The predecessor of Radio Sweden had a monopoly of broadcasting and produced just one channel, mostly agricultural lectures, chamber music, and educational programs. Medium wave was used, but almost everyone had a shortwave receiver, and many of the receivers covered the 80 m amateur band. The amateurs used amplitude modulation (AM) and could therefore be heard and understood by people in general.

    With such a background, one shouldn't be surprised that a station, sending light popular music (mostly accordion!) became immensely popular. Unfortunately, he transmitted in the 80 m band, and the authorities did nothing to stop him - maybe they used to listen to him themselves. Knowing the laws of shortwave propagation, the amateurs could locate him to northern Sweden.

    The newspapers now and then had printed news about "Black Peter", as he called himself, and one sunny Saturday one of Sweden's biggest papers, Aftonbladet, called me. Four years earlier, I had introduced "Fox Hunting" (Amateur Radio Direction Finding) into Sweden, and that was well known. They asked me to bring a toothbrush and a DF receiver and come to the airport within an hour. So I did, but I forgot the toothbrush, something that I regretted the following morning.

    With Aftonbladet's light amphibian airplane we headed northwards. From a regular flight in the opposite direction we got the information that Black Peter's signals were strongest in the vicinity of a place named Kramfors. I told the newspaperman, that due to the characteristics of shortwave propagation, this did not mean that the transmitter dwelt somewhere near Kramfors, but he was very stubborn. So we spent the afternoon and evening landing on airfields and lakes and rivers around Kramfors, and each time I listened and tried to DF the signals. But with a DF loop, you can get results only when receiving the ground wave, not the sky wave. Thus, if we were more than 10 kilometers from the transmitter, I could still hear it but not determine the direction to it.

    It was in May, it was far up in the north, the sun didn't set before 10 p.m., Black Peter continued playing popular music, I had a nice time. However, each time I had to report: "He is still on, but not within 10 kms". - At 1030 p.m. we had to go to a regular airfield because of the risk of hitting logs when landing on water. The field was on an island, the man operating the ferryboat hadn't expected any landings so late, so he was very far from sober. He succeeded in running the ferryboat ashore some ten meters from the ferry berth. We didn't care but went to our hotel.

    Next morning at 6 a.m. the ferryman was less drunk but very sour and angry. We departed for Stockholm, and in the Sunday afternoon Aftonbladet appeared with big headlines on its placard (see the picture above) and on its first page: "AB determines Black Peter transmitting from Kramfors". For the evening papers, big headlines were (and are) more important than the truth. The journalist got his scoop, and I got a somewhat unusual weekend. So, who cares?

Aftonbladet's front page Sunday, May 11, 1952: I and the pilot, studying the map in front of the airplane.

Picture on page 4: "Viking has landed on a lake, and Alf Lindgren has climbed out onto the stem with his direction finding equipment."

    The bold headlines awaked the authorities. Two weeks later two brothers were caught red-handed, at least 300 kilometers north of Kramfors, by police, soldiers and technicians in three cars. 19 gramophone records (78 rpm), of which 4 were damaged, were among the confiscated equipment. That corresponds to some 2½ hours of music. - Much ado about nothing?