Q.R. Zedd and His Electric Secretary

Originally published in the June 1982 issue of the Collector and Emitter.

In response to the vitriolic attacks on the reputation and even the character of Oklahoma’s beloved and greatest DXer, Q.R. Zedd, an intrepid reporter drove south out of Norman one day recently to attempt an interview with the Great One at his home QTH, Honor Roll Ranch.

We must admit that we were only partly successful, but we did succeed in learning new facts about the latest honor to come to the great man, and at the same time we picked up some thrilling news (or all who plan to attend Ham Holiday, the world’s greatest ham meeting slated for Oklahoma City soon.

The ranch was relatively quiet when we arrived. The cowboys were tending the white-face cattle, and some of J.R. Ewing’s boys were checking out some of the oil wells. A team of 30 steeplejacks swarmed over some of the Great One’s towers, checking out the ten-over-tens, the 12-element hf quads, the 40-foot dishes, etc. Around the mansion itself there was little activity, and Zedd’s converted Greyhound bus was not in its usual place in the garage area. Undaunted, we proceeded to the back of the house, where, beside the Olympic-sized swimming pool, we found the lovely Tondelayo Schwartz, blonde, nubile, 19-year-old QSL secretary to Zedd.

Why, hi, there!” Tondelayo beamed, wriggling up off the chaise lounge in order to shake hands. Her dazzling blue eyes sowed concern. “What’s the matter, honey? Has thet ole cat got yur tongue?”

In response to the reporter’s gargling sounds, the darling Tondelayo giggled happily. “Why, ah can see by the expression on yur face thet yur plumb surprised to find me 1 this little ole darlin’ bikini. Isn’t it just precious? The only trouble with it is, if you try to store it in the medicine cabinet, you get it lost amongst the Dandaids every tie-yuml”

We finally managed to ask if the great Zedd was on the premises.

“Why, my goo’ness, no!” Tondelayo beamed, again reclining on the chaise lounge and causing two steeplejacks to fall from one of the nearby towers. “Ah thought everilbody knew the darlin man was in Washington this week!”

“We thought that was last month, Tondelayo, when he posed for the bronze bust to go in the Smithsonian.’

‘Why, no! He went ag’in, •doncha know! He was sent for by the president,”

‘The president of the United States?’ we gasped.

Tondelayo laughed merrily, “Why, shoo-erl The darlin’ man had been so busy workin’ DX, he needed another trip, anyway.”

“What DX has the great Zedd worked lately?”

“Oh — jus’ ever’thang!”

“Ever’thang?”

“May goo’ness, yay-us! Las’ week he worked Tibet, Mongolia, Liberal, Kansas, an’ AD1S all on 1296, an’ one night for practice he ran hisself off another five-band DXCC, so naturally now he’s restin’ in addition to he’pin’ out the president, doncha know, an’ ah’m fillin’ out these few hunnert QSL cards you see here beside mah chaise lounge.”

We could not resist asking, “Tondelayo, do you have career plans beyond being the blonde, nubile, 19-year-old QSL secretary for Mr. Zedd?”

Tondelayo wriggled again. “Mah goo’ness, honey, what did yell have in mind?”

“Well, nothing, really. I mean, we just wondered if you plan to make a life of working at this uh position.”

“Oh. Ah see,” The sweet child pouted. ‘Way-yull, Ah really don’t know what more a girl could ask out of life, doncha know. Ah mean, ah get to go on the big DX-peditions with him, an’ operate the big station here when he’s not home or otherwise occupied. Ah jus’ don’t know anythang else in life thet’d give me such a thrill…unless y’all got somethin’ in mind.—?”

“Tondelayo, you are the holder of the Amateur Extra license, is that so?”

‘Yay-yus! Ah have also talked on all bands with Wayne Green. You know Wayne Green? Mah goo’ness, I ‘speck you do, doesn’t everibody? He invented the electron! An’ he belongs to the Menses Society…somepin like that, doncha know, only other geniuses can belong, an’ they jus’ talk to each other. But thet darlin’ man is SO humble, he only writes a colyum about how he’s a genius about once a year. Ah jus’ love him!’

“Tondelayo, perhaps you could tell us what Mr. Zedd is doing in Washington with the president, We have had vicious letters which we hope to have a comment on –”

“Yay-yus! Ah saw some of those letters an’ they jus’ made me want to cry!’

“We can tell you’re very emotional.”

‘Why, what did y’all have in mind?”

“Nothing –nothing. About the president

“Yay-yus, The president ast Q.R. to come to Washington an’ see if he couldn’t do somepin about the White House TV sets.”

“The TV sets?”

“Yay-yus. They needed filters an’ no one could supply ’em,’

“Filters?”

