Ham Radio Story Project

On About.Com, Mary L. writes about her experience with “haunted ham radio.” She writes,

The next day, sometime in the early evening, I plugged the radio into the wall and began tinkering with it. Then, the most terrifying thing happened. The static faded completely. The silence came back on as did the sound of breathing. Suddenly, the creepy voice of a man came on and said, “Hello, little girl.”

Yipes!

When I was 3 years old, my father VU2DCT was preparing for HAM Radio exam. He was doing practice of morse code. I was feeling irritating, and requested him to stop working with such an equipment which only creates noise. I said  ”why are you creating noise which has no meaning”. He smiled and said “son any sound becomes noise for us when we don’t recognize how to use it”. He created a sound and said ”it is ‘A” and then he created another sound and said its ‘B’.  I was impressed. It was fun for me. In nearly one month, I was able to recognize the sound of alphabets and I used to generate the morse code sound with the help of drumsticks to talk to my father. I named morse code as coded language. Time passed and I grew up. I was in 10th standard, studying science in my classroom. In book one line was mentioned about morse code. One student asked what is morse code. before the teacher could say something, I stood up and started explaining about it and even demonstrated it by beating  drumsticks on desk. Every one was amazed. At that moment I realized that how useful morse code is. After that day, I also started preparing for HAM Radio.

73!

Nikhil

I’ve been a ham for over 55 years and I am on the DXCC Honor Roll and have earned the 160 Meter DXCC and 5 Band DXCC awards. I’ve had many memorable QSO’s over the years but I think my most exciting QSO was the first one I had as a Novice Class operator.

I discovered Ham Radio in 1954 when I was 14 years old. While looking through a Boy’s Life Magazine, I came across a article about a shortwave listening contest they were sponsoring. The references to “The Voice of the Andes” (HCJB) and the Kookaburro Bird of Radio Australia fired my imagination and soon I was searching the shortwave bands using a old AM table model radio that covered the shortwave broadcast bands. One night while tuning around, I discovered the 75 meter ham band and when one station would transmit he would wipe out everything which led me believe he was somewhere in the neighborhood. After several days of searching I spied a house with an antenna beside it that turned out to be a 20 meter beam. I knocked on the door and was greeted by Gerald, W4UTZ, who would become my Elmer.

Gerald told me about Ham Radio and he let me tune around the ham bands using his HQ-129X and demonstrated how his homebrew transmitter worked. He also explained that in order to become a ham you had to be licensed by the FCC and suggested that if I was interested I might consider getting my novice ticket. He gave me a few issues of QST to look through and told me where I could purchase a copy of the novice study guide locally and invited me to come back to visit again. After reading the QST’s from cover to cover there was no doubt that I wanted to obtain my license.

Gerald patiently led me through the study for the written and code tests and administered my novice exam. He advised me on the equipment I should consider for my first station and helped me design my first antenna and a link coupled antenna tuner. Over the years Gerald has been and still is a source of encouragement and a generous supplier of parts for many of my homebrew projects from his bountiful junk box. Our roles Elmer and student has developed into a lasting friendship that I cherish.

When my novice ticket arrived in the mail on Saturday April 16, 1955 around 1:00 PM my station was complete and ready to operate. After screwing up my courage, I called CQ on 40 meters and was answered by W4PKD. I was so nervous that I didn’t copy hardly anything that the guy on the other end sent but I told him that he was my first QSO, asked him to please QSL, gave him my complete address, and then signed off. About 5 minutes later the phone rang and a voice said “may I speak to Jack, KN4CNW”! The caller was Milt Farve who was the operator at W4PKD which was the club station of the Columbia Bible College. Milt welcomed me to ham radio and invited me to visit the club station at the college. My first QSO had spanned a distance of about 4 miles! I had a lot of fun on the novice bands and 9 months later I upgraded to a Conditional Class license. After the introduction of incentive licensing I upgraded to Extra Class.

