Originally published in the February 1982 issue of the Collector and Emitter.
Mrs. C.W. Zedd, widow of the great pioneer DXer, Zepp Zedd, and mother of Oklahoma’s greatest amateur radio operator, the legendary Q.R. Zedd, was in our fair state over the Christmas holidays to visit her son.
Mrs. Zedd actually was en route from Los Angeles, Calif., where she had participated in a high-speed Morse code competition, to her regular abode near Mena, Ark., where she operates a private educational institute for NASA technicians who fall behind the state of the art, PhD candidates in Electrical Engineering who get confused, and such as Nobel prize winners who get mixed up about what electronics is really about, and need a refresher in the Truth.
Mrs. Zedd had sad news for her son and all her other fans in this part of the country.
She did not win the CW contest. She went out at 87 WPM when her pencil caught fire, leaving the field to an IBM 3310 computer which copied 89 before it lost a diode in its main power supply.
“I was just getting warmed up,” Mrs. Zedd said modestly. “Of course you have to concentrate some when you get over 75 words a minute CW because you so seldom find anyone to ragchew with at that speed on the bands, and so you lack practice. But while I was just warming up, I had made a mistake. I had neglected to take an asbestos-coated pencil and that was my downfall.
“Maybe next year,” added Mrs. Zedd, now 72.
At a reporter’s urging, Mrs. Zedd reminisced a bit about her great husband and legendary son. Perched on a bar stool in a local Norman watering hole, her lacquered red hair glowing in the light of a nearby electronic pinball game, the wonderful woman drummed ruby-colored fingernails on the Formica and critically watched a local OU cowboy try to ride the mechanical bull.
“Mechanical bulls,” she snorted. “I don’t know what the world is coming to. It’s like in ham radio. All these appliance operators and list-operation DXCC winners. Wouldn’t it just make you SICK?
“There were no mechanical bulls in ham radio when Zepp and I got started, or when Q.R. was growing up. All the bull was genuine!
“Zepp was a wonderful man. Kind and generous to a fault. Always thoughtful. In about 1914 we built a new linear with a special tube we had blown ourselves at the Anchor-Hocking glass works in Lancaster, Ohio, and when we turned it on, it just worked wonderful: blew out the windows of two apartment houses in Hong Kong and fatally electrocuted the poor soul we were trying to work in Rangoon. But the neighbors started complaining right away; the light of that tube set in cement in our back yard kept them awake at night and made chickens lay at the wrong time, them thinking it was daylight when we modulated, and all. So Zepp quit right away, and we took that linear down. We donated the final tube to the Red Cross, which later sold it to the chief of a pygmy tribe in what is today Zaire, but that story ended sadly in 1928 when the chief, sitting on his throne inside the final tube, got mad at one of his wives and threw a rock at her. The tube broke and sixteen people, including the chief, were lacerated to death. I’ve heard it said that that’s how we get the old saying, ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.’ I’ve also heard it said, ‘stow thrones,’ so I don’t know.
“It was a great loss to radio and the universe when poor Zepp died in that avalanche during the China expedition. For a long time I was truly disconsolate. But as you remember from the history books, Q.R. was born to me during one of my stints at the high-speed CW position. Right from the start he gave me lots of reasons for wanting to go on living.
“I believe that Q.R. is the world’s greatest genius when it comes to ham radio and Hing especially. You know, his first words, at age eight months, were, “Roger, you’re 5-9 in Oklahoma, QSL?” After that he lapsed into three months of total silence and we were all worried until it dawned on me that he was waiting for a reply, so I said, “CPA”, and he perked up right away, thinking the exchange had been completed, and he’s been talking ever since.
“Q.R.’s greatest feat was probably the invention of the plastic milk bottle, which actually came about in his experiments to build stronger final tubes. But a lot of people think his invention of Radar and SSB might be bigger in the eyes of history, I don’t know.
“In ham radio? Well, I think his Dxpedition to Bangladesh would have to rank right up there. Just remember that he did 16K in 24 hours, running one transistor to a hairpin, all CM, and the country of Bangladesh hadn’t even been invented yet. Of course some would vote for his arctic expedition of 1974. It was certainly truly great. Up there alone on the tundra, the blizzards buffeting his Sears tent, the temperature plunging to 100 below, the only source of heat the 6146s in his transmitter — well, I don’t know what he would have done if he hadn’t had his sled dogs. But that experience marked him in ways he won’t talk about. To this day his toes are still blue, and he still won’t even consider eating dog, even at the world’s finest restaurants which specialize in it.”
The interview was interrupted twice at this juncture, first by an OU student who asked for, and got, a dance with the great lady. She seemed to know all the latest western steps, lights glittering off the sequins on her green Levi’s. She had no sooner returned from dancing when we were interrupted again, this time by a young man who mistook her for Dolly Parton. When he saw whose autograph he had really secured, the young fortunate fainted in ecstasy.
By that time, it became apparent that the lady had to terminate the interview to go meet her son.
Were there any final words Mrs. Zedd wanted to leave for our readers?
“Just a couple,” she replied.
“In the first place, I hope everyone realizes how lucky they are to live in America, the land of the free and he home of the brave, and also so close to my son, Q.R. Zedd. Secondly, I would just like to thank all my friends and fans for the mail, which I try to answer. But my own DXing schedule is so hectic, I sometimes fail behind. Thirdly, 73 and 88, and I hope to see all of you on the bands.”
It was a fitting closer to an emotional talk. One wishes it could end there.
A few days later, however, we happened to meet again. This time we asked Mrs. Zedd if there was anything unhappy in her life — anything she had ever regretted or worried about.
“I just wish I could be a grandmaw,” she replied instantly, a tear filling her azure eye. “I have spoken to Q.R. about this many times. I know he understands how I feel, because he always says, ‘QSL? I But maybe he is just too busy with his DX schedules and hanging around with Bill Blast and Joe Kelly and all those big dogs, or maybe he just hasn’t met the right girl yet. But I do so wish he would get married and have a baby….”
Mrs. Zedd sighed profoundly.
“I had hope when he hired Tondelayo Schwartz, his blonde, nubile, 19-year-old QSL secretary,” she admitted. “But I fear that proximity and a shared consuming passion for DX will not be enough to light the spark of romance. They just do not seem to relate to one another in that way.
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Zedd said sadly, “the Zedd line is doomed to end with this generation.”
It was a sobering thought. One can only hope it does not work out that way. As Carl Sagan has pointed out, even with billyuns and billyuns of worlds in the cosmos, we need all the greatness we can get.
(Mrs. Zedd returned to Mena on her Kawasaki 1000 on Jan. 3.)
— KU5B