Polar  Opposites

All is still. Only the faint hum of distant traffic can be heard while an eerie moonlit glow covers the darkness. In the corner of the back yard, next to a tall gum tree, there stands a corrugated iron shed lit up by the moonlight. A dim light can be seen in the window. In this amateur radio shack, my friend’s voice is coming to me carried by radio waves travelling half way around the world from the Yorkshire Dales in northern England.

‘It’s freezing here. I’m just about sitting on top of the electric heater as we speak,’ Oliver said, his voice interrupted now and again by the crackle of static.

‘Soon I won’t be able to get to work anymore because we’ll be snow in and I’m worried about the antenna. It’s taking a battering in this wind. I just hope it doesn’t break!’

Oliver, nineteen years old is two years older than me. Both he and I are Amateur Radio operators. We talk to each other most Saturdays using our Ham radios, radio wave propagation conditions permitting. Oliver lives with his parents who ran a herd of dairy cattle on their property and he works in the nearby town of Skipton as an apprentice electrician. It’s about midday there while here, in the land down under, it’s night time. Being on opposite sides of the earth, our weather seasons are polar opposites. Oliver had explained that the wintry weather had dumped snow and ice on their property which now completely covers the ground. By contrast, the weather here in Sydney, Australia has been hot and dry with day time temperatures nearing forty degrees Celsius.

‘The weather conditions are just too rough to go anywhere today,’ Oliver continued, ‘but I had better get off the radio. There are a few things I have to do here so I won’t keep it any longer. I’ll see you next Saturday, same time, same place. 73 for now.’

Oliver signed off and I, likewise. I was sitting in my small shed cum Ham shack in the backyard of my parents’ home listening to what Oliver had been saying. Perspiration was beading on my forehead as the odd mosquito buzzed around the desk lamp. It was a balmy summer’s night, the temperature still in the high 20’s. I took off the headphones, pressed the power switch on the radio, turned off the light and locked up my Ham shack. Yawning, I started to make my way back up the garden path towards the house at the front of the property. But when at last I went to bed and while sleep slowly overcame me, ghostly images of snow laden country side faded in and out of my mind...