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The radio amateur who felt compelled to abandon his own call sign
7 May 2013 | by If you mention that you are a radio amateur to any Norwegian who was old enough to watch TV in the mid 70’s then he is bound to respond with LA8PV. This was the callsign of the fictious figure Marve Fleksnes in the comedy the “Radiot”. To bad for the poor guy who actually was given that callsign some years later. I had contact with him on CW (= morse) in 2002 just after I got my license and I just couldn’t believe that anybody actually was using that particular callsign.
The first of three cuts can be viewed in the embedded Youtube video. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any clip that was subtitled in English, but the first minute or so is almost silent and is about the joy of getting a replacement DF1987B (sic) tube for his transmitter. The tube is supposedly plugged into the output tube socket of a Quad II audio amplifier and then he is ready to go on the air. Later one gets a glimpse of his AR88D receiver.
As the story goes, the Norwegian Post and Telcom Authorities, had marked off LA8PV as a callsign that shouldn’t be used. But due to a mistake they blacklisted LA8PW instead. I had contact with LA8PV almost every year up to and including 2007, but have never had it since. I understand why now, because QRZ.com says that the real LA8PV finally must have given up and gotten the new call sign, LA2WRA, on 4 Jan. 2008. I don’t envy him the fate of having been made LA8PV, and fully understand why he finally abandoned that callsign.
The source for much of this story is a Swedish discussion page on hamradio.se. Marve Fleksnes and LA8PV also aired on Swedish television and were very popular there as well.
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Some people might be interested to learn that the character Marve Fleksnes was a copy of the English radio sitcom character Tony Hancock whose programme ran through the 50’s. The stories were written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, two very productive and popular scriptwriters in that time and into the 70’s. The particular story mentioned was named “The Radio Ham” as I recall and was probably the introduction for many, to the Amateur Radio Service and the hobby.