Wikipedia describes Jean Shepherd (July 26, 1921 – October 16, 1999) as “an American raconteur, radio and TV personality, writer and actor who was often referred to by the nickname Shep.” He is probably most well-known for his radio show on WOR in New York City, where, Wikipedia says, “he delighted his fans by telling stories, reading poetry (especially the works of Robert W. Service), and organizing comedic listener stunts.”

He was also an amateur radio operator. Below, please find a two-part YouTube recording of one of his amateur radio stories.

Part 1

Part 2

Back in 1973 I wrote a 2-part story that appeared in two issues of Gus Browning’s “The DX’ers Magazine.” Some 25 years later I included this story in a self-published book I authored, INVINCIBLE FIDELITY: A History of the Kiel Municipal Band, copyright 1999. In 1977 I exchanged my WA9UEK call for K9XJ.
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by Art Pahr, K9XJ

In 1971 the Kiel Municipal Band traveled to Kiel, Germany, to perform several concerts. In July of 1973 Das Musikkorps der Freie Turnerschaft “Vorwarts” completed the exchange between the sister cities by performing in and around the Kiel, Wisconsin, area.

At a reception for the German visitors at the beginning of their 10-day visit I was talking with a member of their group in my rather poor German. It was apparent that his English was better than my German so I switched to English and asked him if he knew what a radio ham was and if there might be one in their group. Odds were against finding one in their group of only 63, but his face lit up and he said, “I am one! I am DK2HW!”

Hans-Walther Wagner and I had a two-hour eyeball QSO and made arrangements to spend the following Saturday visiting the stations of a few members of the Sheboygan County DX Association. We gave Christ, W9NVJ (later W9RF and now SK), a hand fixing the rotator on his quad and chewed the rag about DX. Later we stopped by to see Marv, W9MYG (now SK), and George, K9YXA (now K9GM), for more DX talk.

While visiting with W9NVJ a “truth is stranger than fiction” conversation developed when Christ pulled some old QSL cards from a desk drawer and began talking about one in particular. Way back in 1936 Christ had a contact with D4YTM, Kurt Braune, who lived in Dresden. Christ and Kurt maintained schedules and also corresponded via the mails until WWII put an end to their radio contacts and letter writing. History tells us that Dresden was heavily bombed by allied forces during the war.

Following WWII Christ began looking for Kurt once again to re-establish their friendship. Each contact Christ had with a ham in Germany he would ask about Kurt. No one knew him. As the years passed Christ resigned himself to the possibility that WWII had, in one way or another, eliminated any hope of ever finding Kurt again.

About this time Hans spoke up and said he thought there was a Kurt Braune living in Kiel, Germany, as he recalled that name from one of the radio club meetings. “Yes, he was a man about 60-years old,” Hans replied to Christ’s question, “but he spells his name with a ‘C’.”

Was it possible? Christ made a photocopy of Kurt’s old QSL card and sent it and a 1936 version of his W9NVJ QSL along with Hans. About three weeks after Hans had returned to Germany, Christ received a letter from Curt Braune. It was the same Kurt Braune who had lived in Dresden, now signing DL1CN, that Christ had been trying to find all these years! The two resumed their regular QSOs until Curt joined the Silent Keys.

Both bands adopted the motto “Freundschaft Durch Musik” (Friendship through music). This story provides a variation to that motto: “Freundschaft Durch Radio” (Friendship through Radio).

What would the Vegas odds makers say about a chance meeting by two amateur radio operators at a non-ham event, resulting in a meeting with another ham, turning up a long-lost friend half a world away after a 37-year interval? To add a bit more irony to this story, Hans was not a playing member of the German band. He had come along with the group ‘just for the ride.’ It is also interesting to note that neither Hans nor I had yet been born at the time Christ and Kurt made their first QSO in 1936.

Robert Ripley would have loved this story!

PS: Christ was my Elmer.