Ansoms, Charles

WB6YCT

N0KIX

A Tribute to Charles (Chuck) Ansoms

Chuck, as everyone knew him, was the consummate communicator. Having been a radioman in the Navy during the latter part of World War II and during the Korean conflict, he was a natural for the MARS program. After his stint in the Navy, however, Chuck started his own construction business and on the side became a ham radio operator. I’m not sure when he got into the MARS program, but I first met Chuck in May of 1972 when I became the Director for the 11^th Naval District NAVMARCORMARS, N0ASE. At that time Chuck was the District Coordinator, N0ASE1. I asked him to stay on as ASE1 during my tenure and he literally became my right arm, besides doing all of the other things that he did. (Note the call sign. That was before they ruined them by adding all of those N’s in front of it.)

When Chuck wasn’t running mainline MARSGRAM traffic from Nam, he was running phone patches from everywhere else. I don’t think there are too many folks anywhere that don’t remember him from that time. There also weren’t too many folks that he didn’t know, either by name or by call sign or both. He knew virtually every telephone switchboard operator in Southern California and from a lot of other places too. Between him and his wife, Marie (Toots), they passed thousands upon thousands of MARSGRAM for which, I’m sure, there are many grateful people out there for that.

Chuck was a big guy, probably well over 300 pounds, but he was just as pleasant and nice as the day is long. Hardly ever was there a time when he got his feathers ruffled. He would run traffic until he would almost fall asleep at the mic, and sometimes he even did that. He just never stopped to take a breath. He remained as my ASE1 throughout my tenure as N0ASE from 1972 until I retired from the Navy in 1976 and, I believe, he continued on in that role for some time after that as well.

I got a call from Toots sometime in 1983 and she informed me that Chuck contracted leukemia and was not expected to live too long after that. As was expected, I received that awful phone call a few months later in March of 1984 from Toots telling me that Chuck’s key was now silent and he had passed away. He was only 58 and still had a lot of living to do. I was a pall bearer at his funeral along with a few other close friends.

A better friend no one could ever ask for, nor a better communicator. He always kept the mainline open from not only Nam, but from Korea and Japan as well. He was also a backup for the MARCORPSMARS and the Air Force MARS for traffic. I, for one, will always miss my dear friend, Chuck.

In honor of my good friend, Chuck Ansoms,

Jack M. Hughes, RMC/USN (Ret.) (WB6SOI/NNN0JMH)