The radio bands were always quieter after midnight. This is what drew Lee and Bill to the back den off the kitchen on Friday and Saturday nights—quieter radio bands meant a greater chance of finding new life and new civilizations (or at least new amateur radio friends). Arlington, Texas is a long way from everywhere today, and it was even farther from everywhere during the summer of 1970. But perhaps that’s what made the radio miracle possible.
Lee and Bill had been interested in amateur (or “ham”) radio their whole lives. One of Lee’s friends at school was a licensed ham radio operator, and as soon as they could, Lee and Bill became licensed themselves. At first, all they could do was communicate on just a few bands (similar to radio stations you pick up in your car) with all the other novices; they were also required to use Morse Code. Dots and dashes flew from their code key, up the two dipole antennae in the backyard, and into the night sky, where they bounced off the ionosphere and landed in backyards across the state, across the country, and even across the world.
Many of these Morse Code communications were themselves coded messages. QRZ meant “Who is calling me?” CQ meant “I am going to announce my own call sign.” QSN was “Did you hear me?” Messages like OMG and LOL are old news to ham radio operators.
Even when Lee and Bill had earned their conditional licenses (meaning they could speak over the radio and were not restricted to Morse Code) they still used the Q codes for simplified communication. QRA meant “What is your call sign?” Each operator had their own call sign that was issued to them when they received their license. Lee’s call sign was K5MRC and Bill’s was K5MTB. Both young men had radios in their car and would sometimes call to each other when they were driving across west Texas. “CQ K5MRC, this is K5MTB, do you read, over?” Most of the time the ionosphere cooperated and the brothers could speak to each other. One night though, even though they were only 100 miles apart, nether could reach the other. An odd signal broke through. “K5MTB, I read you, I also read K5MRC, I can relay, over.”
“QRA caller, this is K5MTB, over.”
“This is AC4TT, I can hear you and K5MRC loud and clear.” Bill was confused by the unusual call sign. All of the ham radio operators in the US had signs that began with K or W.
“AC4TT what is your QTH (location)?”
AC4TT laughed. “I am in Tibet.”
For whatever reason, on that night the radio signals would not bounce low enough to get from point A to point B in west Texas, but the man in Tibet could hear them both.
Many nights, like that summer night in 1970, the young men found themselves in the den at the back of the house, hunched at the table covered in black boxes and coaxial cable coils. The radio transmitter sat at the back of the room, in front of the window so the brothers could keep watch on the pair of antennae in the backyard. This particular night started out no different. Lee went to the kitchen and came back with two mugs of coffee poured from the percolator on the stove. “Let’s see who we can find tonight, ok Bill?”
Bill and Lee took turns calling out to friends in Texas and also in other parts of the nation. Flips of switches and turns of dials helped them adjust the delay of the signal from one dipole antenna in the backyard to the other, miniscule tweaks that would help them focus on specific incoming radios signals. At nearly two o’clock in the morning, a weak signal came across the receiver, a tired voice sending out a distress call. “CQ, CQ, is anyone out there, over? CQ, CQ, is anyone out there, over?”
“QRA caller this is K5MRC, we hear you, your signal is very weak, over.”
“K5MRC we read you, over.”
“QRA caller this is K5MTB in Arlington, Texas, we read you, very weak signal, what is your QTH?”
“Brockton Naval Station…Antarctica.”
Bill put the large silver mike down and looked at Lee. “Did they just say…”
Lee shook his head. “We should check again.”
“QRA caller what is your QTH?”
“Brockton Naval Station, Antarctica. Yours is the first voice we’ve heard north of the Equator in six months!”
“OK Brockton, we read you, let us do some adjustments…” Bill turned a dial on the radio receiver and flipped a switch. This would send the signal on the flattest trajectory possible, as far south as possible, for as long as the ionosphere would allow.
“Brockton, do you read us, over?”
“We hear you loud and clear, Texas.”
Brockton’s signal was loud and clear, too, as if the men at the bottom of the world were in the room with them.
“Thank God, we have 24 men down here and we have not spoken to our families in 6 months. Can you call our families and let them know that we are all ok?”
Bill’s face broke into a grin. “We can do better than that, Brockton, we can set up a phone patch and you can tell them yourselves!”
Bill grabbed a small black box and several cables from the shelf near the table. He ran three cables to the phone patch box: one from the radio itself, one from the microphone, and a third from the rotary desk phone on the table.
“OK Brockton, what’s the first phone number?”
Lee set the handset on the table and dialed the long distance number on the rotary phone. Somewhere in America, a sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”
Lee cleared his throat. “Hello ma’am, this is Lee McRight, I am an amateur radio operator in Arlington, Texas.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I have your son on the radio, he is calling from Antarctica.”
Sleep disappeared from the voice on the other end of the line. “Johnny?”
“Yes, mom, it’s me! I just have a few minutes, but I wanted to let you know that I’m doing okay.”
Mom’s voice was choked with tears. “I’m just so glad to hear your voice. I love you, son!”
“I love you too, Mom!”
For the next two hours Lee and Bill took turns dialing the phone. “I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of the night, ma’am, but I have your husband on the phone from Antarctica.” Wives, mothers, girlfriends, all got to speak to the men who had been out of touch for so long at the cold, dark, bottom of the world.
The last “I love you! I’ll see you soon!” had been said, the last phone call was finished. Bill picked up the microphone and squeezed the button on the side. “It was good to talk to you Brockton, this is Texas, signing off.”
There was silence on the other end. Bill and Lee looked at each other and looked back at the radio, waiting for a response. The signal that had perfectly clear just moments ago was lost, perhaps because of a sudden shift in the ionosphere.
“Brockton? This is K5MTB, over.”
Nothing. The bands were silent.
But then again, after midnight, they usually were.
