[NJARC] Man wins Cold War radio competition, 44 years later

[Pete Malvasi]

Besides the FBI, a year or so later my poor dad heard another knock on the door at midnite on a Saturday. It was Dave Popkin the local FCC inspector who traced my non licensed CB operation to my house.  He had a white Valiant sedan with an under dash HRO 500 and steerable DF loop on the roof.  He began the conversation with "can you show me your radio shack" and once there asked to see the license. When I admitted I didn't have one he enlightened us that the penalty for violating the Communications  Act of 1934 was  $10,000 fine, 10 years in prison - or both. Dad was not pleased with this radio thing ... But Dave Popkin (who is now W2CC) gave me three months to pass my Novice ham license and if so the bootlegging case would be dropped.  That was my start in ham radio ...

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 14, 2014, at 8:52, RICHARD LEE <radiorich at prodigy.net> wrote:

> Now that's a great DXing radio story, Pete!  I mean, comrade! ...lol...R. Lee
> 
> From: Pete Malvasi <pmalvasi at aol.com>
> To: Alex Magoun <a.b.magoun at ieee.org> 
> Cc: "njarc at mailman.qth.net" <njarc at mailman.qth.net> 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 7:46 AM
> Subject: Re: [NJARC] Man wins Cold War radio competition, 44 years later
> 
> Just remember
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> _________________________________________________________
> Reminds me of when in the mid 60s as a young SWLer I was sending letters and qsl requests to radio Moscow, Radio Budapest, radio Havana, radio Prague and others and recovered several replies which were stamped "inspected by FBI". Then a FBI agent visited the house to question my father why he had so much interest in Communist countries - he had the same name. I was summonsed up to talk to the agent - who was not very friendly looking - to explain what I was doing and he asked me of I listened only to the commies. I told him no but they had much better signals than others and had the best qsl cards - some I still have. I'm sure I'm still in the data base somewhere as a subversive but I did have security clearance in later years so I guess I've been forgiven.  
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> > On Jan 13, 2014, at 11:37 AM, Alex Magoun <a.b.magoun at ieee.org> wrote:
> > 
> > Just remember
> > Reply = Poster
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> > 
> > _________________________________________________________
> > www.thelocal.de/20140113/east-german-wins-cold-war-era-radio-competition
> > 
> > Alex
> > ~~~
> > Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D., Outreach Historian
> > IEEE History Center
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