A short Ham Radio story

It was a moonlit night.

The air was still and quiet except for the sound of distant traffic while the backyard of the house was bathed in an eerie glow on that balmy summers night.

Not a mouse stirred. Not a tree leaf moved. The atmosphere was dead calm but there was indeed something happening here. In the corner of the yard and next to a tall tree there stood a small tin shed lit up by the glow of the moonlight. A dim light could be seen in the window.

In that shed, someone was speaking. Not to just anyone but to some one on the other side of the world. It was Oscar speaking into a microphone, talking to his friend in England.

Oscar was 17 years old. He was an Amateur Radio Operator and each Friday night using his radio, he talked to Peter who lived in the countryside on a small farm about a hundred kilometres from London. The weather there was the opposite to what it was like where Oscar lived in Adelaide, Australia.

It was blowing a gale and cold as ice as Peter explained that winter had brought the snow which was lying on the ground and parts of the country were now under water.

By contrast, the weather in Adelaide had been hot and dry with day time temperatures nearing 40 degrees Celsius. Global warming was a fact of life nowadays with extremes of weather now more prevalent than a few years before.

‘It’s freezing here. I’m just about sitting on top of the electric radiator as we speak,’ Peter said, his voice travelling half way around the world to reach Oscar’s ears, interrupted now and again by the crackle of static.

‘It wont be long and I wont be able to get to work any more because we’ll be snowed in. I’ll have to stay home with nothing to do but get on the radio, I can see that!’ he chuckled. Any excuse to be on the radio was a good excuse to Peter.

He was a couple of years older than Oscar and lived with his parents who ran a herd of milking cows on their property. Peter worked in the nearby town as an apprentice electrician.

‘The antenna’s taking a battering in this wind, it’s blowing a gale here. I just hope it doesn’t break!’ he said.

It was about midday there while in the land down under, it was night time. Oscar was sitting in his small ham shack in the back yard of this parents’ home with headphones on his ears listening intently to what Peter was saying.

‘The weather conditions are just too rough to go any where today,’ Peter said ‘ but I’d better get off the radio Oscar, there are a few things I have to do here so wont keep it any longer. I’ll see you next Friday, same time, same place. 73 for now.’ Peter signed off and Oscar likewise.

Perspiration was beading on Oscar’s forehead while the odd mosquito buzzed around the desk lamp. Even though it was night time the temperature was still in the high 20’s. He took off the headphones, pressed the power switch on the radio, turned off the light and locked up his ham shack. Yawning, he slowly started to make his way back up the garden path towards the house at the front of the property.

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Details of my new book ‘ Oscar’s Amateur Radio Adventure ‘ can be found on my website.

The above short story is not an excerpt from it though.