Bedford Horrell K7ZZX
“Anybody can talk on the radio; you hear them all the time. Not everybody knows how to listen. That’s what I like to do.” So said Bedford K7ZZX when asked his favorite activity as a ham. Bedford has 5 big books full of QST cards that prove he has done quite a bit of listening. A long-time DXer, he has cards from faraway places all over the world. Rarest of all is his QST card from K1N on Navassa Island in the Caribbean. Bedford was one of the lucky hams that got through during the Navassa DXpedition in February 2015. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the island, permits such DXpeditions about every ten years. At that time F1N was second highest, after North Korea, on the ClubLog’s DXCC Most Wanted List.
A very young Bedford was delivering newspapers one day when he noticed that the last person on his route was a young man tinkering with something in his yard. Bedford asked, “What are you doing?” “Hold this for me,” said the man, whose nickname turned out to be Jeeper. After Jeeper finished his task with Bedford’s help, he invited Bedford down to his shack in the basement and made some long-distance contacts. Bedford was entranced. He went home and told his parents about this wonderful radio. When they learned that Jeeper was a freshman at the University of Maryland and failing English, Bedford’s mother, an English professor, offered to tutor Jeeper if he would help Bedford learn radio theory. With Jeeper’s help he studied the 1955 ARRL Handbook and passed the novice exam. Now with his Navy years and time as a health physicist and consultant behind him, Bedford monitors for DX contacts on his Kenwood TS 450 or on his Yaesu FT 2000 transceiver. His Alpha 374A amplifier is a model much admired on eham.net. Yet late at night Bedford likes to listen to his Hammarlund HQ 180 receiver, for its warm tones and tube-powered audio range. A friend rebuilt the electronics inside the Hammarlund, and Bedford repainted the front face and re-stenciled the dials. A slinky antenna runs along the floor behind it. Once president of his 200-member amateur radio club in Florida, he now supports CCARC and is a regular at Saturday morning coffee. November 2017 |
A few of his many QSO cards
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The book Bedford studied as a kid
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