Autobiography


Right Place, Right Time

(As published in the May-June 2004 issue of "Random Radiation," the newsletter of PARG — Pacific Amateur Radio Guild.)

Introduction by Ferguson, the editor:
I have had the pleasure of knowing Bob for many years now, met him on the freeway one day.  He was /M CW going one way and I was /M CW going the other way.  He checked his map and picked an off ramp and we had our first eyeball following many CW chats.  Bob has been very kind to me and my family allowing us to converge on his marvelous ranch, stay in his house and use it as a launch point for diving on the Mendocino coast.  My daughter & son-in-law, 3 grand kids, nephew Colin (yes, the same Colin as in Donna’s novel “Troubled Waters”…) and his wife and kids, my sister and her husband, my bro Terry & wife… even Christine spent a week up there… the list goes on.  Some day I’ll have Bill K7ZED up there with us!!
       “Top of the World Ranch” is a magical place 1500’ above the town of Navarro, CA.  It sits on the ridge top and in that part of the world it is “The Top Of The World”.  Donna has taken some awesome pictures from there, pictures that appear as though there is not another human within a thousand miles!  Quiet and solitude are the word of the day.  Hikes on the 160 acres are in old growth redwoods, defunct apple orchards and wilderness.  There are all types of wildlife, birds and even bears up there.  It is indeed a magical place and Bob and his family are very kind to allow my family to come and stay on our trips to the coast.
      So, without further ado, here is a small amount of information about a very full and exciting life, here is Bob Zentner  . . . 

Right Time, Right Place

I'll start with how I got started in ham radio, and how it influence my entire life. 

I was born Dec. 22, 1917 in Bandon, Oregon. I had always been interested in code, from about the age of 9. In Bandon, all the spark stuff came over our old Atwater Kent BC radio. I was fascinated and wondered what they were saying.

At one of our local Boy Scout meetings — I was 11 at the time — a fellow came in and addressed the group. His name was Rex Topping, W7ML, and wanted to know if any of us would like to become a ham. He was the only one in town and needed someone to share his interest with. Well – I almost knocked him over with my eagerness and thence we were off. He was a first rate pal and completely took me under his wing. I think they are called an ‘Elmer’ or some such. So he built me a transmitter from his junk box. All I did was offer complete enthusiasm. I already knew the code from Boy Scouts and in short order, I could copy 25 WPM. Rex was a brilliant technician but the code came very hard for him (I could never quite understand this), but code doesn’t seem to have anything to do with intelligence!

Anyway, we got an end fed 80 meter Zepp with 12-inch spreaders soon going. Boiled slats in paraffin to weather proof them. I was 11 years old and got the call of W7BAW. Lost it after a few months when the Radio Inspector (RI) gave me the theory test. Missed one too many, damn it! Code was no problem… I later took it again and ended up with the call of W7DBR, which I kept for many years. I joined the AARS (Army Amateur Radio Service) headquartered in the SF Presidio and headed up by Capt. Wolverton. I was soon taking all the traffic for the Northwest and having a ball.

When I graduated from High School, I went off to Oregon State University to study Electrical Engineering. Even hauled my station out there and operated from the Fraternity House. However, after two years I yearned to travel so I entered the Western College of Radio on Larkin Street in San Francisco. Since the code was no problem, I was able to get my commercial ticket in four months and was ready to travel!

Now all I needed was a job. The job I had been promised by Robert Dollar on his round the world line was no longer available due to unionization of the Radio Gang, so one of the students at the Radio College told me he had a job being held for him over across the Bay at Pan American Airways. His father was head of RCA in New York and was friendly with Juan Trippe, head of Pan Am. He just couldn’t get the code and gave up trying. He took me over to Alameda and introduced me to Mr. Gray, the Assistant communications manager for Pan Am. After my interviews with Trippe, he said I was very lucky, as they had about five hundred applications for the job.

I started at $100 per month as an Apprentice. I was still only 19 years old! The year was Dec 1937 and I would fly with Pan Am until retiring in 1978!

(Right Place, Right Time… again!)

I couldn’t believe I was getting paid for such complete joyous fun. Big radios and all those knobs and talking to the Pan AM circuit and Clippers. Wow! After my eight-hour shift, I didn’t want to leave, so just stayed on, hanging around. They hardly knew what to do with me.

In two months, an opening came up in Guam and I jumped on it. I flew out to Guam on the China Clipper and helped out at the Radio Setup.


Bob in Guam, 1938. 

