Trip Down Memory Lane by K8MFO, K3ZO

Here are some very interesting emails from Don K8MFO and Fred K3ZO about Hong Kong and SE Asia.

K8MFO wrote:
Maurice, LA2UA, OZ7SM/G0WAZ, and I did a WPX Contest together in 1969 from a bunker atop Mt. Adams, perhaps the highest point in Hong Kong, using the call sign VS6AJ. That was great fun. The bunkers were built during WWII by the Brits, so they could watch for the Japanese. All were built in the same direction, and of course the Japanese came in the opposite way!

RE: OZ7SM. When I met Herb in Hong Kong, he was probably as close to a real-life James Bond as I could imagine ... fast cars ... beautiful blonde lady .... deluxe apartment ... and a guy who got things done. If you rode up to the top of Mount Adams with him in his Mercedes, you would have a better understanding of the man. It was a wild ride. You could get fairly close to the bunkers by automobile, but then there was still a considerable distance to the bunker! No problem --- Maurice, VS6AA was a Captain in the British Army, and he enlisted a bunch of privates to carry all of our stuff, plus to erect the antennas! Great fun.

Our location was so high that we looked down "through the clouds" to Hong Kong proper. When I worked K1ZZ from K8UDJ in the Lansing MI area, he said it was the loudest Asian signal he had ever heard! All we used was a Hy Gain TH-3 on a mast about 25 feet high. The takeoff was quite outstanding! The night before the contest I did a bunch of CW operating on 20 meters, working old pals N4AR, W3MVB, and my buddies in Lansing. The antenna developed a high SWR, and it was thought that a trap had gone west. Luckily, it was just a flaky PL-259.

I believe that is the last time I operated in a WPX SSB Contest. It was great fun. The most amazing signals were W6VSS (later K6UA) thundering over the Japanese pileups any time he wanted, plus the magnificent 20 meter signal of W9EWC - Eat Wisconsin Cheese, an old operating hangout of Fred Laun - K3ZO. EWC was so loud, and 20 was a lot smaller then .. that I asked Butch if he could QSY just a tad so that I could have a KC slot for split operation. He kindly obliged, and we remembered that in April 1974, when I was working in Canton, Ohio -- it was my birthday and some folks took me out for lunch and drinks. When I got back to my office there was a note to call Butch. I did and he told me that Fred K3ZO had just been shot in Argentina and left in the jungle by the "rebels" .. Obviously Fred was a bit tougher than the rebs figured!

K3ZO wrote:
Many thanks Don for the trip down memory lane. And greetings from Thailand where I am currently visiting.

Indeed my experience operating at W9EWC was the principal reason I opted for Telrex antennas when I set up my own contest station back in 1975. Telrex was still in business then and when I purchased my 3-el 40 meter Yagi and a Telrex rotator to go with it, I was able to take advantage of a discount offer to purchase any other Telrex antenna for $200, so I opted for the 6-el 20 meter monobander whose signal you describe from W9EWC. Later when W4QAW was dismantling his contest station I acquired his 8-el 15 meter Telrex to complete my Telrex menagerie. These antennas just keep working without requiring any maintenance at all.

When Butch W9EWC began his postwar contest run it was contest protocol for US station to do nothing but S&P. This was even codified in the text of the ARRL Operating Manual of the time. Butch's signal on 20 and 15 was so immense (his transmitter was a venerable Collins KW-1) that he was nevertheless being called by Europeans all the time as he went up the band S&Ping. So Butch said: "So finally I thought well maybe I ought to answer them" and he did. He may have been among the first USA stations to run DX in contests.

Sitting at W9YT I used to marvel at the way Butch's backscatter signal carved out a wide niche on 20 and 15 meters. Since he only did phone contests and since my home town was only 15 miles away from the W9EWC QTH I phoned him and asked if he would consider letting me operate CW contests from his place. After mulling it over for a while he agreed. In the ARRL CW DX contests of those days we were still inhibited from running by the asinine quota system whereby we were only allowed to QSO six stations per DXCC country per band. This was ostensibly to level the playing field for US contesters so they would not have to compete with the big guns in every pile-up on loud Europeans which in those days were few and far between, since Europe was still emerging from the economic effects of WW II. The quota system was not in effect for phone QSOs however as AM Phone DX QSOs were considered to be difficult enough for anyone no matter what kind of station they had.

