{"id":7586,"date":"2026-01-29T16:44:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/?p=7586"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:46:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:46:03","slug":"qsl-card-shows-how-small-our-world-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/2026\/01\/29\/qsl-card-shows-how-small-our-world-is\/","title":{"rendered":"QSL Card shows how small our world is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have found an even more remarkable QSL card from 1932 connecting the Cominco engineer whom I wrote about in an earlier post, Donald Hings VE5BH, with a pioneer of radio astronomy, Grote Reber W9GFZ.\u00a0 https:\/\/www.nist.gov\/blogs\/taking-measure\/grote-reber-radio-astronomer<\/a> I encourage you to follow this link as he accomplished so much. Among other nuggets, he secured a Giant W\u00fcrzburg German WWII radar antenna to use for radio astronomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the history beginning with the QSL card:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1932 <\/strong>\u2013 Grote Reber (in Chicago) and Donald Hings (in Rossland) communicate on amateur radio with Morse code and Reber documents this with the QSL card. There is no indication that the two of them knew each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1940-45<\/strong> \u2013 Donald Hings moves to Ottawa to work with the National Research Council (NRC) on developing walkie-talkies.  His lab is on the second floor of 100 Sussex Drive, which is a grand 1935 building at the confluence of the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers.  I believe it was on the side facing the Ottawa River. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1976 -1984<\/strong> \u2013 I work in NRC with the radio astronomy group on the second floor of 100 Sussex Drive facing the river<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1985-86 <\/strong>(?) \u2013 Grote Reber works with the same radio astronomy group on the second floor of 100 Sussex Drive<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2025 <\/strong>\u2013 A friend of my son finds a box of QSL cards from the early 1930s and gives it to me.  I find the QSL card that Reber sent to Hings 93 years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It feels like the Twilight Zone!  I am thinking of writing it up for the RAC magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have found an even more remarkable QSL card from 1932 connecting the Cominco engineer whom I wrote about in an earlier post, Donald Hings VE5BH, with a pioneer of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7586"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7593,"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586\/revisions\/7593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}