A new friend in Russia

It was so hot early in the morning today, as we won't run the air conditioner at night, that I got up. It was still dark outdoor. The only thing I could do was to go into the shack and to turn on the radio. 20m was pretty well open to Eu, even though not so loud as for the past few days.

I ran into an interesting russian guy. It is Victor RN3ZB. He told me he could read me with his PC. At first, I thought he had been a trendy guy operating radio with only a code reader. It was not such a case. He used it as a helper in reading. I ran about 35WPM in QSO with him.

He started introducing himself. He is a retired police officer aged 62. Being asked by me how about his pension, he answered it was big enough. His story was surprising. He was sent to Chernobyl one year after  the accident for police job. That was why he had been paid well for pension. Though the radiation level was told to have dropped, he developed some health problem. I could not ask him about that in detail. He won't answer to me about the character of the work, compulsory or volunteer. Or was he informed that it had been contaminated with radiation etc? I don't know if he was not allowed to answer it or not. Or it was just because he could not understand my inquiries.

I told him that I lived about 120km south west of the accident site in Fukushima while our 2nd son still studied medicine about 80km west. So we were much concerned about Chernobyl as well. He was interested in this story. He gave us best wishes for our future. I felt we had been a kind of united as for this problem. 

He told me he always enjoyed chatting on CW. He complained there had been very few in JA to ragchew with. He seemed to be delighted to talk to me. Of course, so was I. The world might be changing if there were more numbers of hams across the borders of countries enjoying this type of QSO and understanding each other in the world. The war is always a complicated phenomenon involved in economy, religion or other social problems. But a people's enthusiasm based on hatred pushes the politicians into decision for war. The hatred is often closely related with misunderstanding or ignorance for the other people.