What happens when an unknown operator with the callsign OE0HASE shows up on HF over Easter weekend, transmitting cryptic coordinates? Exactly what you’d expect: absolute chaos. Your Hansl investigated — with chocolate on his fingers.
Easter Saturday, 03:12 UTC: A Bunny on 40 Metres — In the Dead of Night
It was the night before Holy Saturday — yes, Holy Saturday. Not Easter Sunday. The bunny was a day early. But if you don’t stick to the band plan, why stick to the calendar? It was one of those silent Easter nights when even the 40-meter band hums peacefully to itself. Most OMs were still at their Easter breakfast when suddenly a voice appeared on 7.055 kHz that didn’t fit the usual pattern at all:
“CQ CQ CQ de OE0HASE, Oscar Echo Zero Hotel Alpha Sierra Echo. QTH: 46.6247 North, 14.3050 East. Easter egg number one is hidden. Over.”
Silence. Then the familiar click of a PTT switch somewhere in Upper Austria, followed by an indignant: “What the heck was that?!”
Within three minutes, the DX cluster had exploded. The first spot came — naturally — from an OM in the Weinviertel region, who as a matter of principle spots everything that isn’t nailed down:
OE0HASE 7055.0 EASTER EGG SPOTTED!!! 0312Z
OE0HASE 7055.0 NEW ONE!!! NOT IN LOG 0313Z
OE0HASE 7055.0 QRZ??? CALLBOOK SAYS N/A 0313Z
OE0HASE 7055.0 FAKE CALL??? OR NEW DXCC??? 0314ZWithin fifteen minutes, 47 stations had tried to work OE0HASE. Three of them had already set up an online logbook.
The Band Watch Sounds the Alarm
The first spot had barely gone out when the frequency-monitoring enforcement brigade chimed in. The Band Watch — that tireless institution which keeps the spectrum cleaner than some OMs keep their shacks — had of course been listening immediately.
Günther, self-appointed Band Watch Officer for the Greater Amstetten Area (a title he bestowed upon himself in 2014, which no one has dared to revoke since), was beside himself:
“This is a clear violation! OE0HASE — that callsign doesn’t even exist! I’ve already called the telecommunications authority. Twice. And sent an email. With an attachment. PDF. 14 pages.”
Günther had also already drawn a bearing line pointing southeast from his QTH. The fact that his direction-finding antenna has been pointed at the neighbor’s garden since 2019 — because of interference from a plasma TV over there — didn’t bother him in the slightest.
05:00 UTC: OE0HASE Transmits New Coordinates
Right on time at 09:00 UTC — the bunny apparently followed a schedule — the mysterious station reappeared. This time on 145.500 MHz, the calling frequency on the 2-meter band:
“CQ de OE0HASE. Easter egg number two: 47.0707 North, 15.4395 East. Happy Easter, 73.”
The DX cluster had a collective heart attack:
OE0HASE 145500.0 NOW ON VHF!!! CONFIRMED!!! 0500Z
OE0HASE 145500.0 WORKS SPLIT??? QSX??? 0501Z
OE0HASE 145500.0 NEED FOR SOTA??? NEW REF??? 0501Z
OE0HASE 145500.0 IS THIS A NEW ACTIVATION??? 0502ZThe SOTA activators were in a frenzy by now. The coordinates pointed to a summit in Styria. Three OMs from Graz had already laced up their hiking boots before someone pointed out that the coordinates were smack in the middle of a shopping center.
The Five Stages of Easter Bunny Processing
What followed was a textbook case in applied amateur radio psychology. The various archetypes of the radio landscape reacted exactly as expected:
The DX Hunter (Helmut, OE6 district, 327 DXCC entities confirmed) was flabbergasted. A new callsign not in his log? Unthinkable. He called on every available frequency, even though OE0HASE was clearly an Austrian callsign and therefore definitely not a new DXCC. But you never know. “Maybe the Easter Bunny will be recognized by IARU as its own entity,” he muttered hopefully into his beard.
The QRP Guy (Werner, somewhere in the Innviertel, 5 watts and a wire in the apple tree) had of course heard OE0HASE first. QRP people always hear everything first — they just mention it three weeks later at the club meeting because they were busy calibrating their homebrew SWR meter. Werner’s comment on the OE Rundspruch forum: “Heard him. With 5 watts. From the apple tree. No problem.”
The Club Meeting (Local Chapter Villach-Land, Gasthaus Zum Goldenen Dipol, every other Thursday) had already called an emergency session. Agenda item 1: “OE0HASE — Threat or Enrichment?” Agenda item 2: “Cheese dumplings or cheese ravioli?” Both were discussed with equal gravitas. The minutes run to 17 pages.
The APRS Enthusiast immediately tried to track OE0HASE via the APRS network. The symbol: a rabbit. More precisely, someone had actually found a matching icon in the APRS symbol table under “Overlay R” (for Rabbit). The APRS trail showed a route that looked suspiciously like a hopping bunny — with stops at exactly six coordinates across Austria.
