-When in university, I was a member of a radio club affiliated with the local Students' Society.
Lore had it a member had gotten in contact with JY1 once, and, much like the ham in this article, assumed he hadn't got the call down correctly. -'Please complete your call; I only got the prefix, over'
That we do. I never got a contact with Hussein, but did have the (surprising!) pleasure to find out that the Argentinian ham obligingly swapping bands all the way from 20m through 17, 15 and 12m to give me a couple of new band countries as I got started on HF in 2002 was no other than former president Carlos Menem.
Had no idea until the card arrived; on air, he’d described himself as a retired official.
This is a charming story. There is a sad line from the hopeful early years of the internet to today, from a royal ham operator to Trump’s twitter account.
Related, sorry if it’s not related enough, I’ve been unable to find the one interview the Japanese emperor Hirohito did in 1975/7 with the American journalist Bernard Krisher, Tokyo bureau chief for Newsweek Magazine from 1968 to 1980. It sounds like an interesting but mild meeting but very rarely quoted.
I was a member of the hang gliding club at Imperial College in London
in the early 90s. A member of our club, Yasmin Saudi, organized a hang
gliding expedition in Jordan involving a couple of lucky members (not
me) and British women's hang gliding champion Judy Leden. King Hussein
kindly provided a military escort and had a personal audience with the
participants. He also stayed in touch afterwards, and a year or so
later when Yasmin was dying of cancer he frequently called the
hospital. He stayed friends with Judy Leden and according to an
interview of her whose source I can't remember he sometimes visited
the UK unofficially and dropped in for a cup of tea. Other things I've
heard about him are that he donated one of his official residences for
use as an orphanage and sometimes visited the kids to be supportive
and give them video games. I have a feeling he may have been one of
the good guys as world leaders go.
9 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 86.2 ms ] threadLore had it a member had gotten in contact with JY1 once, and, much like the ham in this article, assumed he hadn't got the call down correctly. -'Please complete your call; I only got the prefix, over'
-'JY1 is my full call; name is Hussein, over'
-'How do you get a callsign like that, over?'
-'Being a king helps, over.'
I think everyone knows that story :) and we all wish it'd been us.
Had no idea until the card arrived; on air, he’d described himself as a retired official.