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HFCC Announces the Passing of its Founder Oldrich Cip
Oldrich Cip, founder and Vice Chairman of the High Frequency Coordination Conference, known as the HFCC, passed away on 27 July following a sudden illness.
Oldrich was involved in radio since he was a child — first as an amateur radio hobbyist and later as a staff member of Czechoslovak and then Czech Radio in the international broadcasting departments. A college graduate in the field of Humanities, he spent most of his working life as a frequency manager and schedule planner. For a number of years he hosted a DX program on Radio Prague under the pen name Peter Skala.
After the end of the Cold War, he believed that broadcasters from both sides of the conflict should come together and develop a new system of planning and coordination for shortwave broadcasting. This led to the establishment of the HFCC in 1991. Oldrich was Chairman of the HFCC until 2015. Since then, he was a Vice Chairman of the group.
Oldrich lived in Prague, although he frequently spent time in his country house, where he enjoyed woodworking, guitar and country music, vintage graphics, photography and time with his family. His son Vladislav said he spent his last day there: “He enjoyed a quiet evening in the country house, with our families, all four grandchildren around, no symptoms of anything bad coming. All of a sudden, he suffered probably a heart attack or stroke. An ambulance arrived immediately but he died a few hours later.”
Oldrich was married with two adult sons, Oldrich Jr. and Vladislav. Vladislav is the HFCC Secretary who manages the day-to-day operations of the organization.
From 1953 until 1997 Oldrich was an employee of Czechoslovak and later Czech Radio in Prague. He worked as a technical consultant for Czech Radio from 1998 to 2010. He specialized in planning schedules and frequencies, international coordination and distribution of shortwave radio programs for foreign countries.
Beginning in 1959 and for more than 25 years, Oldrich produced a weekly English-language program “Radio Prague Calling All Radio Hobbyists,” using the nom de plume Peter Skala. In the program, he answered questions from shortwave listeners in many countries and covered a variety of scientific and other topics from the radio industry.
During the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Oldrich used his technical expertise to aid the “free Czechoslovak Radio,” putting himself in danger in an effort to provide factual news and information about the events taking place. Thanks to the large number of smaller facilities of Czechoslovak Radio scattered all over Prague and complicated infrastructure that connected them, they were able to continue broadcasting for quite some time.
In the period of reforms around the year 1968, he established secret contacts with his colleagues from Western radio stations. He re-established the contacts after the fall of communism and started an initiative to eliminate interference on shortwave. He became the Chairman of the HFCC, which has continued to meet twice each year in different parts of the world for shortwave stations to coordinate their frequency schedules for the coming broadcast season, thus eliminating interference before each season begins. The principles of international coordination were incorporated into the ITU’s International Radio Regulations during the 1997 World Radio Conference.
Oldrich was also an adviser to the Government of the Czechoslovak Republic in the preparation of the first Radio and Television Broadcasting Act after 1990, as well as a member of several EBU and ITU radiocommunication working groups. At the HFCC, he spearheaded the International Radio for Disaster Relief project whereby shortwave stations have allocated specific frequencies in each band for the transmission of emergency information in the event of natural disasters around the world.
Jeff White, Oldrich’s successor as HFCC Chairman, said: “The shortwave broadcasting and listening communities have lost one of our most important proponents. The contributions of Oldrich over the years are simply unequalled. He was a humble man, but people in this industry realized the importance of his work. And he has left us a lasting legacy — an organization which has largely eliminated interference on the shortwave bands, and it has enabled stations to use less power to reach their target areas with a good signal. For that, he will always be remembered.”
Oldrich Cip was also a frequency consultant for WRMI. His assistance was greatly appreciated.
For more information, contact Jeff White, HFCC Chairman, at [email protected].
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Luke Perry, who writes:
Hi Thomas, I thought I would share with the people on the SWLing Post my new radio purchase.
I needed a receiver with a noise blanker as you might (or might not) recall my issue that I was having with electrical noise at my listening location. So I saw this on the local Craigslist for $50 and called right away and I was lucky to be the first one to respond.
The seller was the original owner and he had bought it back in the 80’s after coming back from Saudi Arabia so he could listen to the BBC. It was fully working but when I got home I noticed that tuning dial was not working and this set does not have direct frequency input for some reason.
I went online and scoured the internet for a possible fix and found a old posting that said to adjust the pots on the encoder board behind the main tuning knob. I found a service manual online and located the position of the board and thankfully that was the fix. But for some reason the position that they both were in was not the correct position so I don’t know if someone had been in there before but I doubt it.
Anyway, I am very happy with the purchase and the noise blanker seems to really work as I could not listen to any frequencies above 5 MHz on my old radio due to RFI. Also, the R-2000 seems to be very sensitive just from the small wire antenna that I have been using so I plan to get a better antenna and I am hoping to get some good DX catches.
Anyway, I thought I would share the news of my new purchase and hopefully the fix for the tuning knob might be of some use to others down the road.
I’m so glad you found the fix for the encoder function, Luke. Thank you for sharing because, no doubt, others will be searching for this solution. Sounds like it was a simple enough fix and certainly did the trick. If you ever need to re-cap the R-2000, you can find kits like this one to make the process easier. If you don’t want to do the work yourself, my friend Vlado recaps radios for a very reasonable price.
I’m sure you know you really snagged a deal grabbing that R-2000 for $50! Wow!
The FCC has issued a Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) proposing to fine Jerry W. Materne, KC5CSG, of Lake Charles, Louisiana, $18,000 “for apparently causing intentional interference and for apparently failing to provide station identification on amateur radio frequencies,” the FCC said.
