Gift to

Phot o E. The AB C " That's Incredible" crew prepares Sheila 's segme nt of the M ay 12,1980
show.
heavy crossw inds wou ld affect
her co urse. This cou ld
be dangerous because now
t he track officia ls were
wanting her to run with
other competito rs on the
track. We were able to ge t
them to a llow us to have
the lanes vacant on either
side of her and this was
so me co mfo rt, but the first
track meet with other
competito rs on the track
brought a lot of stress. This
was only the second time
she had run t his way, the
first time being on t he day
befo re in practice.
At this meet, Sheila ca me
out of the starting blo cks on
a diago na l! I lost my coo l
and shouted too loud into
t he mike, overmo dulating
the transmitt er and disto rting
the signal in her receiver;
Sheila kept ru nning.
When she came to the grass
at t he left side of the track
she t urned and ran until she
hit th e grass on the right
side, then turned again, got
to the end of the track, and
finished a respectable third.
She was d isqu alified, and
the offi cial s asked the other
girls if t hey wanted to run
the meet over . They declined,
with on e of t hem
as king, "What good wou ld
it do? I co uld n't get nea r her
anyhow !"
It's a good thin g She ila
co uld n't see during t hat
particular run, as I'm sure
s he wo u ld h a ve been
scared pea green. I was ! She
missed kids, hur dles, and
t rack officia ls. Later , I
learned to keep cool and
control my voice, and this
served me very we ll when
one tim e she was within two
inches of a curb and r was
able to get her away from it
ve ry slowly and avert possible
injury.
The thir d year (1979) we
rea lly had a lot of problems.
It wa s practice in the
aft ernoons and sit up every
evening repairing the rece
iver-it was ag ing and
had los t its sensitivity. Components
we re deterior ating
rapidly. I ma de a trip to
Ron's, and the decision was
to work the receiver over
co mpletely and put an AM
receiver chip into it. This
meant more stripping of the
existing components and
changing the bat tery vo ltage
to 9 volts. This worked
for a few weeks, but the
main problem was in the
first mixer stage and the
coils were not availab le.
We were at t he ea rly sta rt
of t he official practice
se aso n. Alo ng with th e
miserable co ld and snow,
the rad io wasn't wo rking
the way we need ed it to
wo rk. The o riginal de sign
required a long trailing antenna
in free space. We
stuffed a pair of three-foot
pieces of wires down her
shirt-one in fro nt and one
in back . Bein g in such close
pro ximity to her bod y affec
ted the receiver ver y adverse
ly. This, cou pled with
the age of t he receiver and
the reduced power of the
transmitter, made fo r some
ov erwhelming prob lems.
Ron w as on the verge of
s t r ip p ing o ut a n o ld
Motorola pager and putting
it o n two meters FM, but
during a quick conve rsation
wit h Dick Bugler of the Des
Moin es Mot orola sa les office
, I to ld him of ou r dilemma.
Dick was ab le to loan
me the necessary commercia
l gea r to keep She ila running
fo r th e rest of t he 1979
trac k season.
Th e commercia l gear
wa s on 155.58 MHz and,
with the exception of an occasional
bit of commercia l
traffic, we did n't have any
QRM problem s. Whenever
so methi ng did co m e
through we just waited. Fo r­
tu nate ly, there was n't any
inte rference during a meet.
We had ear mo lds made fo r
her an d th ese, along with
t he c o m m e rc ia l ' ge ar ,
proved to be an unbeatable
combination! This was the
year she wou ld be first in
her heat and her time wo uld
go from 14.06 to 13.8 for the
1DO-meter dash. This was
still junior va rsity track , and
she tu rned in some very
go od pe rfo rma nces. She
still had not gained the
abili ty to rem a in co m­
plet e ly in her lane, but
there were no serious problems.
The local news med ia
gave us excellent coverage.
The local ABC affil iate,
wor, Channe l 5, televised a
meet which interested the
netw ork enough to send a
news crew ou t from Chicago
on May 15, 1979 . This
appeared o n ABC news
May 17 and was picked up
by Dav id Hart m a n on
"Good M orning, Ameri ca"
the next morn ing.
Now t hings were happening
fa st and furious because
after " Go o d Morning,
America," Mo to ro la had
tak en a very act ive interest
ir r Sheila. Motorola sent a
film crew and a public relations
man to make some
film of o ur projec t. They became
very excited and decided
to tak e Shei la and her
fami ly to Fo rt Lauderdale,
Florida, where they presented
her with a pa ir of the
ne west MT 500 han d ieta
lkies alo ng with a Pageboy
II receiver. Wow, did
we have the gear l (The gear
w as placed in the amateur
band for us and we op erated
o n 147.99 MHz .) She ila
received a letter in track for
her efforts that year, and
that, a lo ng wit h a ll th e coverage
we recei ved and the
suppo rt of Motorola, rea lly
40 73 Magazine· October, 1980