THANK YOU FOR BEING APART OF THIS EVENT
SEE YA NEXT YEAR
2026
and in the Chicago Metro Area
146.670 -600 107.2 hz
The WAFAR Repeater
Thursday August 14, 0000 z
to
Saturday August 16, 2359 Z
QSL cards for the event, will be passed out to local contacts and outside the Chicago METRO area can send us a SASE to: WAFAR 7326 West 57 Street -- Argo Summit, IL 60501
For those that would like to learn more about Saint Maximilian Kolbe, here is a link to an article from the National Catholic Register.
and
https://saintmaxnet.org/More-information.html
AN article about Saint Maxmillian, by Lloyd -K3QNT-- great information.
"Was Saint Maxmilian Really a Ham?"
Over the years, I have received comments from others around the world about
whether or not Saint Max was a "Real" Ham.
The Saint Maximilian Kolbe Net has
never suggested that Saint Maximilian got on nets, had CW & Phone rag chews, went to
Hamfests or participated in any of the activities commonly associated with traditional
Ham Radio.
However, it was not uncommon in the 1920s and 1930s around the world for host
governments to issue Experimental Amateur Radio Licenses to examine the viability of
various aspects of the radio art, including non-commercial religious broadcasting.
It is
my belief that Saint Max did just that.
Saint Max was a committed evangelist for The Immaculata.
From his perspective,
anything done to promote her cause in Poland and the rest of the world was fair game.
According to Dr.
Claude Foster's book, Mary's Knight1
, Kolbe received permission from
his superiors and the Polish Postal Department to operate a shortwave radio station on
the 7 mHz band.
He was licensed on 9 September 1938 as SP3RN.
(He even got a
vanity Call.
)
Upon receiving a radio station construction permit, Maximilian said:
Children, do you realize what this will mean for our outreach? Soon,
daily, we'll be able to reach thousands of our countrymen over the
airways.
As soon as we have permission for the airstrip, the distribution
of our publications by airplane to all of Poland will increase our
subscriptions and now with radio, we should win even more members to
the Millitia Immaculatae.
2
On 26 October 1938, construction began on the station, which included a borrowed HF
transmitter secured from the German Wehrmacht (nice touch, Saint Max) and
antennas erected in one of the new buildings at Niepokalanow.
Like true Hams, the
Friars built and installed their own gear.
Photographs show the array and the station.
I'm impressed to see that Saint Max even used early vacuum tube condenser
microphones - always the best for Mary!
At 8:00 PM on 11 December 1938, Saint Max made his first broadcast.
It is my view that Saint Maximilian Kolbe used his keen interest in physics and
technology to advance the cause of Mary, the Immaculate.
Ham radio operators over
the years have had many different spheres of interest.
I believe that SP3RN
exemplified both in reality and spirit the true meaning of amateur radio.
Incidentally,
I am certain that Saint Max and several of the Franciscan Brothers would have been
required to have Polish commercial or amateur experimental licenses in order to get
1 Foster, Claude R. Mary's Knight: The Mission and martyrdom of Saint Maksymilian Maria Kolbe, West Chester, PA,
West Chester University Press, 2002.
2 Ibid., p. 529.
on the air.
This licensing would have required the knowledge and use of Morse code,
as that was an international requirement until 1999.
Up until the late 1940s, almost
every U.
S.
Commercial AM & Shortwave transmitter site had a telegraph key installed
on the premises.
This experimental license practice was common in the United States.
The first radio
station, KDKA Pittsburgh, was originally licensed as 8ZZ.
The first TV station in
Philadelphia, WPTZ-TV, had the call W3XE and Armstrong's first FM station in NJ was
W2XMN.
There has also been some speculation that SP3RN was used to pass traffic between
Niepokalanow and Mugensai no Sono, the Franciscan monastery in Japan.
I have
found no evidence of this but it certainly would not surprise me if Saint Max exploited
this resource as well!
When Maximilian Kolbe was first arrested on 13 September 1939, the Nazis had
stopped all publications of the Knights of the Immaculate and of course any further
activity by SP3RN.
The station never went on the air again.
God Bless & 73,
Lloyd -K3QNT