By Dale Holloway, K4EQ
In 1975, I became the pastor of the only English-speaking Protestant Church in Tegucigalpa, the Capital of Honduras. Like most churches, we had people who attended services regularly, others who attended sporadically, and a few who showed up only on special occasions such as Christmas and Easter. This is a story about my encounter with a man who would fit in the last category.
Our family lived in an area of the city where a few foreign government officials lived. Among those was the Dutch Consulate General. He and his family lived on the other side of the iron fence that separated our small backyards. I hadn’t met any of the family until the following incident.
One sunny, Saturday afternoon in November, I was in my shack working a bunch of stations on 20 meters. In the middle of a QSO I heard a pounding noise on the fence out back. I assumed it was kids doing what kids do. However, it annoyingly persisted so I went outside to see what the commotion was all about.
To my delight—make that momentary delight—there stood the Dutch Consulate General. I was glad to finally meet him and said, “Hi, my name is Dale. It’s great to meet you."
In heavily accented though perfect English, he responded, “Stop that @$%&&# broadcasting!”
Stunned, I said something like, “Pardon me?”
“That’s right, you $&@#,” he said. “My daughter is having a birthday party and you’re broadcasting into the phonograph, the stereo, the TV, the radio, the telephone, even the organ.”
Stunned even more, I then gave what I thought was a very articulate explanation of how his thousands of dollars’ worth of entertainment equipment lacked a few dollars’ worth of filtering that would keep it from receiving signals it wasn’t supposed to receive. Apparently, I was neither articulate nor convincing. He said something like, “*$%&& # @**%$!!!”
I got the point!
I agreed to stay off the air until his daughter’s party was over. Needless to say, this was all a bit unnerving. But it gets worse.
A couple of weeks later, the same thing happened again. This time he threatened to see that I lost my license. In his position as Consulate General, he probably had the pull to make that happen. I was definitely in a tough position. However, a few weeks later something happened that gave me the last laugh (as if either of us was laughing).
Our church had a tradition of having a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. It was attended by many people, several of whom did not normally attend our church. As I was greeting people coming in that evening, guess who I saw coming up the sidewalk? My not-so-friendly neighbor and his family. After my heart skipped a couple of beats, I couldn’t help but chuckle as I imagined what his response would be when he saw me and realized I was the pastor.
Well, he was certainly surprised. If ever anyone wanted to pull off a vanishing act, I’m sure it was him. He stumbled for words, then muttered something about what a surprise it was to see me there. I chuckled again and smiled as he and his family made their way into the sanctuary.
To my delight, I never heard another word from him about any RFI. And, surprisingly, he and his family even came back to church another time.