My operations at W9EWC were the beginning of a close friendship with Butch lasting until his untimely death in an auto accident at age 74. Paradoxically that is my age right now. Among other things I was able to rekindle an interest in CW on Butch's part. My W9YT pal Bob Dixon, W9OKN, (now W8ERD on the Ohio State emeritus faculty who computerized W8JK's radio astronomy lab) was into designing directional antennas on 160 meters, and Butch had the space on his farm to try these out. Butch had actually taught CW at army bases during WW II so it was not hard to bring his skill back up to snuff, and he became very fond of 160 meter contests. When ARRL initiated their 160 meter contest it was just prior to my going off to Washington to join the Foreign Service and I was the national winner from W9EWC in that contest.

After I left the area K9ELT (later N6ZZ) continued use of W9EWC in major CW DX contests, and when Phil moved to California to go to grad school a young fellow from Indiana whose exact call I forget took Phil's place (it was something like W9AJW) and ended up marrying one of Butch's daughters -- though IIRC the marriage did not last long...
Ah, the memories...

K8MFO wrote:
YES, of course I remember the CQ 160 Meter contest efforts from W9EWC. Undoubtedly I'm in the log for each of them, either with my own call or W8TJQ. After all of these years, I can remember comments made by you about the 160 (and perhaps 80) vertical, being very concerned about the effects of vegetation in the field where the antenna was located. Vegetation or not, I know that antenna worked well.

The son-in-law of Butch you are speaking of was Gene - W9AQW. He is no longer licensed, but was very active years ago in SS and CD parties in general, and undoubtedly in DX contests from W9EWC.

If I could use one word to describe the W9EWC signal as heard in Hong Kong, it would be SCARY!

One note about that 1969 WPX effort from VS6AJ, at one time I was called by someone in Vietnam .. I "think" the call was 3W5D (could have the number wrong). He gave me his RVN phone number, and we played "phone tag" for a while upon my return, but never connected. It's not like we had cell phones, and I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to use an ancient phone, and always through operators. Anyway, I've often thought that mystery 3W guy could have been Don Riebhoff. Do you think so, Fred? By the way, in the week before I left the USA for RVN, I worked Don on 15 SSB from HS3DR. OH I know that HS was on the banned list then, but it was too tempting! During the same time period I worked VS6AA on 20 CW, and that led to an invitation to visit him in Hong Kong.

By the way, about 2 days after I got back to the USA from RVN, I worked HS3AL on 40 CW!

Those Hong Kong guys really took good care of me while I was there. They were a close knit group and got together every day for either lunch, dinner, or a party. My first night there I was picked up in a cab by VS6AA and his XYL and whisked off to a party. Also there was LA2UA/5Z4LW and John Van Lear - VE7IR. Met lots of great VS6 hams like VS6BE, VS6BF, VS6EF, VS6UO. One regret was never meeting VS6DO, who was very busy at that time as a policeman. Also didn't meet VS6DR, Phil, who ran the local radio store.

Reno - W9RQM/W9NA also taught CW in WWII, along with a local friend in the U.P., W8HYQ. Reno would come up and visit, passing the time on 75 AM mobile. He was the first famous ham I ever met, at the 1958 Wausau Hamfest, a few months before I got my Novice license. When he heard I was about to take the test, he was super encouraging -- you never forget guys like that. He was one of the emcees at the banquet, and when I won a couple of 803 tubes in the prize drawing, he told me they were a little big for a Novice rig!

I liked those "quota days" in the DX Contests, all "search and pounce"! I liked being able to find the old stalwarts on my own .. folks like GW3JI, EI9J, G2DC, GW3MOP, G2QT, TI2PZ, VK2EO, KH6IJ and so many others!

K3ZO wrote:
I do remember my days in Chiang Mai as HS3AL and HS5ABD when the odd "Maritime Mobile" stations from a few hundred km Southeast would break in. Yes that would have been 3W3D, not 3W5D, but it was indeed Don Riebhoff. After we got Thailand off the banned list while working there, we both ended up in Vietnam at the same time and worked to legalize ham radio there. The problem was not so much convincing the RVN but rather convincing JUSMAG J-6 which found the ham bands to be a convenient strategic frequency reserve. Our negotiations with the General who was head of J-6 (and whose father had been a ham) never bore any fruit, but the ability of us hams, in a successful effort led by Chester, W4EVG (XV5AC) to allow Ambassador Bunker to actually talk to his wife Ambassador Laise in Nepal via ham radio (9N1MM) broke the logjam as Bunker could not talk to her via any other means -- the rudimentary telephone systems of the day had no connection at all between Nepal and South Vietnam. Bunker ordered his Embassy Administrative Counselor to have an XV5AC license issued in his name as an Embassy club station and it was a done deal. XV5AC popped up from different locations around Saigon, coordinated by VHF so that the call didn't end up in two places on the dial on the same band at the same time! Once J-6 and the RVN PTT saw that XV5AC operations did not lead to any problems they began to license other XV5 operations. The Communist takeover of the whole country temporarily closed all of that down but among the Vietnamese themselves there had formed a group interested in ham radio in the Saigon (or HCMC) area and things have progressed to the point that later this year the Vietnamese will host the IARU Region 3 Conference in SGN. Who would have thought!