“Mr. Materne was previously warned regarding this behavior in writing by the Enforcement Bureau and, given his history as a repeat offender, these apparent violations warrant a significant penalty,” the FCC said in the NAL, released on July 25.
In 2017, the FCC received numerous complaints alleging that Materne was causing interference to the W5BII repeater, preventing other amateur licensees from using it. In March 2017, the repeater trustee banned Materne from using the repeater.
Responding to some of the complaints, the Enforcement Bureau issued a Letter of Inquiry (LOI), advising Materne of the allegations and directing him to address them. Materne denied causing interference but admitted to operating simplex on the repeater’s output frequency. In June 2017, the FCC received an additional complaint alleging that Materne had repeatedly interfered with an attempted emergency net that was called up as Tropical Storm Cindy was about to make landfall. The complaint maintained that Materne “repeatedly transmitted on the repeater’s input frequency, hindering the local emergency net’s ability to coordinate weather warnings and alerts on behalf of the National Weather Service,” the FCC said in the NAL.
Local amateurs were able to track the interfering signal to Materne’s residence and confirmed their findings to the FCC, prompting a Warning Letter advising Materne of the complaint and pointing out that his behavior “as described in the complaint would be a violation of Section 97.101(d) of the Commission’s rules.”[…]
Chris Fallen KL3WX will be using 80 kilowatts into the massive HAARP antenna array in Alaska for WSPR experiments in the 80m band from July 30 to August 1
Chris KL3WX tweeted:
WSPR experiments are tentatively planned to occur between 2300 and 2400 hours UTC on July 30, 31, and Aug 1. Most broadcasts will be at the 80m dial frequency default in WSJT, that is 3.5926 MHz with AM (3 dB loss) because HAARP does not have an upper side band (USB) mode yet!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who writes:
[This Barlow Wadley XCR-30 (above)] appears in Episode 4 of The Looming Tower on Hulu. Shown sitting in a slum in Nairobi (or a location posing as Nairobi), tuned to what sounds like Radio Australia…
Great catch, Dan! If I ever find an XCR-30 in great shape, I think I’ll snag one. I’ve always loved their simple, all-business front panel and legendary–once benchmark–performance.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Patrick, who shares the following guest post:
Dear Thomas,
Thank you for all good articles on the SWLing Post.
After the passing of Top 40 radio disc jockey Dan Ingram of WABC 770 AM and later WCBS 101.1 FM, the golden days of Top 40 radio in New York City, the biggest radio market in the United States has been observed in TV and articles. Since 1988, no major AM station in the New York market plays pop music.
In 1960 WABC 770 AM changed format top Top 40 with upbeat disc jockeys, taking advantage of its 50,000 Watts clear-channel undirectional transmitter with the possibility to reach distant suburbs even 100 miles away during daytime and large portions of eastern United States and Canada after sunset. Its competitors at time were Top 40 stations 1010 WINS, 570 WMCA and 1050 WMGM but with directional transmitters.
Link: News12: A look inside the WMCA Meadowlands radio tower
In the mid-1960s and on to the 1970s WABC had a long line of radio personalities like Dan Ingram, Harry Harrison, Ron Lundy, “Cousin Bruce” Bruce Morrow, and Chuck Leonard to name a few. Teenagers would enjoy listening to WABC with their transistor radios being popular. In the 1970s WABC was often No 1 or 2 in the New York radio ratings.
However, the Top 40 format was to become less popular in AM with FM stations starting to play hits. WMCA dropped its Top 40 format in the fall of 1970. Despite rivals from FM stations like WXLO 99X, soul station WBLS, album-oriented rock stations like WPLJ and WNEW-FM, WABC stayed on top until 1978 with the only notable AM competitor being 660 WNBC with an adult-leaning Top 40.
But when FM-station Mellow WKTU 92 changed format to disco and became Disco 92, an FM became the No 1 station in New York City putting down WABC to No 2 in December 1978. WABC started to play more disco but the audience became confused. With new management WABC started to aim for an older audience playing more adult contemporary songs. By 1981 WABC played more oldies and started to promote talk shows. In May 1982 it was announced that WABC would become a talk radio station. On May 10, the music ended on WABC and it was in radio called the day music died.
Video: Dan Ingram air check from 1980 on WABC in AM Stereo (Youtube)
1010 WINS dropped rock and roll music in 1965 and became an all-news station. 1050 WMGM (WHN from 1962) had various music formats until 1987 when it became all-sports.
660 WNBC was the last of the major Top 40-stations to drop music. It had various pop music formats until 1988 when it became all-sports 660 WFAN since WHN/WFAN changed to that frequency. 660 WNBC introduced shock jock Don Imus and afternoon jock Howard Stern.
Many of the disc jockeys, including Dan Ingram, would join 101.1 WCBS-FM, playing oldies with the Top 40 disc jockey upbeat. The classic Top 40 era with double-digit ratings and the nighttime signal reaching hundreds of miles away was gone.
The website Musicradio 77 has a lot of resources and memorial about WABC but also WMCA: https://musicradio77.com
Patrick
Thank you, Patrick, for the stroll down Memory Lane–and thanks for sharing the informative links and videos!
I truly appreciate honoring Dan Ingram as well–no doubt, there are many SWLing Post readers who remember him from WABC. He was and will always be a radio legend.
Post readers: Do you have any memories of AM Pop Music in New York City? Please comment!
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