First off- a disclaimer to what I am about to write…..
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*** I do not condone it! Do not say that Coyote advocates it! This is for educational and illustrative purposes Only!
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(Geeeez, I hate to do that, but there are some donkeys out there that take everything seriously

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Okay….
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Unlicensed ham operation is as old as the first radio amateur. The term was- is- “Boot Legging” - and unless you are a real novice to the hobby, I’m sure the term is familiar. Not familiar with it?…well then- Bootlegging is borrowing someone’ call, or inventing your own- it was not uncommon in ham radio’s past… I don’t know where the art is today. I imagine with the instantly accessible data banks it would be more awkward than in the 30’s and 40’s- but radio enthusiasts are clever little buggers, so I can’t say. I will hazard a guess, however, that the first licensed ham talked to unlicensed ones for a long time before things settled down.
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Personally I have know quite a few, today very proper and law abiding hams that started out as Boot Legers. Did I talk to them on the air ?? I take the 5th.
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I have operated ham stations all over the world- A few were from locations that I was given a tacit nod of approval by someone in questionable authority to use such a radio. I would select my own callsign, and go on the air- all the while thinking (knowing) it probably was not up-and-up legitimate. … borderline bootlegging.
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Like a story?-- This one is from my grandfather. He was B24 bombardier, 8th Air Force in WW2 -stationed in England.. He was not an AF radio operator, but he was a ham. He told me some evenings he’d spend in the radio shack on his base, listening to what swirled thru the ether in war torn Europe…. the radio operators in that station, also hams, giving him free access to the equipment.
One evening he was listening on a guarded command frequency (guarded in that it was listened to by everyone, but only certain traffic ventured on it.)
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Background: This was in CW days so everything was code…. Everything Ham was forbidden… Hams all over the world were off the air. Only military traffic was heard.
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Back to the story--- my grandfather called over the radio operator in the hut to ask him what he made out of the signal he was hearing. It was distinctive “CQ.” The sending station sign’d with a couple letters, initals? they thought………………. and
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Someone broke silence and answer’d. A ham QSO was taking place.. Mind you, with bookleg’d/invented callsigns. Within minutes, other stations joined in. My grandfather and the other radio op looked at each other-- and they join’d as well. All strictly forbidden.
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He said that for the next couple of hours all of Europe came alive, as hams from both sides of the war became hams again-
for a brief moment, the war stood still.
Of course no one used their real calls; they had to QSY all over to talk- the QRM was just like they’d known in the Good Old Days.
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Eventually some super power’d command stations came on frequency and stopped all the fun- but I am sure there were hams that remember’d that night all their lives.
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…………..Hee hee….. I have a bit of that pirate blood in me……..

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………………..CF