Yesterday we published some text and video showing a happy VE3DAL making his first ever ham radio QSO. The question was then asked “what was your first QSO?”
We expected a few more replies, but this one from Tom LA4LN deserves a post of its own. Read on!
My own first QSO as a licensed radio amateur was not a special one – I had been an eager CB DXer on 27 MHz. So I had ordered some crystals for the radio amateur 10m band, which I plugged into a CB walkie-talkie, and made my first radio amateur QSOs on 10m AM that way.
Soon after I joined the Army’s Signal Corps for education as a professional telegrapher. At the Signal Corps they had an excellent amateur radio station with the call sign LA2J, where we radio amateurs spent our free time, like a club. They had an amateur radio examiner in the military camp, so when the recruits became good enough in telegraphy and radio knowledge, they passed an amateur radio examination, and became new radio amateurs.
“Odd” is an old Nordic man’s name since a millennium ago, meaning a spiss or a spear. But in English the word odd in most cases means strange.
One of the new recruits had received his amateur radio license, and should have his very first QSO at the LA2J station, using SSB. He called a British station, and introduced himself: “My name is Odd“.
The British station asked “please repeat your name”, and got the answer: “My name is Odd“.
And this exchange was repeated some times, until the British radio amateur said: “I hear your name is odd, but please give me your name?”.
We were at least ten radio amateurs in the LA2J shack, listening to the new radio amateur’s very first QSO – and our laughs were so loud, that the new radio amateur “Odd” asked us to shut up, so he could hear what the British radio amateur said on the radio. “Odd” obviously didn’t understand what the word odd means in English, so he just went on saying “my name is Odd“. And we in the shack were not able to stop our laughs.
So this first QSO is something I remember very well!
73 from Tom, LA4LN (and LC1V in contests)
The attached special LA2J QSL card is from 2003, when the Army Signals Comrade Society, HSBKF, celebrated their 30 years jubilee. Soon after, the society changed its name to Signal Soldiers Society, SBSF, with a new website. Next year (2023) this society has its 50 years jubilee, and we plan that the society will use the amateur radio call LJ2T at that jubilee celebration – it is now the only amateur radio station with the prefix LJ from Norway.
If you have a “my first QSO” story to tell then please get in touch like Tom did.