The Telecommunications Authority Investigates
Before breakfast, the matter had reached an official dimension. The telecommunications authority — that agency which is otherwise primarily occupied processing interference reports from radio amateurs about cheap LED power supplies from the discount store — had received a complaint. Not one. Thirty-seven.
The responsible official, let’s call him Councillor Mag. Ing. Dipl. Dr. Frequenzhuber (name changed by the editorial team, titles probably not), faced a dilemma: It was Easter Saturday. He had the day off. His wife had invited relatives over. And now he was supposed to direction-find an Easter bunny?
The official statement, sent by email on the Tuesday after Easter, read as follows:
“The telecommunications authority has taken note of the incidents on April 4 and 5. The callsign OE0HASE could not be verified in the callsign database. Further investigative steps will be evaluated after the conclusion of the Easter holidays.”
Translated from bureaucratese: “We heard it too, but it was Easter and the relatives were over.”
The Expedition: An OM from Carinthia Sets Out
While some debated, others filed reports, and still others postponed the matter to the Tuesday after Easter, one person did what radio amateurs do at their best: He took action.
Hiasl — let’s just call him Hiasl, because that’s actually his name — is a retired telecommunications technician from Villach who spends his retirement climbing mountains with a converted military radio and a rucksack full of wire. The first coordinates from OE0HASE (46.6247 N, 14.3050 E) were on the outskirts of Villach. Practically around the corner.
“I’ll just go have a look,” Hiasl told his wife, who already sensed that the Easter ham would go cold without him.
Equipped with GPS, handheld radio, and a healthy dose of Carinthian stubbornness, Hiasl set out. The coordinates led him to the edge of a small patch of woods, about 200 meters from a hiking trail. And there, between two spruce trees, on a mossy tree stump, he found it.
The Discovery
On the tree stump sat a golden chocolate Easter egg. Next to it: a small dipole — neatly assembled, about half a meter long, apparently tuned for 70 centimeters. The dipole was connected with a short piece of RG-58 to a small box that looked suspiciously like a Raspberry Pi in a weatherproof enclosure. A timer. A small transmitter. And a QSL card.
The QSL card was lovingly designed: a drawn Easter bunny wearing headphones and holding a microphone, next to a small beam antenna on a hill made of colorful eggs. On the back, in neat handwriting:
QSO confirmed. Frequency: Easter. Mode: Chocolate. RST: 599+Chocolate.
73 de Easter Bunny, OE0HASE
“Seek and ye shall transmit.”
Hiasl did what any sensible radio amateur would have done: He ate the chocolate egg. Then he photographed everything. Then he ate another piece of chocolate that was behind the tree stump (a reserve egg, apparently in case the first finder was hungry). Then he called in on the Villach repeater and reported the discovery.
The repeater was tied up for the next 45 minutes.
The Big Question: Who Was OE0HASE?
Naturally, everyone now wanted to know who was behind the operation. The theories piled up:
- The ÖVSV as a PR stunt? (Rejected — too creative.)
- A bored engineer with access to a 3D printer? (Possible, but who has time for this at Easter? Oh, wait.)
- IARU as a recruitment campaign? (Discussed, but the paperwork wouldn’t have cleared the committees yet.)
- Simply an OM with a sense of humor and too much free time? (The most likely and simultaneously the most wonderful explanation.)
The weatherproof box, by the way, was never opened. Hiasl left it where it was — “Because it was so lovely,” as he put it. By Easter Monday, it had vanished. In its place lay another chocolate egg and a second QSL card. This time with the note: “Tnx fer QSO. See you next Easter. 73.”
What We Can Learn from This
Sometimes, dear fellow hams, something happens in our hobby that reminds us why we actually do this. Not because of the DXCC counters. Not because of the band plans. Not because of 14-page complaints to the telecommunications authority. But because somewhere out there, someone mounts a little dipole on a tree stump, places a chocolate egg beside it, and with a wink sends “CQ de OE0HASE” into the ether.
Günther from Amstetten filed his complaint anyway, by the way. It was “duly noted” by the telecommunications authority. The chocolate egg that someone anonymously placed in his mailbox was, by his own account, “eaten under protest.”
Happy Easter, dear community. And if you hear a strange signal on the band over the holidays — maybe don’t call the Band Watch straight away. Maybe just jot down the callsign, punch the coordinates into your GPS, and see if there’s a chocolate egg waiting for you at the other end.
With that in mind: 73, good DX, and may your eggs always be made of chocolate and your antennas always be resonant.
Happy Easter from the oeradio.at editorial team.
73 de Hansl Hohlleiter, OE0HHL
Transparency Notice
This article is satire and was written as an Easter special edition by Hansl Hohlleiter — the AI satire editor of oeradio.at, powered by Claude (Anthropic). No Easter bunnies were disturbed in the making of this article. Happy Easter!
