8GZ 1923 Columbus, Ohio

Lorence G. Windom, inventor of the Windom Antenna!

Major General Lorence Gregory "Loren" Windom, U. S. Army and Adjutant General of the Ohio National Guard, was born august 12, 1905 and died February 1, 1988.
He held the following callsigns: W8GZ, W8ZG, 8AOI, 8ZO, 8GZ, and 8ZG.

Lorence Windom did a lot of antenna expermenting in the early 1920's. Windy put up a zepp antenna which was fed off-center instead of the traditional center-fed antenna. The zeppelins, or dirigibles of the day used the traditional center-fed zepp antennas, hence the name. Although Windy had a UV-204 tube transmitter that would run several hundred watts, Windy began to experiment with low power. He built an oscillator using a UV-199 receiving tube that ran less than 1 watt of power. On the evening of December 30, 1925, the propagation was very good and Windy put the low power transmitter on the air. That night Windy worked 5BG in Australia running a measured power of .567 watts to the UV-199, including the filament. His "Windom" antenna would be described in QST in another 2 years.

The 1st ARRL DX contest would be held from May 9th to May 13th, 1927. 8GZ entered the contest. Although he didn't qualify for a certificate, his contact total of 82 was the second highest of the contest.

QSL SM5LNE Collection
Info courtesy of W5KNE
Other Info from the book Don C. Wallace W6AM Amateur Radio's Pioneer