June 2020 ~ Radio and Travel Inspired Ramblings

June 26, 2020 -

Getting Stuck In The Sahara Desert

When I was in the US Navy stationed in Spain in the early 70's, I made 5 trips to Morocco with a friend, we were both Amateur Radio operators and thus intrigued by foreign countries and cultures. We spent most of our 30 days annual leave from the Navy traveling around Morocco two years in a row, 1973 and 1974, although in '74 we also went to Gibraltar for a week to operate ham radio there.

The travel guide "Spain And Morocco On $5 And $10 a Day" was our bible. We were usually in Morocco other than the peak tourist season and we could haggle with hotel clerks for a cheap rate for a few nights. The guide book told us which ones to try. I remember it said that tourists should never go into the souk in Marrakesh, Casablanca or Tangiers after dark. So of course we had to do it, late at night, in all of them :-)

The other idiot thing we did in 1974 was drive the car out to the desert from Marrakesh, instead of taking a Sahara tour in one of the big 6WD buses. The tours all left at 4AM so they would be back before the heat of the day, but we left at 8AM. We drove east across the Atlas Mountains and into the desert as far as the hard packed sand track went. Got to the end where sand dunes started and saw camels wandering around. Turned around and started back, late in the morning. It was getting hot. We had a Sony shortwave radio installed in the car, I was tuning the bands. On the FM broadcast band the entire dial was packed with BBC and German stations, coming in like we were next door to them! It was May and they were coming in via Sporadic E skip propagation on VHF from northern Europe to Morocco, it was awesome! My roommate Paul (then WA3IJR) was driving, he looked down at the radio in amazement and drove off the hard packed track. The VW Fastback sedan was stuck in the sand. We had a 1 gallon jug with only a cup of water in it, and an old British Army poncho we draped across the windshield for shade, all our luggage was back in the hotel in Marrakesh.

We took turns digging out the sand in front of the back wheels, then pushing and driving the car a few feet, then resting and doing it again. Hours went by doing this, at mid-day, at the edge of the Sahara Desert. We figured we would be stuck until the next morning when the tourist buses came back. Around 3PM we saw an old wizened Moroccan man pushing a bicycle across the desert at right angles to the "road", we waved to him and he came over to us. He didn't speak Spanish or French or English. He had a water bottle with burlap tightly sewn around it, he opened the bottle, flicked it just right and a tiny bit of water came out and got the burlap wet, cooling the water in the bottle. He offered us both a bit, cold water in the middle of nowhere! Then he went to the track and started pulling up weeds growing along the edges. We couldn't figure out what the heck he was doing until he came back to the car and started laying them in front of the wheels and kicking them into the sand, under the tires with his bare toed sandals. We got the idea, ran up and pulled all the weeds we could find, making a track ahead of the car. With two of us pushing and one driving, the VW used the weeds for traction and easily drove out and up to the hard packed track. The old Moroccan wouldn't take any money for thanks, he just left pushing his bicycle off across the sand.

We were still really thirsty and the first thing we came to on the way back was a mud brick hut along the sandy track. They were selling warm bottles of Coca-Cola, it was better than nothing! Coca-Cola never tasted so good :-) I had thought to fill a paper grocery bag in the trunk with sand from the desert while we were stuck and I still have 4 Coke and Pepsi bottles, with Arabic writing on them, full of Sahara Desert sand :-)

It was 10PM by the time we were driving over the Atlas Mountains back to Marrakesh (and the hotel with our belongings) and encountered very dense, solid fog. We could only see the narrow road by my leaning out the passenger window and shining a flashlight on the road edge, creeping along. We were exhausted when we finally got back to the hotel.

We had fun exploring the Roman ruins in Morocco on our trips, the best being in Volubilis with the many mosaic tiled floors and walls (2000 years old!!).

And of course the famous sculpture in the middle of the brothel :-)

The perfectly straight Roman road into the city is an awesome view. We encountered very few other tourists in 1973-74.

June 24, 2020 -

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My start in radio

When I was 7 or 8 years old my grandparents had a big console radio in the front room of their house in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was fascinated by all the cities and countries that were listed on the shortwave bands of the radio dial. I used to sit for hours and listen to radio stations, trying to figure out where they were. My Dad's parents lived a few miles from us so we visited them a lot.

About that time we moved into a new house in White Bear Lake (1959), my father helped customize some of the early construction (he was a Civil Engineer). He wasn't into shortwave listening himself, but thinking ahead he ran a wire from one end of the house to the other in the attic, with a single connected wire running thru the walls down to the basement. My younger brother and I shared one of the 3 bedrooms upstairs. When I was 10 yrs old my Dad finished a bedroom in the basement at the other end of the house from the upstairs bedrooms, and I got my own room ! One of his engineer friends sold me an almost-new Hallicrafters S-120 general coverage shortwave radio for $20 (he almost gave it away!!), it was connected to the attic antenna and I became addicted to radio :-)

I discovered jazz music by listening to the weekly Voice Of America Jazz Hour on the shortwave bands. I sent SWL (Shortwave Listener) reports to many foreign broadcast stations, and would get Christmas cards every year from Radio Moscow and Radio Havana (Cuba) for years after.

While tuning the shortwave bands I came across a REALLY strong signal, it was Tony W0KVO on 75m AM ham radio. One of my Dad's friends was a ham operator and gave me a Callbook, as big as a Sears catalog, a way to look up every US Radio Amateur and get their address. Tony lived less than a mile from us, I rode my bicycle to his house and introduced myself. He was a mentor to me in electricity, electronics and ham radio.

When I was 15 yrs old Tony gave me and a neighbor the FCC tests (Morse code and written) for the Novice class Amateur Radio license and a few weeks later I received callsign WN0VPK, in September 1968. Six months later on an early Thursday morning I went with my father on his way to work in downtown St. Paul and took the FCC General Class test. I became WA0VPK. Six months after that I took the Advanced Class test at the same FCC office and passed that :-)