EST
ERIK HARDER
  262 28 ST OAKLAND CALIF
DEAR ERIK: WELCOME. CANT WAIT TO MEET YOU — GLAD DADDY MADE
IT. MY LOVE
  JANNY

JANNY
(31).