Originally published in the October 1981 issue of the Collector and Emitter.
In response to the tremendous interest in last month’s column about the famed Oklahoma DXer, Q.R. Zedd, we humbly offer a brief biography of that greatest of radio amateurs for the benefit of the unfortunate few whose lives have been impoverished by lack of knowledge about him and his amazing exploits.
Zedd was born in August of 1927 during the great DXpedition to Tibet. His mother, Constance Wilhemina (Areff) Zedd, was operating the No. 1 CW position on the expedition and went into labor during the third day of operations on a mountainside in a blinding blizzard. Members of the party were dismayed that she had her baby under such circumstances, especially since it was a difficult labor and caused her CW QSO rate to drop below 100 per hour for several hours. She was a brave girl, however, and stayed at the key all through the night, clutching her infant to her breast with one hand while keying and logging with the other.
Zedd’s father, Zepp Zedd, was of course also on the expedition. Unfortunately, an avalanche killed him on the fourth day and members of the party said it was lucky the weather was so cold or otherwise they might have had to interrupt the expedition to bury him more properly.
Zedd’s widow (Q.R.’s mother) was undaunted by the tragedy and continued to take part in famous expeditions designed to hand out a new country to the worthy. In the Congo in 1930, at the age of three, Zedd himself worked his first 5,000 QSOs while relieving his mother as a CW op. He stuttered badly and did not spell very well, but as his mother wrote in QST subsequently, “Who cares if he can spell as long as he sends 35 words per minute and gets the calls in the logbook right?”
By the time he was six, Zedd was holder of the highest license class in several countries. During World War IT he invented radar. After perfecting TV and the plastic milk bottle in the early 50s, he retired, independently wealthy, and returned to his first love, amateur radio. As is well known, he invented SSB.
Zedd was married in 1957, but two years later his bride divorced him in a singularly messy trial during which she claimed their union had never been consumated. Zedd’s defense, that it was during a peak in the sunspot cycle, was thrown out of court by a judge who later dabbled in CB. The closing argument by Zedd’s lawyer, “Nobody Has Time For Everything,” (sometimes referred to as the “Wives Are Always Around, But Sunspots Only Peak Once Every Eleven Years” argument) quickly became a legal classic despite the fact that it was made in a losing cause.
Zedd lives south of Norman on his modest 800-acre antenna farm, where he operates around the clock from his five-transmitter station. Airline pilots on north-south routes sometimes point out his taller towers to passengers while flying well around them. In addition to six rhombics, Zedd has stacked 10-element monobanders at 600 feet on all bands from six through 160, and, of course, a few dishes and long wires for more exotic bands.
Zedd has worked everything on every band. One of his favorite pastimes is to crack a pileup every hour or so when a rare one is on in order to tell the operator at the other end how his signal sounds now compared with earlier, to send fond regards to the op’s wife and children, and if he is in an expansive mood to test various of his homebrew speech processors. Zedd has worked the Russian Woodpecker on seven bands and has the QSL cards from Box 88 to prove it.
A modest man, Zedd lives alone except for the company of his nubile 19-year-old blonde QSL secretary (herself holder of an Amateur Extra licensee and the coveted Yodar Kritch award on ten meters). He often honors Norman’s Tuesday morning coffee group with his presence, and sometimes lets them fondle some of his cards. He is a charter member of SCARS.
Asked how it feels to have worked more than 400 countries on seven bands, Zedd replied with characteristic modesty, “Shucks, it warn’t nothin’. Anyone can do it if they’re willing to invest a little time and money, and become a genius at operating on the bands.”
Zedd’s many incredible feats of DXmanship, as well as his many one-man expeditions to remote and exotic DX lands, are beyond the scope of a single article. If we again experience a tremendous outpouring of intense interest in this grand man, we may be able to secure a fullscale interview with him and report further on his exploits in some subsequent issue.