I was twenty by this time. I spent six months of fun at Guam and was then sent out to Manila for a couple of months as vacation relief for the gang out there, then was supposed to return to the States for reassignment. However, after I got to Hawaii I was offloaded, as the old M130 was having a problem getting across to SF against a headwind. They put me up in the Moand Hotel on Waikiki beach and I waited and waited for the wind to change. Finally, after a month, they called me and said I would have to return on the Matson Ship Line! Tough duty! So after I finally got back to Alameda, my boss said I now had to take a months vacation! Good Grief – I had just returned from a month on Waikiki Beach and why did I need a vacation? Nothing they could do—company policy.

I had planned on returning to Oregon State to complete my degree, but after all this, I sure changed my mind and stayed on with Pan Am for the next 39 years. I was sent to Honolulu for a year, then to Canton Island for six months. And then I was promoted to FRO (Flight Radio Office) and flew to Alameda as an assistant radioman. 

I had time off between trips, so I started working on my Commercial Pilot's license on the side. I transferred to Brownsville, Texas, to take my Commercial Exam as all flying had been terminated on the West Coast due to the War. 


Piper Cub

After I got my Pilot's License in a Piper Cub, Pan Am took me on as a pilot and I was transferred back to San Francisco to fly the Pacific again. 


China Clipper
I was a first officer on the China Clippers and the American Clipper — Boeing flying boat 314. That was a four-engine flying boat, Navy version. 


Boeing 314
I was a First Officer or copilot on all these. 

In 1943, I was sent to Miami to check out as Captain.

(Right Place, Right Time)

Before the War, it used to take a pilot at least twelve years to "check out," so you can see how the War expedited things. I was two years out of my Cub and ready to be a Captain on Douglas DC3's.

DC3

We flew those great two-engine, 21-passenger planes all over the Caribbean and South America.

While I was in California, I met Sharon, and we were married in 1943. Our first child, our daughter Sandra, was born in Miami in 1944.

When an opening came up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I jumped at the chance.

(Once Again: Right Place, Right Time)

I spent the next five years in Rio, 1945 to 1950. During my time off, I started a gold-mining company, and spent several years back in the interior of Brazil taking up old mines that had been abandoned by miners after a revolution down there.


Gold mining in Brazil
I was able to do all this on my time off and vacations between trips, and had enough adventures to fill a book. I'll save that for another time.

We had two more children in Rio, a daughter Robin and a son Perry. I transferred back to Miami in 1950. Shortly thereafter, I transferred back to the good old west coast to San Francisco to fly the Pacific. We bought a house in 1953, an old farmhouse on half-an-acre in the hills above the U C Campus. We remodelled it and are still in it over fifty years later. A wonderful place.

While I was in Miami, I had started Dayco Inc., a shrimp company on Key West, but left it with others when transferred back to San Francisco.


When flying out of San Francisco, I bought two apartment buildings and the "Top of the World Ranch," an old sheep ranch in the Mendocino county hills above the little town of Navarro. One hundred-eighty acres of ridge top, and a great ham location! Never ran any livestock, except for a couple of riding horses. Fergy and Donna stay there when they are chasing abalones on the coast, just a short drive away.

July 20, 1969: Bob's flight log, signed by Charles Lindberg, who was on the flight.
Note that Bob also noted that it was the day of the "First Man on the Moon."

I flew everything Pan Am had during the forty years I was with them, ending up my last ten years on the 747.

The Boeing 747, first flown in 1970.

Pan Am had the first Boeing 747's and I was in the first class to be checked out on this wonderful flying machine. I was check pilot my last fifteen years.

I retired in 1978 as FAA won't let a pilot fly the big ones after turning sixty. I was ready for retirement, having accumulated 35,000 hourse in the sky without denting a fender! I was happy to call it quits.

After retiring in 1978, Sharon and I started importing Japanese antique kimonos and tansus (wooden chests). We would fly over to Japan on buying trips, as often as four times a year. (One of our retirement perks: fly anywhere free!)

We would sell the stuff at art shows and flea markets — great fun. We did this until Pan Am stopped operating in 1991, and it was getting to be work anyway, so we "hung up the shingle." Since then, I have been a professional bum, I think it's called. Sharon has light Parkinson and I have louse macular degeneration and can't read well, but we are "upright" and doing OK. Don't get to the Top of the World Ranch much, as neither of us drive any more. But we still make it up there for the family 4th of July Bash. Have had that going for the past fourteen years. As many as fifty guests and their dogs. Games and barn dancing and good music and such. Great fun by all.

So, that's about it. Pretty much "stay-at-homes" now, as we don't travel anymore.

And this is also a good time to quit this, as I can't see what I'm typing! I hate to think how it looks.

73 de Bob Zentner W6UMP