{"id":3689,"date":"2021-05-08T13:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T03:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2021\/05\/08\/chuck-penson-wa7zze-heathkits-and-the-titan-missile-museum\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T15:54:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T05:54:22","slug":"chuck-penson-wa7zze-heathkits-and-the-titan-missile-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2021\/05\/08\/chuck-penson-wa7zze-heathkits-and-the-titan-missile-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Chuck Penson WA7ZZE, Heathkits, and the Titan Missile Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"247\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uH9FegYLQYM\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"440\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/WA7ZZEshack_photo.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"597\" data-original-width=\"799\" height=\"299\" src=\"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/WA7ZZEshack_photo.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p> WA7ZZE Shack<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>The video above popped up in my Facebook feed today and reminded me of Chuck Penson WA7ZZE. <\/b><b>Chuck is the author of a wonderful book on Heathkits (and several other books). <\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><br \/><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b>The Titan missile explosion (not of the warhead) in Arkansas is described in an excellent but horrifying book entitled &#8220;Command and Control&#8221; by Eric Schlosser.<\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion\/dp\/0143125788\/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&#038;keywords=Command+and+control&#038;qid=1620478171&#038;sr=8-4\">https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion\/dp\/0143125788\/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&#038;keywords=Command+and+control&#038;qid=1620478171&#038;sr=8-4<\/a> <\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><br \/><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b>PBS made a video out of the book. You can watch it here: <\/b><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/video\/american-experience-command-and-control-film\/ \"><b>https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/video\/american-experience-command-and-control-film\/ <\/b><\/a><\/div>\n<div><b><br \/><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b>Here&#8217;s an interesting article on nuclear weapons tourism. It has a great title. <\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/01\/05\/travel\/escapes\/05atomic.html\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/01\/05\/travel\/escapes\/05atomic.html<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/video\/american-experience-command-and-control-film\/ \"><span style=\"color: black;\"><br \/><\/span><\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><br \/><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b>It is easy to see how an interest in ln old technology would lead someone to both Heathkits and Titans. I get that. But on the other hand the Heathkits and the Titans are at completely opposite ends of the humanity spectrum: Heath made friendly technology that ultimately brought people together on the ham bands. We know that the Titans were supposed to do. <\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><br \/><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b>In any case it was great to be reminded of Chuck WA7ZZE. We last posted about Chuck more than 10 years ago: <\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><a href=\"http:\/\/soldersmoke.blogspot.com\/2009\/08\/chuck-penson-heathkits-nukes-and-qrp.html\">http:\/\/soldersmoke.blogspot.com\/2009\/08\/chuck-penson-heathkits-nukes-and-qrp.html<\/a><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b>In a comment to that post, Steve &#8220;Snort Rosin&#8221; Smith WB6TNL noted that Chuck had spoken at the 2009 CactusCon hamfest, and that the club pledged to put his presentation on-line. But Google and I can&#8217;t seem to find it. Do any of the Scorpions or anyone else out there know where Chuck&#8217;s hamfest talk is? <\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><br \/><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b>Bob KD4EBM has been out there. He reports that hams can bring their rigs and make use of the <\/b><b>Titan site&#8217;s large Discone antenna:<\/b><\/div>\n<div><b> <a href=\"https:\/\/titanmissilemuseum.org\/museum\/ham-radio-operators\/\">https:\/\/titanmissilemuseum.org\/museum\/ham-radio-operators\/<\/a><\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WA7ZZE Shack The video above popped up in my Facebook feed today and reminded me of Chuck Penson WA7ZZE. Chuck is the author of a wonderful book on Heathkits (and several other books). The Titan missile explosion (not of the warhead) in Arkansas is described in an excellent but horrifying book entitled &#8220;Command and Control&#8221; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2021\/05\/08\/chuck-penson-wa7zze-heathkits-and-the-titan-missile-museum\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Chuck Penson WA7ZZE, Heathkits, and the Titan Missile Museum&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,100,409],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heathkits","category-old-radio","category-penson-chuck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3691,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions\/3691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}