When I was HS3AL and before we got Thailand off the banned list, Butch and I used to hold weekly skeds. Since the best path at that time was long path over the South Pole, Butch would call me "HC3AL" since he was beaming right at Ecuador anyway. That presumably gave him plausible deniability in case the FCC ever raised the issue which they never did.

Your mention of VS6DR brings back a host of other memories as I once stayed at his mountaintop QTH in Hong Kong where we could watch down below as aircraft circled to land at Kai Tak Airport. Phil was known as "the biggest DXer in the Orient" not because of his DXCC total, though that was considerable, but because of his immense girth. He picked me up at the airport in his chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. I sat behind the driver, next to Phil, who had the seat in front of him removed so that his considerable person could spread unimpeded toward the front of the car. In addition to his being an electronics dealer he was the publisher of the Orient DX Magazine to which Don Riebhoff and I contributed several articles. A key source of Phil's income was reportedly that he talked Yaesu into naming him it's representative for all of China when everyone else at the time thought that was crazy, but he ended up selling a boatload of Yaesu gear to the Chinese PLA and people stopped laughing. Another key business line of his was getting human hair from the Chinese for hairbrush makers and having the source changed on documents to Hong Kong to get around trade prohibitions involving mainland China. Finally, he arranged charter flights to Las Vegas for Hong Kong high rollers in the days before Macau became a major gambling spot. The last I saw of Phil was when Somporn and I arranged to stay at his opulent residence in the SF Bay area during WRTC 1996. But we had to decamp to a hotel almost the moment we arrived because he was hospitalized. His bulk by then had become such a health menace that he was confined to a bed which was programmed to move portions of his body in turn to give him some sort of exercise as he was unable to move much of his body on his own. He was a prisoner of television which was on constantly to keep his mind off his physical troubles.

K8MFO wrote:
A little bit about "Chester" .. You previously told me of his role in getting the license for Ambassador Bunker. I was away for the 4th of July weekend in 1972 when you apparently made a lot of CW QSOs from XV5AC. Of course this was long before Internet spotting networks, newsgroups, reflectors or similar "modern aids" ... As an aside, I LOVED those days! I was living in Saginaw MI with no amplifier and only my usual 137 foot center fed wire on a city lot. Lo and behold I found XV5AC on 15 meters CW -- the op was giving his name as "Chester" .. Wonder of all wonders, I worked him!

K3ZO wrote:
No Don, Chester did not work CW but his pal WB4UZP was a CW-only guy and traveled the world maintaining US Embassy teletype gear so that the Embassies could get official news feeds in the days before the Internet. Whenever he was in Saigon he would fire up Chester's station on CW. WB4UZP later worked for me when I was Chief of the USIA Wire Room and USIA Crypto Custodian . I hired him as my accountant/administrator on Chester's recommendation. WB4UZP had a bug hooked up to a sounder in the one-room office which we shared and if we had an obnoxious visitor he would throw in appropriate comments without the visitor being the wiser -- visitors were led to believe that this was part of the ongoing office communications system. UZP did not want to give his own handle on the air so he signed as "Chester" whenever he operated at XV5AC.

Chester had been a beneficiary of a Southern Georgia Conditional-Class examination system which, shall we say, was ahead of its time in not requiring a Morse exam for some of the "good ole boys" that were tested there.