‘Yay-yus. It seems ever’ time the darlin’ president turned on his TV, he saw on the news this stuff about poor people, but everyone knows there aren’t a lot of poor people anymore, jus’ a FEW truly needy.—one in Buffalo, ah think, an’ maybe one in Dallas. So what Q.R. was gonna do was make the president some Poor Filters fee his TV sets. So then, outta sight, outta –“

“I see. Well, Tondelayo, I’m sure everyone will be overjoyed to hear that our own Great One is helping the poor, overworked president. And this means you are alone here on the ranch?”

“Why? What did y’all have in mind?”

“Let us put it this way: when is Mr. Zedd likely to return so we might attempt an interview?”

“Why, ah don’t rightly know! It ought to be in a day or two, though. He was gonna have coffee with some Congressmen, but they tole him it would take’em until about October to make the coffee, if they used instant, an’ early next year if they made real. So he’s comini on back as soon as he gets the filters made an’ hooked on.”

“Will the Great One be back in time for Ham Holiday?”

“Oh, I’m shooer he weyull Q.R. LOVES Ham Holiday! If he’s said it to me once, he’s said it a millyun tiyums: ‘Tondelayo, honey, there is NOTHIN’ like that there Ham Holiday. Where else could you meet upancomers like KB5EK?’!”

“And will you be there, too, Tondelayo?”

The darling girl wriggled and one of the steeplejacks fell off a nearby tower. “I wouldn’t miss it for ANYTHANG! I’ve already bought a new outfit, a darlin’ little sundress.—sorta bare in back, and short, so if it’s warm there in the Myriad I won’t get all sweaty and all at my table in the flea market –”

“And you feel sure Q.R. will also attend?”

He’ll be back in a few days! Ast him!”

“Then can we call you back in a few days?”

“Mah good’ness, honey, what DID you have in mind? Don’t be bashful! Tell me raht now!”

“Thank you, Tondelayo Schwartz, blonde, nubile, 19-year-old QSL secretary for the great Q.R. Zedd,”

“Y’all come back now, you heah?”
— KU5B

Dear Jack,
I would like to know what the big deal is about this fellow O.R. Zedd!! Surely you must be aware that CONTESTING is where it’s at!

Haven’t you yokels in Oklahoma ever heard of S.W. Stakes, the greatest contester of all time? I realise that you may not be aware of SW ‘s great accomplishments in the contesting world, unless you listen around on 40 meter phone late at night from December to October each year.

I’ve been listening in and I feel it is my solemn duty, as an observer of persons who perform great feats on a daily basis, to tell you of the great S.W. Stakes, idol of all who aspire to contest greatness.

S.W. was born in the control room of an RCA receiving station on the east coast on November 22 1942 during a worldwide communications net SL ‘s mother was the NCS! I should mention that our hero’s father was the transmitter operater.

Our young friend’s folks were too tight to hire a baby sitter, so he was taken to the station by either his mother or father each working day until he was five years old. Of course you can see that S.W. had an excellent oportunity to learn both CW and Phone op rating technique, from his mom (phone) and his pop (CW). This could explain why our hero’s voice rises one octave when battling through pile ups.

S.W.’s school life was brilliant, of course with an A average in all things except citizenship (he kept taking cuts in the cafeteria line). S.W. is still attending school except when it gets in the may of his contest activities, or when working at the Pizza Planet in Cheyenne Wells Colorado, where he and his mom and pop moved so he could ho near his favorite megabuck station.

Let it be known by all, that during the month of October each year, our hero works at a feverish pitch directing the activities of the workmen who, employed by the famous Mr. Dig Bucks, get all the antennas on the fifteeen towers, ranging from 65 to 130 feet in height, ready for the greatest contest of all……. the ARRL November Sweepstakes. Of course the management of the Pizza Planet gives S.W. a leave of absence during this period, due to the public service nature of the event. Our subject also spends many hours testing the equipment to be used during the up-comming contest. He can be heard almost nightly testing his vomit speach processer and his specially -built programmable keyer, which sends, receives, logs, dupes and makes snide remarks automatically with the pushing of a button. The keyer does lose something in the snide remarks department due to it’s inability to sound better than thou. S.W. assures us Mr. Big Ducks has a team of experts working on this problem and should have a working model ready in time for the 1983 contest season.

During the final days prior to the big event our hero can be heard, practicing adjusting his VOX so that he can talk and listen at the same time. He does this by making remarks,: about others who happen to join in his special test net while they are transmitting (the trick is not to be caught by the interloper).

Now we come to the big event. S.W. sets down before Mr. Big Bucks operating console consisting of no less than ten sets of Drake “C Line Twins” (two for each band) and 5 specially constructed RF amplifiers, each containing four 4CX1000’s with 3/8 inch solid silver tubing tank cOils and vacum variable tuning capacitors (you must use vacume variables if you intend to run 5KW output over a wide range of frequencies without retuning), each capable of 10KW input to the final. Our hero throws the big switch and there is a dull thrummmmm as the 5 polo transformers used as the plate supplies for the RF decks come to life. After warming the RF decks for one hour it is 5 minutes till ZERO HOUR.

