Tribute to Wolf Harranth

Tribute to Wolf Harranth - OE1WHC, OE3WHC
August 19, 1941 - August 3, 2021

Taken from DokuFunk.org homepage:

It is with deep sadness that we announce that our unforgettable curator, Wolf Harranth, OE1WHC, founder of the DokuFunk Archive, passed away on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 in Klosterneuburg after a short and serious illness.
Wolf Harranth was an Austrian children's book author, translator and journalist who also worked as a radio actor as a child. The most famous role he played on Austrian radio was that of "Wolferl" in "Our Radio Family". Then he began to work at the Jungbrunnen publishing house, where he not only became a lecturer, but ultimately also managing director. In addition, he was active in the ORF from the 1970's and for the broadcaster Radio Austria International (ROI).
Wolf was also a very active radio amateur who achieved great successes in this area, which demanded a lot from him, but also gave him great joys. With this hobby he got far more around the world and among the people than anyone could ever be able to do in the traditional way.
From all these fields of activity, Wolf gathered friends who now mourn him as a person.
OE1WHC has left the tape forever ...

Here is an excerpt from Wolf's last lecture at Ham Radio in 2019.

Taken from Wolf's QRZ.com page:

Receiving the Roy Stevens G2BVN Memorial Trophy, the highest distinction of IARU Region 1 (November 29017, r: OE1MCU OVSV Vice President)

Friedrichshafen 2016 F2VX, 5B4AHJ, OE1WHC, F6AJA.

I am a journalist and broadcaster dedicated to everything related to electronic media and computing. And I am the founder and proud member of a research and documentation center for the history of radio - the DOCUMENTARY ARCHIVES RADIO COMMUNICATIONS (Dokumentationsarchiv Funk) a.o. with a huge QSL collection -the world's biggest archives/museum of its kind, with nine million objects on file, amongst them the legendary YASME/Colvin Collection and HZ1AB QSL Collection.

I am, as you would expect, very upset to hear the sad news of Wolf's passing. This will of course be a great loss to Dokufunk and to QSL card and radio history. I have been helping Wolf with some of their projects intermittently for nearly twenty years, in particular with the pages on Allied Forces in Europe; the XA calls (we initiated this one together many years ago) and recently the comprehensive research and listings of TI9 Cocos Island operations.
The important thing about Wolf was that he was a very nice man, as well as being a very knowledgeable and competent one. He had a long and varied career in non-radio matters, mentioned in German in a link from the obituary. G4UZN

I wish to join you all in lamenting the death of OE1WHC, Wolf. I had the pleasure of meeting him several times in Friedrichshafen and I even visited DokuFunk in Wien twice. I attended some of his lectures in Friedrichshafen, and one subject he knew more about than any other person on earth was the Ham Radio history of East Germany. Hopefully there is someone in Vienna that will continue his work, otherwise there is a great danger that all his invaluable archives will be put on hold and disintegrate in a near future. I also really hope that Austria's public radio Österreichischer Rundfunk will continue to sponsor DokuFunk. SM6JSM

I absolutely agree with all comments. A huge shock, and a huge loss to amateur radio and the history thereof, and to ORF I am sure, not to mention the other facets of Wolf's wide-ranging interests. I too had the pleasure of meeting Wolf at Friedrichshafen as well as attending one of Wolf's presentations. A sad day indeed.
RIP dear Wolf. 5B4AHJ

So very sad to hear about our good friend Wolf. He took care of the largest QSL collection in the world and was very generous to our QSL Collectors group. He will be missed. K8CX

Photos, Info from dokufunk.org with permission from OE1YPP
Friedrichshafen Photo courtesy of F2VX

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