The Race with Obstacles

Francisc Grünberg, YO4PX

I started to read with great excitement the article written by YO2**, dedicated to the 40 years anniversary of the radio club of Timişoara, my beloved place of birth, abandoned by me 37 years ago, but on whose streets I still walk often in my dreams.

There I was brought up and went to school, there I traveled in frosty winter mornings, when the mercury of the thermometer descended under -20 degrees C, sometimes on the foot board of the crowded streetcar 6, on its circular way, through the Maria plaza and on the bridge over the river Bega, trying to arrive in time to the Musical High School situated in the downtown.

But I haven’t imagined in my nastiest dreams that reading this article, I would once again come across comrade Alexandru, albeit only under the spiritual shape of a name printed on paper. Like in a nightmare, comrade Alexandru reappeared in my life, though I was hoping once that I’ll may erase him for good from my memory.

The author of the article is arrogating him good organizers’ abilities - who knows, maybe he was really a good organizer - but for me he was the one who for two lengthy years prevented the fulfilment of a dream.

I was 16 when a class mate, a violoncelist inoculated me with the bug of amateur radio by giving me a few issues of the The Radio Amateur magazine and revealing me the secret that on the short wave bands, amidst the broadcasting stations one can hear radio amateurs rag-chewing freely, something almost inconceivable to the spectators of the propaganda films of those years, in which the only ones operating radio stations were either brave Soviet soldiers, or spies, disgusting traitors in the service of the Western intelligence agencies, who ended always by being caught, thanks to the patriotism of a pionier or a Comsomolist (member of the Soviet Young Communists’ organization), who discovered their activity and informed the authorities.

I found quickly in our rudimentary radio set the 40 and 20 meters bands and, amazed, I started to listen the QSO’s of the local amateurs and of the foreign stations in AM, among them many Italian stations, with their extremely strong signals. Then, with the help of an old scout guide I learned by myself to copy the CW contacts too; obviously the signals didn’t have a musical sound, they were only «buzzing», and I remember the thrill felt when I heard in a very early morning the trembling signal of a W6 station sending QTH CA and then a Chilean station from Antofagasta. I even manufactured log sheets, keeping record of my receptions and I started to dream that one day I will send QSL cards bearing my SWL call-sign!

In the winter of 1959 I entered my name for the telegraphy courses organized by the A.V.S.A.P., the «Voluntary Association for the Defence of the Homeland», held in the main room of the radio club and I graduated them in the summer of 1960. I became also the happy owner of a fabulous booklet with gray covers, the Radio Amateur Traffic, from which I learned a lot of new things. It comprised the list of the DXCC countries, their prefixes, their CQ zones.

After a few months I knew most of them by heart, many of the prefixes appeared already in my logs, so that when a member of the examinations commission for the amateur radio certificates asked me about some European prefixes I had no trouble at all to give him the right answers.

In November 1960 I became the proud bearer of the Amateur Radio Short Wave Listener Certificate No.184 and I filed together with my telegraphy courses colleagues the application for the SWL License. Everything seemed to be all right, nothing foreboded the entrance of comrade Alexandru in the scene and in my life, to overshadow the enjoyments of my young years.

I haven’t seen him very often before, in the afternoons when the telegraphy courses were held I could admire only the skill of a few amateurs constructing in the room on the right side an enormous station, while in the room of the left side the legendary Mir, YO2CD was busy with his exotic CW QSOs.

It was said that the new radio club chief is coming from the Army and that he has no idea about amateur radio whatsoever. Well, this haven’t prevented him to reject my license application, while the other applicants - among them Hungarians and Germans besides Romanians, but none of them Jewish - received their licenses and went off hastily to the workshop to order the stamps with their brand new SWL call signs.

Alexandru was supported in his categorical verbal refusal - like in all other his actions - by a well-known ham from Timişoara, today an old-timer, who was shaking his head and shrugging enigmatically his shoulders alike the «boss», as an answer to my desperate questions.

This was the beginning of a tormenting time, marked by permanently renewed and afterwards unfulfilled expectations. Alexandru hoodwinked me, appointing time and again new dates when I had to present myself to the club, and I remember the winding staircase mounted by me with pang and hope and descended soon full of sorrow, having in mind a new date when - who knows, maybe, possibly, nevertheless - a misterious and unseen guardian of the Law, arised out of the writings of Kafka, will finally take pity and will agree with the supplication of the poor unlicensed short wave listener, who desired so much to be within the Law……

I have kept record of these visits to the radio club. They were as much as 35. At the thirty-fifth visit Alexandru, probably bored of the monotony of this repeated scenario, opened with soldierly courage a new battlefront: one has to be member of the UTC (the Union of the Communist Youth) to become a licensed short wave listener. The homeland has confidence only in UTC members. I objected: among my course colleagues who obtained the license I know a few who are not UTC members, some of them didn’t even reached the necessary age to become UTC members.

