Here’s the second in the short bonus series of W8DFL QSL cards… two more to come after this one.

I’ll start off with this one from Sr. Cletus:

I’ve seen cards from priests out in the field, but this is the first and only one I ran into from a nun. Seems she was demoing the radio for a class or something.

How she picked Sr. Mary Cletus, I might never know. I’ve got to say, she does have impeccable penmanship.

This is interesting for two reasons, two slashes. Here’s Ove operating from the Åland Islands which seem to be Finish, but only kinda-sorta. The even more interesting thing is W8DFL/OE2 which means that Vic was operating out of Austria! I know he was out to Switzerland when he was transmitting from the ITU, but I guess he roamed further than that!

I’ll leave this with a shortwave listening card:

Why? I love the complete hand-made nature of this one.

I wonder who Bob is. I wonder how Vic was supposed to send a QSL since I can’t even seem to find the address.

But it’s fascinating to look at.

Even the coastline of the US is in there.

1935. Before WWII.

How things change.

After En’s uncle Bill passed away last month she went over to his house. He lived in his parents’ house, En’s grandparents’ house. Of course her grandpa was Vic Bambeck, W8DFL.

Bill gave her the bulk of the QSL cards that were stored in a shoebox, but on her trip over she found some postcard holders with more cards in them. This is going to be a mini series of the cards in the four postcard sleeves.

Oddly, the first card I’m posting isn’t even a card.

Here’s Vic and his wife in Geneva Switzerland. W8DFL is the guest operator for 4U1ITU. This is the ITU — the International Telecommunication Union. (It’s UN agency for all things communication!) The ITU is the world governing body for all things on the air. 4U1ITU is the amateur radio ration that they run.

So moving from one side of that conversation to the other…

Here’s someone he talked to — in Hyderabad, India. From Parma, to Geneva, to India.

So, another non-card. I was less than one years old at the time. This was Vic’s shack in the basement of that Parma house. Big gear. All that can be squeezed into less than two cubic feet now (and that’ll get you a legal limit amplifier to boot!).

Nauru? Chalk this up as a learning experience!

Nauru is a tiny pin-prick of an island in the Pacific. All told it’s less that 9 square miles in size. Solon, where I’m based at the moment, is more that twice as big.

The card doesn’t seem like it’s from an expedition… perhaps Ken was just there mining the phosphate that the island was… ?

The last one for today is another place I’ve not heard of:

Here we’re talking about Aldabra Island. Here’s an empty island in the Indian Ocean. Other than researchers this little atol isn’t populated at all.

So… this was likely an expedition since it’s in the middle of nowhere. The even cooler aspect is that Harry seems to be from Mombasa, Kenya. (!)

Ahhh… internationalism.

This is the last of the cards that I’m going to post since this is the last of the cards I have to post. I’ll post some meta-analysis later on as I process the data, but there aren’t going to be any new cards unfortunately.

Most of this last batch are cards that I couldn’t scan normally. Either they are too fragile or too abrasive to just stack in the document feeder for automated processing.

I’ll start with the oldest card of all that’s only partially filled out unfortunately:

I’m going to count this as a 80m contact. 85m is in the 80m band which ranges from 3.5-4.0 MHz — it’s in the bottom chunk that’s reserved for Morse Code. Morse Code is just sending out a single frequency coded just by turning it on and off. The single frequency is also called CW for Continuous Wave.

This was way back in 1930 from Warren. Vic lived there back then too so it wasn’t a long-range contact by any stretch. I just find the “OM” on the bottom funny. OM = Old Man. Of course back then he wasn’t. I’m older now than he would have been then.

Now what was I saying about abrasive?

The printing on the front may as well be glitter sandpaper!

The way the scanner works it slides it over the glass scanner… no way that’s going to make it through without scratching the glass. No way I’m going to try at least!

And let’s move on to fragile:

This was scanned in the carrier for the scanner. It was barely holding together as it was . I can make out the date a bit. 11/17/1931 probably… But that’s about all the handwriting I can make out.

It’s a bit worse for wear.

And no, I didn’t tape it; that’s the way it came to us.

Another cool thing of the hobby is how it brings people together:

Followed up just about two months later with a…

The eyeball QSL. Fun times… the same year that Ennie was born they set out on a road trip!

This is the penultimate update for this long string of posts. I’ll be sad when they’re all done. If for no other reason than I’ll have to come up with something more original every week.

Don’t worry though, I have other plans for that!  

This card, amongst all the rest, holds the honor of the oldest one in the collection. As I write this it’s an 80 year old piece of paper.

An 80 year old piece of paper that has TXTing on on.

B A GUD SPORT OM, PSE QSL 73s

(OM = Old Man. It’s opposite is an XYL. XYL = eX Young Lady.)

It’s cool to see something like “Experimental Radio Station” on the card. Back then the experiments were for real. You had an idea and you had to try it out. There’s no simulations that you can do to virtually try them out. You strung some wires up in the tree and did something.

The experiments, no doubt, let to Vic working on the development of RADAR in WWII.

Connections all around.

We also start to get to some of the rattier cards:

These got left to the end. Most of these wound up being scanned on the flatbed instead of the sheet-fed scanner.

I simply love the handwriting on the card. The flourishes around all the letters are simply beautiful. I don’t know anyone that would just write like that any more. Perhaps if you were addressing wedding invitations you might pay someone to do this… but never just for something ordinary.

Maybe radio just wasn’t that ordinary.  

The first real radio broadcasts started only in the 20′s. 1932 wasn’t that far removed from that.

I like this one for the extreme low-tech of it. The pre-paid 1-cent post card with a hand-stamped call sign.

“Single button, Hi”

…. ..

Welcome to the land of repeats… even with the extra one. Some get well soon cards (some of which are dupes themselves!)

Why this one? It’s the first reference to 6m that I’ve found. Though it’s not a completed card. I heard En tell stories about how her grandpa had a portable radio in the trunk of the car; I wonder if this is from that time?

I’m just pulling this one up since it’s from 1936. A giant 750w 160m amp in the middle. Wow!

This one is interesting. If you look to Vic’s station, this time he’s W8DFL/VE1. Apparently he took his rig up there to Nova Scotia and made some contacts back home! Sure is cheaper than long distance back then!

The series is quickly coming to an end. In a twist of synchronicity cards seem to be saying the same thing unfortunately.

More get well soon cards addressed to the hospital… one of which…

Was delivered in person. He got over the 1975 issue though since I’ve seen cards up through the early 80′s. It’s still tough to look at them though.

Here’s the one that got to me:

A “1-way” exchange. Somewhere out there there’s a fully blank card that Jim kept along. Still had a sense of humor though.

Eventually the call W8MWC did get reissued to a John in Adrian, MI.

Vic did go on to after all this to keep on making more contacts though!