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DSWCI Member of Honour:  Jens M. Frost

21st December 1919 - 18th October 1999.

Edited and photo collected by Anker Petersen, Chairman of DSWCI


During the Second World War when Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany, Jens Frost, being a journalist in his early twenties, realized, that the censorship by the occupying power on all information to the Danish population made it impossible for the Danes to get the full information on what was going on in Denmark and elsewhere in the world. Thus, listening secretly on MW and SW to Western broadcasting stations, particularly the BBC, became an activity for him and a large part of the Danish population who never before in their long history of thousands of years had been occupied by a foreign nation.

Right after the “Liberation” in May 1945, Jens purchased a shortwave receiver and began listening to the world. One of his favourites became Radio Australia which was heard well. Fascinated by this media, he took contact in 1961 with Editor at the Danish Newspaper Berlingske Tidende, Mr. O. Lund-Johansen, who just had published the second edition of the new and unique World Radio Handbook. (TV was not yet invented!) Shortly after, Jens was employed as “Assistant Editor” of the Handbook being responsible for doing a lot of the hard work of compiling broadcast information of the next year’s edition. I met Jens for the first time at his office in Hellerup in 1963 and found him being a modest man, but a very interesting person with so much knowledge on the shortwave listening hobby. This became the start of a close friendship which lasted until the 18th of October 1999.

   

Jens Frost
Jens Frost presenting the new WRTH 1981 in Hvidovre.

Jens Frost took over after O. Lund-Johansen as Editor-in-Chief of the World Radio TV Handbook in 1964. Shortly after, he moved the WRTH Office to a new private bulgalow in Hvidovre where he lived with his family until his death. He spent all his life in making the WRTH the best of its kind in the world and established an extensive global network of contacts to all major broadcasting stations and DX collaborators. This network carried the WRTH, because he was able - by hard work of himself and free lance staff of DX-ers - to evaluate the correctness of the vast amount of information, he received from the broadcasting scene. I often heard this comment from Jens about certain broadcastingstations:

“The producers of the broadcasts have no idea on which frequencies, they can be heard on, - and the frequency managers keep it as their own secret!” The frequency information received from the PTT’s in many nations was not much better! They often claimed operational frequencies  which had been allocated to certain stations upon request, but never came on the air for various reasons, mainly financial. But the PTT’s did not care about that! Other PTT’s, by intent, gave misinformation to the UN International Frequency Registration Board and to the WRTH about their broadcasting activities during the Cold War.

Therefore Jens highly appreciated the support from experienced DX-ers who better than anybody else were able to tell which stations really were broadcasting on the bands. Because of this, he seeked contact with a lot of DX-ers and DX-Clubs worldwide, and he often attended DX-Meetings and Conferences in many countries.

Jens Frost
Jens Frost at DSWCI meeting in Morakulien June 1989.

The WRTH became very popular amongst DX-ers and broadcasters and other users of the radio frequency bands around the world, mainly because of its unique exactness in every detail. Therefore Jens Frost did receive many unusual appreciations, such as:
With the 40 years jubilee edition in 1986, Jens decided to retire from the WRTH as Editor-in-Chief and hand over job to his assistant for several years, Andy Sennitt.

Jens Frost

On his 70th years birthday on the 21st of December 1989, I had the pleasure to honour Jens Frost with the so far only Membership of Honour of the DSWCI. During his long editorship he had insisted to stay neutral in all ways and not become a member of any DX-Club.

But as retired, he enjoyed his membership in the DSWCI and we often saw him to our meetings.

Jens Frost
Jens Frost at my home three months before he passed away, looking at my photos from Sri Lanka.

As late as a few hours before his sudden and unexpected heart attack occuring while watching TV, he dispatched a letter to me for DX-Mirror in SWN. It contained some interesting DX-observations which he had made during the past month e.g. one of his favourite stations Radio Australia on 9500 kHz.

He phoned me three days earlier about this and confirmed that he looked very much forward to participate in the EDXC Conference here in Copenhagen on the 6th of November 1999.

So it should not be. He was buried in Hvidovre on the 25th of October and some members from the two Danish DX-Clubs did attend the funeral which became a honourful departure from this world by one of the greatest supporters ever to the DX-hobby, surrounded by a lot of beautiful flowers from his beloved.


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