By Gus Browning, printed in 73 Magazines in 1967-06 reprint by PA0ABM Gus Browning story, Part 24 With Lamberth, ZS6IF At the end of the last chapter I had just entered the Unibii of South Africa from Bechuanilandj one of the most desolate spots I have ever seen— or at least the portion I saw. At least the good roads I found in South Africa made the rattley old bus a lot easier to ride on and I could again open my mouth without fear of my upper plate falling out, and this was good! We stopped at the little Customs House at the border and in we all went^ me and those genuine Africans (I was the only European on the bus, and I did look sort of "out of place". I guess I had even soaked up some of the usual "aroma" that the Africans have. I noticed that the Customs Officials did not get too close to me for some reason; I guess that "aroma" caused it. I guess he had me tagged as some crazy American^ poor as a church mouse, riding that African bus (he had me tagged right too). He must have figured that it was not possible for someone like me to have anything of real value since the questions he asked went something like this where were you born what nationality and color were my mother and father, (maybe I had gotten a little suntan by this time making me look somewhat off -color to him), did I have any fire arms, any ammunition, any transistor radios, or political affiliations and with whom? He made a few tick marks on the customs forms and said sign here— this I did gladly. As there was no inspection of anything on the bus, the Africans and I piled back on and away we went for what they call Jo-burg (Johannesburg to you fellows) . I was met by ZS6IF Lamberth; everything was loaded in his car, and away we went for his QTH. I headed to the shower to change my color and smell; I really needed that shower and when I emerged from it I felt like a changed man. Boy, it was wonderful! We went to Lamberth's shack to the rear of his garage. Lamberth is a Dutchman who QSYed to ZS land some years ago; I think he said about 1955 or so. By the time I arrived he had changed 100% from being a Dutchman to a South African. His was just about the cleanest, smoothest, slickest ham shack I have ever seen. Everything was home built and I mean beautifully built. Everything looked as if it was just finished, cleaned up and polished yesterday—it might have been too. Lamberth was one of those typically thorough Dutchmen in his job and you could see it was finished by a master craftsman right down to each screw being tightened up so the screw slots were even lined up; each solder connection was one of the wiped jobs, the kind most hams don't have the time or inclination for anymore. His keyer, key lever, etc. were all home constructed. It made me glad to know that there are fellows in the ham world who still go to all the pain and strain to do such masterful work as Lamberth had done there. We sat in his ham shack and had one of those fine business eye-ball QSO's— the kind any of you fellows would like to have with some of the DX stations in distant parts of the world. He wanted to know about any number of W/K DXers he had heard and been working all these years and all about their rigs. He wanted to know the type of bottles, plate voltage, and current they used also, all about the kinds of antennas the top boys were using in the States. Luckily, I think I personally knew every fellow he asked me about and I even knew something about many of their rigs, I could never be sure of the exact plate voltage or current they ran; most of them did use a kilowatt more or less when I visited them, but at that time nothing rare was coming through— you might say the going was not on the rough side at that moment —so |ust one kilowatt. You can't be too sure of what might happen to the voltage and currents later on! Lamberth and I sat there and yakked away, drinking some wonderful Dutch coffee his wife brought in to us every now and then. Lamberth still had some of that Dutch accent and his wife's accent was very strong. His children spoke perfect English and I think all of them spoke the native language they call AfriJcans, which is a combination (I think) of Dutch, English, Flemish and maybe even a few other European tongues mixed with some native South African dialects. They say it's a very difficult language to learn. I don't know because I don't think I ever learned more than two or three words of this complicated tongue-twisting way to speak. The next morning we went out in his back yard and looked over his beam— I think it was a quad. He showed me the moon bounce dish he was constructing— it was a real beauty, absolutely perfectly built. I hear now that Lamberth's interest is moon-bounce or tracking satellites and other UHF activity since I have not been hearing him on the bands, I suppose this may be true. Lamberth and his wife were very FB hosts to me. Lambreth drove me aromid Jo-burg quite a bit, showing me the various sights there. One of the oddest things to be seen are those huge mountains of eartli in and around Jo-burg. We stopped beside one of them and I got out of the car to look at it closely. It seemed as if it was almost as hard as cement— not a blade of grass was seen growing on these hills, I asked Lamberth why this was and he told me the chemical process they used to extract the gold made it impossible for anything to grow, I talked to a ZS station a few years after my visit there and he told me that some chemist had found that it was now possible for grass to be grown on this rock by some kind of treatment to the soil. I think he also said that a special grass seed was used to seed the tops of some of these mounds. He told me that someone had built a drive-in theatre on top of one of them, so I guess they won't be absolutely useless from now on. Lamberth drove me out to spend the night with Brian, ZS6ANE (America North East as he calls it). He lived all they way across town from Lamberth. Brian is a young married chap with one little girl who was about 3 years old. He is a very likeable fellow with a wonderful wife. We went to his hamshack and sat up quite late having a good eyeball QSO; there were even Cokes in the Fridge, which made the stay with them that much better. The next few days were spent visiting a number of ZS6 fellows and seeing their ham shacks. All were very well equipped and had good antennas. they all seemed to be good operators. Oh yes, Lamberth asked me if I had declared my gear to Customs when I had entered the country I told him I had not. That's when he said that it was going to be very difficult trying to get it out of the country when I was ready to depart. I told him I had never had any trouble getting things out— getting them in yes, but not getting them out. He said, "Well, you have never tried getting things out of South Africa yet." I did find a solution to this problem later on but that's another story and will be dealt with in full at the point where it enters the story. It worked out quite well in the end. I really got to see some of the country around Johannesburg, spending about 5 or 6 days there, sort of