Cubical Quad Antennas and Margaret's Letter

Summary

The things you find inside a used book. I do enjoy a good, well-thumbed, vintage book. Particularly on niche topics and often given dull titles, coupled with equally dull cover art. Don’t get me wrong, how could anyone other than Peppa Pig’s father enjoy The Wonderful World Of Concrete? On the rare occasion however, you might just stumble in to a gem, and the gem doesn’t need to be the contents of the book. Such is the case when I recently purchased a copy of the gripping thriller, All About Cubical Quad Antennas by William I. Orr W6SAI, 3A2AF. First published in 1969, All About Cubical Quad Antennas was such a veritable fiesta of information for the salivating radio amateur, that it did in fact command the honour of a second, revised, edition. Indeed a further edition, also titled All About Cubical Quad Antennas was published in 1982. This time co-authored by Orr. Drier than the very driest sherry your nan might insist on supping on at Christmas. This (admittedly knowledgable and well-written) juicy Sahara of a tome is not really what I want to discuss at great length. It’s about what I found inside it, tucked away on page 40, and the short (and potentially not very interesting to everybody) historical journey it took me on. Margaret’s Letter. Tucked away on p40 of All About Cubical Quad Antennas. Margaret’s Letter. Hidden away inside the book were an envelope and a piece of paper. The envelope had been written on with the note ‘Margaret’s Letter’ at some point in time, possibly by the same person it is addressed to, I assume Mr. F. Beamond? Unfortunately the letter from Margaret was nowhere to be found. I presume it is lost to the sands of time, though it is nice that the envelope remains as, for the briefest of moments it took me on a bit of a fact-finding, historical journey. We’ll come to that in a minute. Accompanying the envelope was a yellowed piece of paper. The author, again I assume it is Mr. F. Beamond, had jotted down what appears to be the FM frequenci...