In the first three years of my license in autumn 2013 I entered every QSO in qrz.com and wrote and answered a QSL for every first QSO. After starting regular Sota activities at the end of 2016, it was over from one day to the next, because I had to fill my Sota database. In addition, my qso was limited exclusively to Sota contacts.
Yesterday our QSL manager visited me surprisingly and brought me hundreds of QSL cards. I haven’t been to the club for years, maybe also because I didn’t have to submit QSL cards. First of all, a big thank you to everyone who has sent me cards and has been waiting for a reply for years. I can’t mention all of them here, but warm regards to…
Gerhard OE6GND, who always wants to reach me even in difficult conditions - Mick, 2E0ESY often from the moving car - like Markus IN3ADF, your calls from the moving bus were always something special and of course our many S2S. Markus, if I had had your card with your picture in my hands earlier, I would never have confused you in the group photo from HAM Radio - Bernd DL2DXL, whom I will visit later this year - Jack OH3GZ, who, even in poor conditions, at 20m often calls unexpectedly. I would like to scratch your sweet cat - Tom DJ2TG from his extreme Sota expeditions - the tireless and always friendly Paul, DL6FBK - the SWL Eyran 4X4-2238, who heard me surprisingly often in Israel - Heinrich IW3AGO, with many calls from home and from the mountain - Dinos SV3IEG with nice signals from Greece - Jaroslaw SP9MA, greetings to Poland - ON4CB, Kurt our skip is always good - OE15SOTA with the manager Sylvia - DL1WIL, Wil, your spirit is mine too - Anita & Jean-Pierre, I don’t have to mention your call here - Norbert, DG1NPM with the world’s loudest modulation - Artur SP3CW, here are my data DOK H13 JO42VJ - OE3KAB Karl, super qsl card - Roger F5LKW greetings to your dog. Unfortunately I didn’t hear him barking in the background during the last CW qsos - Peter DM7KN hopefully we’ll meet in DL sometime.
I’ve got a good woman, so it’ll be the former…
I was reading earlier about Keith Moon, got there via a very long story…
Exploding toilets
Moon’s favourite stunt was to flush powerful explosives down toilets. According to Fletcher, Moon’s toilet pyrotechnics began in 1965 when he purchased a case of 500 cherry bombs.[98] Townshend remembers walking into the bathroom of Moon’s hotel room and noticing the toilet had disappeared, with only the S-bend remaining. The drummer explained that since a cherry bomb was about to explode, he had thrown it down the toilet and showed Townshend the case of cherry bombs. “And of course from that moment on,” the guitarist remembered, “we got thrown out of every hotel we ever stayed in.”[99]
Moon moved from cherry bombs to M-80 fireworks to sticks of dynamite, which became his explosive of choice.[100] “All that porcelain flying through the air was quite unforgettable,” Moon remembered. “I never realised dynamite was so powerful. I’d been used to penny bangers before.”[98] He quickly developed a reputation for destroying bathrooms and blowing up toilets. The destruction mesmerised him, and enhanced his public image as rock’s premier hell-raiser. Tony Fletcher wrote that “no toilet in a hotel or changing room was safe” until Moon had exhausted his supply of explosives.[98]
Entwistle recalled being close to Moon on tour and both were often involved in blowing up toilets. In a 1981 Los Angeles Times interview he admitted, “A lot of times when Keith was blowing up toilets I was standing behind him with the matches.”[101]
Once, a hotel manager called Moon in his room and asked him to lower the volume on his cassette recorder because it made “too much noise.” In response the drummer asked him up to his room, excused himself to go to the bathroom, put a lit stick of dynamite in the toilet and shut the bathroom door. Upon returning, he asked the manager to stay for a moment, as he wanted to explain something. Following the explosion, Moon turned the recorder back on and said, “That, dear boy, was noise. This is the 'Oo.”[102]
I gave my bike (MTB) a fettling last weekend. It’s been out of service for a few years, lube, tyres pumped, disc brakes sorted, cyclo computer fixed. I took it for a quick 15km burst around the lanes and tracks. Best endorphin rush I’ve had in years. If only you could bottle it you could sell it for millions
I think this thread got off the rails somehow. But there is some good humor there!
I like QSL cards and have been sending and receiving them for over 60 years. More
in the early years, less in recent years (probably because of LOTW, EQSL, etc).
The QSL bureau still comes through with a small packet now & then. But the answering
and shipping seems to be more of a chore as I get older. My outbound bureau pile
is about 5 pounds or so of cards, probably cost me $100 USD to get them out of here.
My advice is to get them out as they come in and don’t let them pile up! I feel guilty
about letting them sit here so long.
I know someone is going to dump all this collection into the rubbish when I go to that big hamshack in the sky. But for the time being they stay here and once in a while I dig
out a card from the 1950s to show some other old timer that we had a QSO back when we were teenagers.