biding my time for the departure date of the ship to Tristan, Cough and Bouvet Island* I found I had a few more days to spend between Jo-burg and Capetown so I got in touch with Sid^ ZS4MG, in Kroonstaid (about one-third the distance from Jo-burg to Capetown). I gave him a DX phone call and made arrangements for him to meet me when I arrived there via the train from Jo-burg. The train arrived in Kroonstaid about I AM and there was Sid at the railway station in his little car— with his little goatee and all. When he arrived at his home his very sweet wife was still up— she even had a big supper on the table for me. I could see immediately that my stay with them was going to be one of the stops where I could pull off my shoes, roll up my pants, and dive into the Fridge when I wanted to. They told me to make myself at home while there and that's exactly what I did, every minute of my stay'. I was even allowed to operate from his station— up to then I had not done very much operating from ZS land. I had a number of FB rag chews with Gus Watchers as some of them called themselves. I told them how things were progressing towards my forthcoming trip to the islands. I always believe in keeping the fellows back home well informed so they can be on the air when you arrive at a rare country, I knew all about some of the fellows taking days off from their work to contact me, I knew many of them would want to know which day they should play sick. I had even heard of one of them flying back to his home in Ohio from his Texas vacation spot just to work a new one. There is, I am told, a doctor in NYC who will leave his patient on the examination table when one of the fellows gave him the land-line buzz that I was on the air. Bill Eitel of Eimac told me that so many of his crew got sick on the first day I landed at some spot and got going, that their production was very drastically cut! Of course^ I think he was pulling my leg, I can't see any real reason why, under normal conditions, a fellow can't tell you where and when he will be at such and such a spot, provided he knows when it wiU be. You go on a DXpedition to work as many fellows as possible and this is one way to make sure you get plenty of callers when you get going from a "gud one". Sometimes I know it's not a good policy to announce too far in advance where you are planning on going there is the possibility of some eager beaver beating you there or maybe getting telegrams or air niafl letters to London to stop you. Under these circumstances it's always best to play it cool and keep your mouth shut. I learned this the hard way on the Chagos trip. This might explain why Don Miller stays real quiet most of the time as to where he is going or planning on going. Sid had a very nice peach orchard right in his back yard, the peaches were about one to two months from being fully ripe, and that's when I told him and his wife I most certainly would stop by and see them on my return from the islands, I told them about my being from the part of the USA where peaches and watennelons grew the best and how I loved to wrap my lips around peaches and whipped cream (um umm ) . He said he would hold a few treefuls just for me to eat upon my return. I sure hated to leave Kroonstaid with all that fine home cooking and the real friendship that both of them extended to me, but I kept looking at the (calendar and saw "D" day for the ships departure from Capetown creeping up on me. Late one evening I boarded the train for Capetown; Sid and his wife and daughter saw me off, and away I was for Capetown, A really smooth ride all the w ay down. Those South African trains are very plush and smooth riding and the food in the dining cars is very good and reasonably priced. The cost of the fare was reasonable too. Arriving in the vicinity of Capetown at sunrise the next morning I could see that it was quite hilly around the country and city. Marge and Jack-ZS1RMand ZS1OU met me at the railway station. They had the mayor of the city along with them, and after a very fine welcome, they insisted we stop at a cold drink bar for a Coke (it took practically no convincing, I must say). As usual when we sat down and ordered the drinks, (we all ordered Cokes) I told the waitress to be sure to bring mine in the botlle, please. She said OK, and as is usual, she brought it to me in a glass. I refused the drink and told her I wanted it in the bottle with a half frown she then brought me another, this time in the bottle. The mayor said, "There is no difference," and that's when I said, "Oh, yes there is, I am a connisseur of Cokes, I know when they are best," He and Jack and Marge had theirs in a glass, then they all ordered another Coke in the bottle. Right there in the drink bar they had a sip and smack test of Cokes— they would sip a little from their glass, then take a swig from the bottle after a little of this testing all three decided that there is a difference. They all said it was much better directly from the bottle! If I did nothing else in South Africa. I converted three people to drinking Cokes the right way— directly from the bottle! After this little episode the mayor departed, I guess for his office, and Jack, Marge and I departed for The Strand where they lived in an upstairs apartment overlooking the beach. The Strand of Capetown is a beach side resort area, a sort of holiday spot, where everyone goes on the week ends to swim, fish, golf, etc. Marge works in a beauty parlor and Jack sells insurance. They are not in the wealthy class at all; they are regular down to earth kind of people and their's is not a fancy apartment. They had held a bedroom especially reserved for me, and their Fridge was jammed full of Cokes, fresh figs. Cape grapes, cantelopes, watermelons, and other goodies. They took me into the radio shack (which is not unusual you know) and I was shown how to turn on the rig, turn the beam, and they said, "Gus, the rig's yours as long as you are here with us. Make yourself right at home and sleep as late as you wish." After a good many hours of eye-balling they departed for bed, leaving me in the shade. I immediately went on the air, getting on 14065, my DXpedition frequency called a CW CQ and had quite a ball working the boys in the States, telling them that Tristan da Cunha and Gough and Bouvet were getting closer and closer all the time. I stayed up until about 3 AM having myself quite a ball I must say, I dragged myself away from the pile- up that was still calling me and slept until 10 AM the next morning. When I got up, Marge and Jack had left a note on the rig, so I would be sure to see it I suppose, telling me to go right ahead and fix my own breakfast they had to go to work. This was really making me feel right at home— they had turned the whole house over to me and they again said I could use the rig as much as I wanted to. I had a very leisurely breakfast of coffee, cantelopes, even ate a big slice of watermelon—for breakfast. Man, this was like being back in South Carolina eating watermelon for breakfast. I did miss my grits and sausage and eggs and Peggy's cooking though. Gus