VB7MAN has a WW2 radio to WW2 radio contact !

A really nice email from Rob Steenburgh AD0IU to the VB7MAN team below. It is nice to have the first WW2 radio to WW2 radio contact in the bag well done team VB7MAN, Mark, and Rob!

I was using a BC-458-A that I’d pulled over to the 7 MHz band, and although I knew Mark was using a tube rig, but I had no idea when I answered his CQ that he was using a WWII rig as well.  

If I understood correctly, he was using a BC-459-A, but wanted to confirm if it’s possible.

Here was my setup.

Now here’s another crazy coincidence:

The BC-458-A I was using had once belonged to the RCAF.

So this was quite the contact.  While I’d learned about the Berlin Airlift (I was a USAF weatherman for 23 years, 1985-2009), I hadn’t heard of Operations Manna or Chowhound.

More coincidences; my family has roots in the Netherlands and in Havelock, Ontario.  I used to go up to Havelock in the summers, as did my father before me, and his before him.  My dad got the radio on Radio Row in NYC, and I used to look at it under his workbench when I was a boy.  He never did restore it, but he sent it to me in 2008, and my son and I got it back on the air.

That’s all.

Please pass along my thanks to Mark for a memorable QSO, and I’ll be sending a QSL your way.

Best Regards,

Rob Steenburgh

AD0IU