A Störsender satire by Hansl Hohlleiter
Klaus Klagemauer, OE0KLG, has been around for nearly sixty years. He likes to say so, and he says it often. For Klaus, “sixty years” is not a span of time but an argument. It ends discussions, devalues objections, and defeats every newcomer who timidly floats an idea. In sixty years, however, Klaus has never once called CQ. The PTT button on his transceiver looks like it did on the day he bought it. Klaus doesn’t operate. Klaus is around.
His shack is immaculate. Receiver always on, speaker murmuring in the background, frequency counter polished. Klaus listens. All day long. He hears the local net, he hears the repeater, he hears the contests at the weekend — and everything he hears annoys him. Too loud, too long, too modern, too young, too much. Klaus takes every QSO personally, even the ones he isn’t part of. Especially those.
And then there’s the one device Klaus has truly mastered. It isn’t a radio. It’s the telephone. More precisely: the 600, the direct line to the regional manager. Klaus knows it by heart. He dials it the way other people breathe. Reflexively, regularly, unstoppably.
“Now, I don’t want to make a fuss,” Klaus begins every call, and then he makes a fuss for forty minutes. About the new digital mode “nobody needs”. About the field day that’s “just playing around”. About the newcomer course that “cheapens the exam”. About the planned mountain repeater that’ll “come to nothing again”. About the committee, the youth, the technology, the times. Klaus is against everything. Not out of malice. But because being against things is the only thing he can do.
That’s the heart of it, and it’s tragic: Klaus can’t build anything, activate anything, contribute anything. He has never aimed an antenna, never run a net, never helped a beginner. He has nothing to show — except his rejection of what others do. Whoever achieves nothing is left only to belittle the achievements of others. Being against things is his substitute activity. It’s his QSO, his contest, his homebrew project. It’s all he has.
Ask Klaus how he knows all this, and you get the second sentence he knows by heart: “I’ve been around since 1966.” In Klaus’s world, a simple equation applies. Experience = age. What counts is not what you can do but how long you’ve been here. A radio amateur who has spent five years building repeaters, training newcomers and activating summits stands no chance against Klaus. Klaus was here first. That’s enough. It has to be enough, because it’s all he has.
And that brings us to the second equation, the true life philosophy of the species. Achievement = serving time. Klaus measures his contribution not by what he has done, but by the years he has sat out. Every year of membership is, to him, a merit. Not the doing, the dwelling. Not the transmitting, the staying. And this is exactly where a sad individual case becomes a system.
Because Klaus has a goal. A single, clear, long-term goal he has pursued for decades with a consistency one would almost have to admire, were it not so hollow: Klaus wants the long-service certificate. The award for many years of membership. Sixty years of loyalty. A framed confirmation that he has not stopped for long enough. Klaus doesn’t operate in order to operate. Klaus stays in order to be honoured. Operating was never the point. Being there is the point. And the certificate is the proof.
The bitter part isn’t Klaus. The bitter part is that the system proves him right. Because he does get the certificate. Sixty years of being against things is celebrated, applauded, photographed. Whoever spent half a century braking ends up standing at the front, accepting the applause. The young operator beside him, who brought a repeater back to life in five years, gets nothing. There is no certificate for “moved something”. There is only the certificate for “was here a long time”.
And now the uncomfortable thought that came to me while writing and that I can’t shake: one could almost think this is exactly what some clubs are for. The long-established ones above all. Not as a workshop, not as a radio station, not as a school for the next generation — but as a sounding board for the moaning. As an institution that keeps someone on hand to pick up when the 600 rings. As a stage where, for merely staying, you eventually receive a certificate. A club that rewards sitting it out attracts those who sit it out. It’s that simple. It’s that sad.
And Klaus is not alone. That may be the most important insight. There isn’t one Klaus Klagemauer per club — there are several. They recognise each other instantly, at the sound of the first “I don’t want to make a fuss”. They form the silent quorum in the back row of the annual general meeting. They nod to each other. They egg each other on: “See, Klaus says so too.” The 600 is sometimes busy — because the next certificate collector is already on the line. It is an entire species. And it considers itself the last bastion of reason.
At night, when the bands fall silent and the receiver only hisses, Klaus sometimes sits there and wonders whether that was all. Whether sixty years of listening really amount to a life. Whether anyone would miss him if he stopped tomorrow. Then he pushes the thought away, the way he has pushed it away for decades, and looks forward to the certificate. It isn’t far off now.
Hansl’s verdict: A club doesn’t live off those who have been there longest, but off those who do the most. As long as we celebrate duration and overlook the deed, we breed certificate collectors instead of radio amateurs. The most honest award would not be one for sixty years of loyalty — but one for the first homebrew antenna, the first net run, the first newcomer for whom someone held the door open. Until that exists, the 600 will keep ringing.
All persons and callsigns in this article are fictional. Resemblances to living radio amateurs are intentional but legally inconsequential. The author accepts no liability for spontaneous self-recognition.
Transparency Notice
This article was written with the assistance of AI (Claude, Anthropic). Editorial responsibility lies with the oeradio.at team. Feedback — including from Klaus — welcome at [email protected].
