Originally published in the January 1983 issue of the Collector and Emitter.
The world’s greatest DXer, Oklahoma’s own Q. R. Zedd, was back in the comforts of Honor Roll Ranch last week after returning from a historic DXpedition to the remote•mountains of Tibet.
Zedd, who in November became the first amateur radio operator to qualify for the DXCC Honor Roll on the new 30-meter band, reported he was weary from his exertions.
“It’s a long way to Tipperary, but even farther to the part of Tibet where we operated,” Zedd told us, “We, chose Raowu, near Zongsong, at the mouth of the Xinjin Pass north of the Burma border because we had been to Dali before and that’s old hat.
“We had to carry everything overland after the helicopter ride in from Hongchon,” Zedd related, “and it was tough because of the high winds, snow and ice. We had only ten native bearers, which forced Tondelayo and me to carry our own logbooks and pencils.”
The tiny expedition set up shortly before nightfall on the snowy side of Mount Urfufu. There, his Coleman making a cheery glow inside the orange nylon tent, Zedd sent out his first di-di-dum-dum-di-dit at 0400 Zulu on December 27, With Tondelayo Schwartz, his blonde, nubile, 19-year-old QSL secretary cranking the portable generator through the night, Zedd had by dawn worked 6,500 CW contacts, including 321 countries and N5ALG.
An avalanche, reminiscent of the one that killed his beloved father, Zepp Zedd, in Asia decades earlier, roared down the slope of Mount Urfufu a little before noon. Zedd and Tondelayo escaped, although their entire stock of Mounds bars was carried away along with a valuable cache of Coors. As it turned out, the Coors was not necessary because a scheduled rendezvous with Russia’s greatest operator, Boris Badenov, did not materialize. Rumor has it that Badenov is in serious trouble with the Kremlin for being thrashed so badly by Zedd in the 1982 Radiosport.
Be that as it may, the avalanche was a bad thing, and was followed by more bad luck a few hours later when Tondelayo’s Lilt home permanent froze to her head and she had to be carted back down the mountain to the local hospital.
Zedd, undaunted, worked on alone. Every news medium in the world knows by know how he helped out NASA with its space shuttle communications during a critical pass of the spacecraft on December 29, and how he worked a record 12,575 contacts in a four-hour period on New Year’s Eve. What is not so widely known is that Zedd performed these peerless feats while going seven days without sleep and, in view of the avalanche, with only frozen coneys and Mars bars for sustenance.
“I believe any red-blooded, God-fearing radio amateur would have done the same under the circumstances,” Zedd said modestly. “It is only a minor chapter in the story of my greatness.”
When the great blizzard of January 1 totally wiped out Zedd’s base camp, as we all know, he did manage another 450 QSOs by keying an MFJ clock borrowed from WA5MLT. But fate had dealt the expedition its final blow, and Zedd retired to lower altitudes where he found Tondelayo much improved, and most of the frozen rollers removed from her scalp.
“It was a glorious last night in Ranchapoor,” Zedd recalled with a fond smile. “Tondelayo and I went out on the town, and danced till dawn while feasting on raw yams and burned goat. A mystical Asian moon hung low over the cloudy mountain horizon, and I would be a liar, sir, if I did not admit to you that my romantic nature was deeply touched. Tondelayo and I did not part until dawn, when I wended my romantic way back to my suite to work a few hours on my Heathkit weather station kit.”
As for Tondelayo, the darling girl was found lolling in the eighty-foot hot tub that adorns the play room at the back of Zedd’s ranchhouse and doubles as a cooling tank for his dummy load.
“It was real nice,” Tondelayo said, and gave us an unreadable yet fascinating look. “That darlin’ Q. R. was jus’ ADORABLE on the whole trip, an’ it was just so fun.— an’ neat… an’ ROMANTIC, doncha know!”
Only inate good taste prevented your reporter from pursuing this line. There have been increasing rumors in recent months that Zedd and Tondelayo may actually be, shall we say, approaching a state transcending employer and employee, Met and secretary.
Certainly we would like to have the truth about this situation. Zedd has never married, if one discounts his annulled liaison of a few years ago with an unsympathetic wench who could not understand that DX comes first. Half the prettiest women in the world, not to mention several ladies who knew CW and held the Amateur Extra license, have tried to capture him. If Tondelayo were to get him to the altar, it would be the biggest news in ham radio since’ W2NSD/1 flunked the GRE.
Alas, the rumors are only that at the moment, rumors. Tondelayo continues to work selflessly at Zedd’s side in a relationship as pure, as the driven snow. For his part, Zedd is deeply engrossed in new antenna designs as well as plans for Field Day 1983.
If there is something to these stories of possible romance, we will have to wait further to learn of it.
— KU5B