I see by the digital contest clock on the wall that it is time to tune in the 40 meter band for more hints from the great S.W. Stakes. I will continue my description of SW ‘5 last contest in future correspondence.

Sincerely,
N5GE

(EDITOR’S NOTE: We wanted to get a reaction from Q.R. Zedd himself to these latest comments from various parts of our fair nation, but Zedd was in Washington at presstime, posing for a bronze bust that will be enshrined in the radio room at the Smithsonian Institution. Zedd’s bust will be placed between those of his maternal grandfather, Marconi, and his paternal grandmother, Henryetta Edison. When Zedd returns, we will attempt to solicit comment. However, readers should be warned that Zedd, a quiet man, shuns the limelight and controversy, and may refuse to enter the public arena with an argument no clearly and indisputably in big favor.

— KU5B


Phyllis M. Gilmore, KE6TC
23420 Washington St. Apt, 24 Colton, CA 92324

April 14, 1982

KU5B via CORA, Collector & Emitter
1020 Arthur Drive
Midwest City, OK 73110

Dear OM:

An editor of the TRW Amateur Radio Club’s newsletter, Crosstalk, I get to read the exchange newsletters first (with a view to scavenging). Well, I’ve got to make a plea for mercy to you brilliant folks out there in OK.

I see an urgent need for publication (in book or booklet form) of the life and times of the esteemed Mr. Q.R. Zedd. I’ve only been studying this august parsonage for a few months. So I’m sure I’ve missed some information crucial to my development into an adequate radio amateur. Had I been able to sit, an adoring student, at his feet, perhaps my longest HF DX contact would have been out of the county.

Furthermore, unless a definite biography (autobiography?) comes out, there will be no way to squelch some of the dire rumors circulating in these parts. Perhaps the most unhappy of these is that Zedd’s unacknowledged harmonic is into CB DX (of course, ho might just be bootlegging the surname). Could Zedd redeem this unhappy child with a few well placed di-dahs? Yet another rumor is that, unbeknownst to Moma Zedd, Q.R. is in fact married (not, however, to the QSL secretary). It seems, according to the signals, that Mr. & Mrs. decided on a separation after the day she pointed her beam east and he pointed his beam west and each lit out after DXpeditions with the full gallon (plus) at precisely the same moment.

Please consider, as a minimum, making some of these delightful articles available in reprint. I love them!
’73,
Phyllis, KE6TC


DEAR SIR OR MAME AS THE CASE MAY BE
I suppose some real fool will suggest some kind of real stupid contest to show who the greatest DXer really is and I just want to say that is a real ignorant idee. Contests don’t prove nothing and all they do is garbage up the bands which are already too crowded, from the influx of CBers like you Besides, which the greatest of them all is Levi Longwire of Chicago, since he is the best 9 he would odviously be the greatest in the world, and if you try to deny it, you are a sap, because who invented the pileup and the police riot but Levi, and had britches named after ‘him besides?’

I am not signing my name because I too am famous and too many people would be writing me for my autograph.
ANONYMOUS IN PEORIA


JACK H. BICKHAM, KU5B,
2603 Beaurue Drive,
Noman, Okla., 73069

4 May 1982


Phyllis M. Gilmore, KE6TC,
23420 Washington St., Apt. 24,
Colton, Calif., 92324


Dear Phyllis,

Thank you for your kind letter about the exploits of the world’s greatest DXer, Oklahoma’s own Q.R. Zedd. Your suggestion about a more detailed biography is one with which I certainly sympathize, but the editor here is real mean (also poor) and I can only get at best one page a month to tell about the Great One’s exploits. At the present time I have features about him written in advance and on the disk in my computer through next November, but for all I know this crazy man in charge of the CAE might pull the plug on me at any moment and not give me any space at all, so I have to be careful.

I do want you to know that the rumors you have heard about Zedd are largely (everything about him is “largely”!) untrue. As detailed some months ago, Zedd was married once but the marriage was annulled on the grounds that it was never consumated; there was a great polar opening on the evening of the wedding, and the next day Zedd took off on a 200-country DX-pedition of his own, and the poor girl got tired of waiting and married some guy wearing a 10-4 Good Buddy shirt. As to stories of an unadmitted harmonic, everyone knows that Zedd has never been guilty of this kind of harmonic deviation, or any other.

Q.R. (as he allows his intimates to call him) would have replied to your letter himself, I am sure, but he is in Washington at this hour, posing for a bronze statue for the Smithsonian, where it will be displayed bewtween similar busts of his maternal grandmother, Henryetta Edison, and his aunt, Fredrika Morse. I will pass your letter along to his nubile, blonde, 19-year-old QSL secretary, Tondelayo, so that it will receive his prompt attention when he returns home. If your bedsprings start vibrating from high-power rf, or the nails in the walls of the apartment start to glow, I suggest you turn on your rig; it will probably mean Q.R. Zedd is calling to thank you personally.

And again — thanks!

73,
Jack, KU5B
cc: CORA C&E