Originally published in the May 1989 issue of the Collector and Emitter.
It’s all well and good for you to scoff by the time you read this, because the snow is all melted now. But back in March at the time state colleges were starting spring break and it was time to paint the towers at Honor Roll Ranch, just a hoot and a holler south of town, Q, R. Zedd was feeling morose about the late blizzard and recent developments in the news.
The wind was blowing about 200 miles per hour that fine Sunday morning, which put the wind chill at 78 below zero. Down on Norman’s Main Street, the hairless weirdos were selling frozen roses and Popsicles for handwarmers. And in the hamshack at Honor Roll, the world’s greatest DXer had run out of dry firewood and had been forced to stoke the fireplace with duplicate QSL cards from routine DXCC countries like Vietnam, Ethiopia and North Korea. Zedd, A5A, was not a happy man.
“I have decided,” he told the assembled lesser radio amateurs, that what we need right now, to boost our morale and prove we are still No. 1, is a reunion.
“OU’s forty-nine team decided not to have their reunion as planned, and our community suffered another setback when KD5IT got too busy to write the club news for Collector & Emitter any more. I think we have had all the bad news we can absorb, so I have sot up a reunion of some of this country’s DX greats, and while it was not known to you guys, the thing was scheduled to start today.
“Unfortunately,” Zedd went on, “this here blizzard going on outside right now has forced me to postpone the reunion one month, until right around April Fool’s Day. But it is going to be a great event anyway, once we can get it going.”
Then Zedd told us some of the operators who are going to attend his first annual reunion of the greats of the DX world. Here is a partial list:
LEGENDARY SURF, the great California DXer, has worked almost all stations. He operates The Surf Nerf DX net on 15 meters every day at noon local. This net includes all the really good stuff on a regular basis, and has list-takers on both U.S. coasts. Surf usually runs the net himself, putting, out a good signal from his 17-mile rotatable rhombic.
DINGFOD ARMSTRONG, the best of the best from Texas’ army of Gulf coast megawatters, works all DX at all times. In Houston, you can find your way to his QSL card storage building by locating the AstroDome and then walking east a few hundred yards to the lower warehouse building which has more floor space in it. You can usually find Dingfod near the DX station’s transmit frequency. His most favored location is about ten down from the lower edge of the American phone band, from which vantage point he tells people when they are out of the band, calls them lids, etc.
BILL BUCKEYE of Ashtabula, Ohio, is still a force to be reckoned with despite the spirit that went out of him when Woody Hayes left Ohio State and later departed for that great endzone marker in the sky. Buckeye operates exclusively on CW and often works stations split — one frequency with his lefthand paddle, one with his right, and a third with his specially designed nostril twitcher.
HIRAM TIKITOKI is Hawaii’s best. He has been relatively inactive in recent months since the volcano supporting his towers went active, eating four monobanders and a 7-element tribander. He is presently forced to operate with no more than one commercial tower and a multi-band array at the modest height of 1,200 feet. Some of you will remember Hiram as the operator whose two-meter signal melted some of the rivets on the spacecraft carrying W6LFL a few years ago.
BILL BLAST continues to claim he is the greatest of them all, and he has a few supporters. Emcee of the famed Blast Off DX Net, Blast can be heard on 20 meters most mornings and evenings, working the world and helping a few lesser souls make an occasional contact. Blast last came through our area several years ago, at which time he got into a brief competition with the great Zedd. The signal from the antennas of A5A melted Blast’s house trailer, leaving him momentarily a broken man.
HARLEY MINCEMEAT, from our neighboring state of Arkansas, may also attend the reunion. Harley, you will recall, operates the Momma’s Lard factory outside of Hot Springs, and furnishes one of the basic ingredients for Q. R. Zedd RF Cream, the astounding commercial product that can make an ungrounded vertical outperform any 10-element Yagi. You just rub a little of that Q. R. Zedd RF Cream on there, and all the electrons fly out into space in search of your target station.
Others may attend. Zedd has issued open invitations on all bands, all frequencies. All you have to do, to be eligible for the DXers convention down there at Honor Roll, is meet the folowing minimum criteria:
- A minimum of 750 countries confirmed.
- Proven record of working a minimum of 400 DX stations a day, every day, for the last year.
- Amateur Extra Class license.
- Yodar Kritch or Chatanooga ChooChoo.
“Anyone who wants to make reservations,” Zedd told us, “has to write to Box 73, Norman, Okla., 73070. Enclose your documentation and 600 greenstamps. You are all welcome, out there, if you are great enough to join us.
“Come on, guys,” Zedd concluded, pitching another bundle of duplicate QSLs into the fireplace, “let’s make this a great event! Bring your own sleeping bags and silverware! You may not be the greatest, since I am that, but don’t hide your light under a bushel. Or your 3-500Zs, either!
Special coverage of the great DX reunion is planned. Please stand by.
— KU5B