Originally published in the March 1982 issue of the Collector and Emitter.
(The following letter was received recently by KU5B, chronicler of the exploits of Oklahoma’s greatest DXer, Q.R. Zedd.)
Dear Nerd,
Well, you have finally done it. A lot of us down here in Texas have tried our best to be patient with your idiocy, but we can no longer remain silent in the face of your continual boasting about Q.R. Zedd.
What you do is, you make me sick.
You must know, lf you are honest that we down here in Texas can always beat you in football, tobacco juice spitting, bull riding and cow chip throwing. I don’t know what made you think anybody from Oklahoma could beat our best at Ming and being an all-around great fellow and terrific amateur radio operator.
Why, we have someone right here within fifty miles of my own home town of Meadowmuffin who is twice the DXer that Q.R. Zedd ever was, and our man does not live in the past and go on his old reputation the way that has-been, Zedd, does.
I speak, of course, of the great Dingfod Armstrong of nearby Cow’s Bag, Texas.
Dingfod is clearly a much greater person than Zedd.
Admit it! Who was it they asked if it was all right before they done it when the ARRL decided to start life memberships? Who was it that worked the Clipperton expedition,a record 616 logged contacts a couple of years back? Who has the only recorded QSL representing a two-way SSB contact with the Red Spot of Jupiter? Who put the tong in Datong and the R.L. in Drake? Who named the KWM 380 after his own 160-meter QRP DXCC Country total?
Do you give?
Let me just remind you a few more things about Dingfocl. He is the son of the famous Jack Armstrong, who was the best-known of the Hudson River High boys. He worked for Wheaties back in the 30s and 40s, you will recall, and a lot of people thought ole Jack was a commercial radio show. Actually, he had a real adventuresome life, and what he did was, he remoted his daily existence via amateur radio and it just happened to get picked up by commercial interests. As it became clear to Jack Armstrong later that he was being exploited, and his ham transmissions used for profit by others, he went QRT on all bands after announcing that he was no longer the All-American Boy. That was in 1943, when he was 36 years old.
Dingfod, born between episodes of Jack Armstrong and Mandrake the Magician, came into the world with a silver inductor in his mouth, you might say. He is now 42, a heck of a lot younger than your relic; Zedd. He has worked as many countries, knows more about hamming in general, and is more handsome.
In case you don’t have all the records right there in front of you, just let are set the record straight.
Dingfod presently has 627 countries confirmed on all bands between 160 and 2 meters. He was the only amateur in the world to work Thomas E. Dewey back in 1948 while Dewey was the Chicago Tribune’s elected president for fifteen minutes. Dingfod is the inventor of the Yagi antenna, which of course is named after him, as well as the long wire and the ground loop, which also works with airplanes. He lives on his ranch near Cow’s Bag with his beloved wife, Bubbles and her roadshow agent, Thomas “Las Vegas” Calaricci, formerly of San Quentin. Dingfod has never used a piece of commercial radio gear and builds everything himself from scratch. His designs get stolen by commercial interests almost before his soldering iron has cooled. His present station, all homebrew, consists of six fantastic all-band, all-mode, all-American, receivers, six 200-watt PEP input transmitters with special Dingfod-designed speech processors and Hostess twinkie dispensers built into the digital displays, seven (one for standby) walk-in linears featuring ten CX-1000s each in their respective output stages, and of course the antenna farm that has been declared a national menace by the Airline Pilots Assn. of America.
Dingfod is the only amateur radio operator ever invited by President Reagan to come eat on the new china. Even Barry Goldwater, when he went, had to use a paper plate. Arthur Godfrey never got invited at all — nor did your other pet, Bill ,Blast — and as we all know, Vice President Bush hardly counts since he failed his novice test.
Speaking of Blast, you know it really makes us all sick down here the way you keep talking like HE is something, too. Him and his big shot DX net. Who does he think he is kidding? Only clods will work a new DX country on a net anyway, and we know most of those contacts are fake, and his son-in-law, Rich Little, is always in the shack.
We called Dingfod and asked him if it was all right to write you this letter pointing out his superiority, and I took down his reply-on my Sony. Here is what he said, if you want a quote:
“Why, sure, son, don’t mind at all…surely don’t, surely don’t. Only listen, boy,, don’t put down pore ole Q.R. too much. He can’t hep it he’s a has-been, and remember: we all got an obligation to be kind to the senile. You know, them Okies, they’got such an inferiority complexion anyways, I would shore hate to stir ’em up. Jus’ say I’m okay an’ Q.R. is okay, an’ we’ll let er go at that? Roger?”
It just goes to show you how modest he is, on top of everything else!
So please, let’s not have any more of that Zedd garbage from that turkey, KU5B. As Tom Landry used to say, “Thomas, if you don’t shut up, you’re going to be traded,” and of course You know how that came out.
Which reminds me, Dingfod is the only amateur radio operator ever that got the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders out to cheer him on in a 10-meter contest. Put that in your logbook and smoke it!
It is only too bad there is not some way we could get your crummy Zedd and that dumb bunny, Bill Blast, together with our magnificent Dingfod Armstrong. He would blow them off the face of the earth on SSB, CW, RTTY, fast scan or slow scan, facsimile, building code practice oscillators or tin cans connected with a piece of taut thread at fifty paces.
But I suppose it will never be because Zedd and Blast know how inferior they are, and they will just sit up there in Oklahoma and Washington, respectively, and shoot off their big yaps about the old days.
Incidentally, you can’t even beat us on editors. The editor of our local ham magazine is a lot older than Olde Joe Harding. He is balder, too. Telly Savalas came to our editor for bald lessons.
73,
Cappy Satyr
Meadowmuffin, Tx.
PS: My call used to be W5AAAA, but I let it lapse in protest against incentive licensing.
PSS: I am not saying Q.R. Zedd is senile and living in the past, but if he ever regains consciousness again, tell him Knute Rockne is no longer coaching at Notre Dame, and football teams don’t use the single wing any more, and FDR isn’t president, and see what he says. Ha, ha!
(Editor’s Note from KU5B: We will endeavor to get a response from the great Q.R. Zedd and also from Bill Blast. In the meantime, one can only say that there are days when we wish Texas had never been discovered by that guy working for Roto-Rooter of Ardmore.)