Garry Hammond of Listowel has been an amateur radio fan since 1957 and has communicated with thousands of people around the globe. One of his ham radio friends was the late King Hussein of Jordan. "I was just plain lucky, I guess," Mr. Hammond recalled not long after the king's death. "I was tuning the frequencies one day, and I this fellow say 'Jordan.' The call sign was JY1; so I knew right away I was talking with the number-one man in the country, but I thought it couldn't be true. Then I called him and he said, 'Hello from Jordan; my name is Hussein,’ and he spelled it for me. I spelled out Listowel and couldn't believe this was happening. "When I finished talking with him, many other stations were calling. He. picked out call signs and talked to them. He would tell what the weather was like and what equipment he was using, but never politics - that is taboo" The two men spoke several after times after that initial contact the last being on Aug. 4,1995. Mr. Hammond then received a QSL card with the king's family crest and the message, "The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Confirming with pleasure the contact with Garry Hammond. Warm Regards and best 73s" (or regards and best wishes). Mr. Hammond has received many of these cards from the king and from members of his family, as well as post cards and awards for "working" a required number of stations. A QSL card resembles a postcard and is confirmation of a radio contact. Cards may arrive in the mail or through bureaus, which are distribution systems every country's radio clubs maintain. At bureaus the cards are bundled up and sent to other national radio societies. Cards may arrive months, two years or even five years after radio contact. Mr. Hammond received one QSL 20 years after a contact. His collection of QSL cards now exceeds 100,000; he has filed them alphabetically, and they record more than 40 years of talking to people throughout the world. Every card, he says, is a miniature in a diary of life. A
WAY OF LIFE 'Then there was a combination of things," Mr. Hammond said. "I had been collecting stamps for several years. I was in John Howard's social studies class where he was teaching about the world and filling my head with it. And my dad was talking about listening to different countries on shortwave in the 1930s. He had a radio with a shortwave band, and I tuned in Moscow. Listening to other countries put everything into perspective, and I began to think globally. Mr. Hammond has kept those first 1957 QSL cards, of course, from the days when he would listen, note the details of the stations and send letters. He began to receive letters with foreign stamps. "Carrie Barton was at the Atwood post office, and she would say to me, 'You got a bunch more mail, from all over.' Some of it was Russian propaganda. For eight years Mr. Hammond was a listener. Early in the 1960s he heard VE3FHO and could not figure out why it was so loud. He looked up the call sign in the call book and sent a QSL card. Soon a letter arrived from 'Dr. Konrad Hollatz of Elmira who invited Mr. Hammond to take a look at his station. 'He asked me, 'Why not get into the real meat and potatoes and learn Morse code and get your licence?' I was teaching in Mitchell and busy all week, so on weekends I would go to Elmira and got the licence in 1965. But radio has been a way of life since Grade 10 at Listowel High School, and it was a perfect tie-in with teaching geography at LDSS. "It's a way of getting a picture in my mind of faraway places. And you never know who you will be talking with and get to know. One of the best trips I've been on was to Russia, where I met 30 or 35 people I had talked to. Normally when you travel you would have no chance to met so many people, often in their homes." Mr. Hammond is planning a trip to Egypt with his daughter, Sarah. 'They plan to visit Luxor and cruise the Nile. "We will visit radio friends in Cairo and Alexandria. It would have been nice to write to King Hussein and ask if there were any possibility of saying hello in person. He supported many interesting activities and sponsored a couple of clubs. He- allowed people in Jordan to become radio amateurs when many countries did not permit it." One of the radio activities King Hussein sponsored was Arabian Nights in 1974. Mr. Hammond received a large certificate for talking to all Arab countries that year; he also received the king's Silver Award for talking to members of the Royal Family in 1980 and several other valued keepsakes. "The awards give you a feeling of camaraderie," Mr. Hammond said, as he read the inscription on an award from the Vatican, marking the 50th anniversary of its three amateur radio stations. The inscription states, "Worldwide amateur radio communications promote and increase international friendship and understanding." Mr. Hammond agrees wholeheartedly: "I wrote to the Vatican before we took the school choir to sing there. I was invited to visit the station, and for three hours there I talked to people all over the world. I have crossed all kinds of cultural barriers and talked with people in all walks of life, including King Hussein. How else would I be able to do this without ham radio?"
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