Special Event Station – Ernst T. Krenkel’s 110th Birthday

Activity Days

01.12 – 31.12.2013

By UT5UIA

Ernst Teodorovich Krenkel (December 24, 1903 – December 8, 1971) was a Soviet Arctic explorer, radio operator, doctor of geographical sciences (1938), and Hero of the Soviet Union (1938). Amateur radio callsigns: U3AA, UA3AA, RAEM.

Krenkel was born in Bialystok , now Poland, to a German family. In 1924–1925 and 1927–1938, Ernst Krenkel was a radioman on polar stations Matochkin Shar (1924–1925, 1927–1928), Tikhaya Bay (1929–1930), Cape Olovyanniy (1935–1936), and Domashniy Island (1936).

He took part in Arctic expeditions on the Graf Zeppelin airship (1931), icebreaker Sibiryakov, steamship SS Chelyuskin (1933–1934, callsign RAEM). He was also a radioman on the first drifting ice station North Pole-1 (1937-1938, callsign UPOL). He is known to have set a world record by establishing a long-distance radio communication between Franz Josef Land and Antarctica.

In 1938, Krenkel went on to work for Glavsevmorput. Later in his life he was employed in the radio industry. In 1951, he was hired by the scientific research institute of hydrometeorological instrument-making, becoming its director in 1969.

Ernst Krenkel was deputy of Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (1937—1946), chairman of Radio Sport Federation of the Soviet Union, chairman of Philately Society of the Soviet Union.

Ernst Krenkel was awarded two Orders of Lenin, three other orders and several medals. He wrote a book of memoirs entitled My Callsign is RAEM. He died in 1971 and was interred at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

A street in Moscow bears Krenkel’s name. [wikipedia]