Alexandru sank for a while into his thoughts, but at last he found the saviour solution. A letter of reference from the school, that’s it, I need to obtain a letter of reference from the school, but for this we’ll go together, comrade Alexandru and me, to request the letter of reference from the headmaster.

As a disciplined military man, he was waiting for me at the entrance of the high school on the appointed day and time, wearing his greenish uniform; in front of the headmaster’s office he told me to stand by and he stepped in alone.

The headmaster was very fond of me, I was always included in his «troupe» of student-artists, able to perform a complete musical programme, sent by him to take part in all the artistic festivals held in the county, and with my xylophone, accompanied by a colleague at accordion, I scored fulminant successes.

I’ll never find out what exactly they discussed inside the cabinet, the fact is that after a time Alexandru came out and showed in direction of the door: the headmaster is waiting for me. This entire suspicious theatre seemed to be of very ill omen. With burning face and stammering of emotion I presented to the headmaster my grievance to be issued with a letter of reference. As long I live I’ll never forget the profound embarrassment of the poor man, constrained to deny my request, without being able to offer me any explanation at all. I left astounded the cabinet. Alexandru disappeared.

And with this all my hopes collapsed. I decided to give up irrevocably to this hobby, which for me seemed to be forbidden. But before that I’ve done however something: for the first time in my life I exercised my right of petition, granted by the Constitution, in my capacity of young citizen of the Romanian People’s Republic.

I wrote a long letter to YO3**. I heard him Sundays transmitting on 40 meters band the official QTC’s of the Romanian Amateur Radio Federation, and I thought that somebody must nevertheless learn about the mockery I’ve been inflicted, it must remain somewhere a trace of it. I counted him day by day the 35+1 summons to the club and I asked for his help, simply unable to understand why I have been refused to get something obtained by others without any difficulty. I sent one copy of the letter to the Central Radio Club, another one to his personal address, I found both addresses in the telephone directory.

A few months I still watched the arrival of the postman. In vain. The Romanian citizens’ right of petition was laid down all right by the Constitution, but not so the obligation of the institutions or the officials to give them an answer. Probably that’s why the addressee did not condescend to reply to my S.O.S……

After a year or so I came across on the street with a course colleague. He received already his transmitting license, he told me that he worked ZS4 on 40 meters. And he gave me another information: comrade Alexandru was called back to active service, the new chief of the radio club is Costi Dumitrescu, YO2BI. Go to the club, he’s a good guy, maybe he’ll give you a hand, added the colleague before we gone apart.

I ascended with trembling feet the well-known wooden stairs. And indeed: in the room tapestried in blue by comrade Alexandru, near the station sat a nice looking young man. I narrated him in short what I have been through and I showed him my SWL certificate. He smiled sadly, sympathetically, then he rose to his feet, extracted from a locker a form, he filled it in with my name and with the «receptionable bands» in my poor radio set: 7 and 14 MHz. Then he consulted a register and he filled in also the «call sign» column: YO2-1117. Go to the Central Post Office and ask them to stamp it, he said. Then he turned to another ham present in the room: Unbelievable, isn’t it?

After a month I was there again, this time with about 300 QSL cards, my very first receptions as a licensed SWL. I brought with me the log copy as well - probably the younger colleagues doesn’t know that in those years one had to present carbon copies, even for receptions, in order to be verified by the «authorities». Costi run over the pages and he said: Well-well, how nice would be if the transmitters could keep their logs as orderly as this one!

With this a chapter came to an end for me, but not so the ordeal of my race with obstacles. I reached its finish only in 1980, after 17 years of form-fillings, applications, petitions, remonstrances, memorials … and receptions. I obtained my transmitting license at the age when other hams accumulated some 20 years of activity.

This is the way I’ve acquainted comrade Alexandru. I hope with my whole heart that on the way of their evolution our younger colleagues won’t come upon such characters, who were able to do much harm to the Romanian amateurs, in those years plagued by arbitrariness and totalitarianism.

Francisc Grünberg, YO4PX

• This text was published in the Romanian magazine Radiocommunications and Amateur Radio and on the independent website www.radioamator.ro and in English in FOCUS, the quarterly magazine of the British-based "First Class CW Operators' Club".