"Still, but too late," says a less well-known proverb. This impromptu report also belongs to this category.
As some of us may be surprised to remember, the first Czechoslovak radio broadcast took place on May 18, 1923. Yes, yesterday, Sunday, it was exactly eighty years ago. The emergence of radio had a significant impact on the development of the amateur radio hobby, because many of those who started on a crystal with high-ohm headphones later became radio amateurs - listeners or transmitters.
And although it seems to me that Czech and Slovak radio amateurs have somewhat forgotten this anniversary, it still did not go completely unnoticed. Sunday, May 18, 2003 was quite a nice day. The sunny weather was occasionally interrupted by passing clouds, so it was very pleasant. We planned with the children to visit the exhibition "Air is our sea again", which was held this weekend at the airport in Prague-Kbelá (some call it Letňany).
As some of the children fell asleep, I ended up setting off too late, with only my son and a firm time limit of 6pm.
The airport and its surroundings are not architecturally very attractive, so long before we arrived "directly to the place", an army Mi-17 helicopter caught our attention, with a long queue standing next to it. My son (still unbranded ;)) wanted to look inside at all costs, which he did, but in the end it was almost the same as traveling several stops on a crowded bus.
By the time we got to the parked planes, we encountered security guards shooing people off the airfield, from where one by one the planes were taking off for sightseeing flights, demonstration field positions of American motorized riflemen with jeeps, a cotton candy booth, a carousel, a marine fish exhibit (which consisted of three dirty aquariums in a narrow, poorly lit maringota), and several booths and tents with refreshments.
In the middle of this rush, we happened to see the tent of Radiožurnál, actually Czech Radio. In the tent there was an improvised studio in which the presenter sat with a guest. The sound from the studio went to the external speakers, so in the noise of the merry-go-rounds and planes, I caught a piece of the sentence: "well, on the amateur radio bands...".
At that moment, as if on call, a sympathetic radio employee came to offer us the opportunity to record our own voice on a CD. I declined with thanks (we already regularly record our children's voices on MP3s and email them to the grandparents), but I asked the nice girl to find out who the studio guest was. She came in a moment later and said what I basically expected: "There's a radio amateur."
Na nasledujúcu úplne logickú otázku „a akú má značku“ zjavne nebola pripravená a tak opäť odišla. Medzitým rozhovor vo štúdiu skončil a tak som sa s rádioamatérom stretol osobne.
We introduced ourselves (unfortunately, I forgot both the brand and the name until this morning), he said he was taken to the microphone against his will, and we exchanged a few words about his "specialty" in DX connections on 80 meters. It then turned out that the other people sitting in the back of the tent with some instruments were OK1MSR and OK1HYN, and that the instruments were transceivers. Hynek OK1HYN was just establishing a connection on 14 MHz under the special National Technical Museum mark OK5NTM, which was last heard about three years ago (unverified).
The conditions were really crowded: an inverted clam shell and several other antennas spread out in the cramped space between the tent and the surrounding trees. In addition, the operation took place under considerable acoustic and radio interference caused by the accompanying entertainment program of Radiožurnál, as well as by planes taking off and landing.
I regretted not hearing OK5NTM the day before at the campfire at our radio club, where we made several connections on twenty meters. Since I didn't want to deprive other colleagues of a connection with a rare brand, I said goodbye with the obligatory invitation to the OL Party and left to go to the carousel and a few other attractions with my son so that we could return home at the promised time.
Since I did not originally plan to write a report, unfortunately you will not see any photos and the names of the radio amateurs present will have to be added by a colleague with a better memory. I end with a deep apology to the readers CQ.SK a s prianím, aby sme boli na deväťdesiate a sté výročie počiatkov nášho rozhlasu a amatérskeho vysielania lepšie pripravení.
73 days OK1FOU
(Jindra Vavruška)
(written on 19.5.2003)