No I don't have a copy of that manuscript and would love to have a copy. When we discovered why Thailand and Vietnam were on the ITU "banned list" (thanks to a French FOC member F8RU who worked at ITU and who violated ITU internal regulations by forwarding us copies of internal ITU documents) we wrote articles about it in Phil Wight's Oriental Ham Magazine ("Ohm Magazine" -- I recalled the exact name after writing the message yesterday) which ARRL was not too happy about since in those days the ITU was supposed to be infallible. Once Chester showed the documents in question to his pal W4QAW who at the time was the FCC's Chief Engineer, Ray ordered the FCC to eliminate the banned list immediately for US hams. Chester, still in Washington, then had Don Riebhoff and myself ready at his station in Saigon, with a Collins S-line, a Henry 4K and a TH6DXX on the roof of an eight-story building beaming on the grey line to the US East Coast, ready to QSO the states the minute the banned list was eliminated. Ray required as a quid-pro-quo that he and ten of his pals from NCDXA would be worked first off a list that had been sent to us, before we could stand by for all callers. Don was on the mike while I sat in the background. When we got down to about number four or five on the list a certain W8PQQ could contain himself no longer and started breaking in. Don knew nothing about Al and so I grabbed the mike and said: "Al Hix, if you don't shut up you'll never get into the log." That was enough to silence him until we finished going down the list.

K8MFO wrote:
I was going to say that the CW coming out of Chester was not from an electronic keyer. You've unlocked the mystery for me.

Interestingly, I came from a Conditional Class "territory" (Upper Michigan), but I don't know one person who was definitely a "no coder". Back then it was becoming fashionable for OM/XYL teams to become licensed together. I have CW QSLs from a good portion of those ladies. Personally I think the old timers who conducted the tests were pretty tough nuts, and they weren't going to give out any free licenses!

Very interesting about W4QAW of the FCC and his friends, plus Al Hix! Al surely did display a lot of enthusiasm for the DX game. In later years it was always great to talk to him. In fact I spoke to him on the phone a few months before he became a silent key. I had a historical DX question for him, and true to form, he had a good answer for me.

Will look for the Chester manuscript. It may take a while to find it ... but I'm sure I didn't throw it away! (now up at http://hamgallery.com/gallery/S/xv5ac.htm )

Hi Fred K3ZO, Don K8MFO,
I just put up a card XW8AK from 1959 at http://hamgallery.com/qsl/country/Laos/xw8ak.htm. My list has several XW stations from the mid to upper 1950 and 60's. Were these ligitimate licensed stations? The XW8AK was operated by F2XW.
Interesting call!
73,
Tom K8CX

From Don K8MFO
I didn't work my first XW8 station until the mid 60s ... that would have been XW8AX on SSB! I believe that my first CW QSO would have been a few years later with XW8CAL, which I believe was a club station. ... But I'm relatively certain that the XW stations from the 1950s were perfectly legitimate. In early 1960 I worked FG7XF - Marceau Agastin for my first Guadeloupe QSO. On his card, he notes that he was ex XW8AI, and I do recall reading about his activities with that call. I note that you have his XW8AI card up in your QSL gallery. I think Fred will agree ... Personally I don't recall any difficulties with XW licenses ..
73, Don K8MFO

From Fred K3ZO
Yes gents the XW's from that era had legitimately issued licenses. Laos was on the banned list briefly around that time because the person in the Lao administration checked the wrong column in answering the ITU's periodic questionnaire to national radio administrations. The questionnaire was in French, the ITU's "official" language, and the one question on it about ham radio was worded (in French): "Do you prohibit your Amateur Radio stations from working Amateur Radio stations from other administrations?" So if you answered "oui" you automatically put yourself on the banned list. Don Riebhoff's and my research, aided by documents provided surreptitiously by ITU staffer (and FOC member) F8RU (now SK) discovered what it was that put people on the banned list. Several administrations checked the "oui" column for every question and therefore in most cases put themselves on the banned list without knowing they were doing so. This is what convinced W4QAW of the FCC at that time to abolish the banned list for US hams.
I operated the 1969 CQWW Phone Contest from XW8CS along with Don and Doug Woolley, now ZP6CW, and the station licensee, Dick Price W3DBT later K3RS (now SK).
BV2DA was based in Udorn-thani, Thailand where he was a radio operator for the CIA's airline "Air America". Air America used a number of Taiwanese as air crew during the Southeast Asian events. When I was based in the South Vietnamese delta our provincial office was resupplied by weekly Air America flights and I recall having to take my Vietnamese/Chinese interpreter with me when we offloaded cargo from the plane because the air crew spoke only Cantonese. 73, Fred, K3ZO

