Collins QSL Card via the Collins Bookshop
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor David Iurescia, who shares this fascinating article from The Gazette:
Arthur A. Collins Legacy Association celebrates 100th anniversary of major radio breakthrough in Cedar Rapids
CEDAR RAPIDS — Years before the first trans-Atlantic phone call, and decades before international direct dialing would become available, a Cedar Rapids teenager had a direct line to one of the most remote places on earth.
And decades before companies like Collins Radio and Rockwell Collins became multibillion dollar enterprises, a 15-year-old’s ham radio was connecting Arctic explorers with the world from an attic on Fairview Drive.
On Aug. 3, 1925, Arthur A. Collins made headlines as the first person to communicate with MacMillan scientific explorers in Etah, Greenland on short-length radio waves — what The Evening Gazette in Cedar Rapids hailed as “a new chapter into the history of radio.”[…]
Fantastic, thanks! From the Gazette article I followed the link to the 2008 Horizons Magazine article where I found a brief mention of the day that Arthur Collins was on a telephone call with CINCSAC, talking about outfitting SAC aircraft with SSB radios!
“The president can make you a general, but only communications can make you a commander.”
— General Curtis LeMay, CINCSAC
A handwritten QSL card! Cool drawing.
that’s great