From Don K8MFO
At my age, every time we get into a subject, I think of another story! Fred knows that I had short time access to a MARS station while in Vietnam. Won't go into how I arranged that ... it's probably best told over beer (!). Worked Fred on 20 SSB a few times when he was signing HS3AL in Thailand, also on the banned list. Anyway, I set up a schedule on 20 CW with all of my old pals back in Lansing -- I recall W8RXY, W8QQL, K8UDJ (now K8CH), K8HKM (now K8JP/V31JP) and WA8LWK. I was tapping a phone plug on a microphone stand to send CW, as the MARS station did not have a key at that time. Got all of the Lansing area signals on tape as I gave the boys their signal reports. It was kind of ironic to work K8HKM, as Joe still needed Zone 26 for his last zone, and I wasn't going to count! Anyway, as we were finishing up, a very loud station came on the frequency sending ????? ... I asked for his call, and it was XW8BP. Immediately I told Pontek to call him, which he did, and finished his WAZ !! I think XW8BP's name was FENG, and that later he was active as BV2DA. I'm relying on my memory at the moment. SOOO, I was sort of responsible for completing Joe's WAZ. I must have worked XW8AX in 1966 and XW8CAL in either 1967 or early 1968. It was before I went to Vietnam. In the week or so that I had in the U.P. at my parent's house, I put up a long wire which played quite well on 20 and 15 meters. I remember working FB8WW for a new one, also having a QSO with VS6AA who was later my host in Hong Kong, and also had a QSO with Don Riebhoff on 15 SSB as HS3DR. I was then off the air stateside until December 1969. My first QSO when back was on 40 CW with Fred, still HS3AL, now off the banned list, for a new one!
73 Don K8MFO

W9AQW seen this posting and renewed an old friendship with K3ZO...
K3ZO responds:
I don't think it was me that gave you a tour of W9YT but Phil, K9ELT, because I know it was Phil who introduced you to Butch, W9EWC. By that time I had already joined the Foreign Service and moved to the Washington area. I am sad to report that Phil, who later became W6DQX and then N6ZZ, is no longer with us. He died several years ago after suffering an aneurysm while playing a game of handball. After Phil graduated from the University of Wisconsin he took an MBA in Insurance from UCLA and worked as a senior executive in the insurance industry for his working career. He had married and is survived by his only offspring, a son Paul.

As for myself, I joined the Foreign Service and served overseas in HI, HS, XV, LU, HK and YN-lands, and was able to get licenses in all but Viet Nam and Nicaragua. Though I fully expected to remain a bachelor for my entire life, married as it were to my hobby of ham radio, I met a girl - Somporn - during my second tour in Thailand who gradually changed my ideas about marriage, and I ended up marrying this wonderful lady. Much to my surprise, because I was 22 years older than she was, she died in 2011 after a brief illness. She passed away 43 days before we would have celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and I still haven't really gotten over it, but I soldier on with my ham radio activities which have filled part of the void her passing left in my life. We had no children.

Before I met Somporn I was able to build a first-class contest station here in the Washington suburbs on a little over an acre of land eight miles southeast of the White House as the crow flies. I have three towers with monoband Yagis for 80, 40, 20, 15 6 and 2 meters, a 4-el quad for 10, 15 and 20 meters, and two half-slopers for 160 meters. I can run the legal limit on all bands except 6 and 2 meters where I make do with about 600 watts.

Very good about your work with the church. Though I was confirmed in the Presbyterian church at age 13, from about age 18 onward I was not active in church matters. My wife was Buddhist and I never questioned her devotion to that way of life. I have come to respect some aspects of Buddhism.

During my assignment in Argentina I was kidnapped and shot by guerrillas, and I had been convinced at the time that I was going to die. Far from being fearful, I recall looking upon what would come next as a new adventure, and what was going through my mind at the time was: "Let's see what happens now." Much to my surprise, I survived. Therefore I do not fear death though I am enjoying life except for the void in my heart left by the absence of my dear Somporn. Now at age 76, my own beliefs amount to the feeling that nobody has all the answers. Personally I believe that each one of us has within us powers and talents that we have not yet learned to use. In my volunteer work for ARRL, IARU and the YASME Foundation I feel I am making a positive contribution to an institution that I truly believe in, that is, our wonderful hobby of Amateur Radio.

Thanks so much for taking the trouble to contact me, and I'm delighted that things have gone well for you.
73, Fred Laun, K3ZO and HS0ZAR (ex-W9SZR)

Used with permission from K8MFO, K3ZO