Brazil: Amateur Radio History - First Operators

(summary of the published article).

The first states in Brazil to have amateur radio operators were São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, followed by Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco and Pará.

Mr Livio Moreira was the first Brazilian ham, in 1909. He was a professional telegrapher who worked for the DCT [The Post Office] in São Paulo and his callsign was SB31G.
He had built his own equipment and named it "espirocheta". Indeed it was a very complex "three-story" set. On its "first story" (as Moreira used to call it), there were three components called "parecis"; on its "second story", the 3 watts modulator was built-in; and, on the "third story", the could be found, as well as the oscillator, with its famous 6L6, a radio vacuum tube used at the time.
There was also the, built from all the parts he could find, as an attempt to copy the SX-17, with its preselector, crystal and noise filter.

Later, in 1922, Demócrito Seabra also became an operator. His callsign was SB2AJ and he also had a license to operate ship stations. His QSL card proudly read "WS", short for wireless station, which was used to name the stations operating on board of ships. Seabra's "shack" was a mock ship cabin, by the way, a tastefully decorated one.

The third Brazilian Ham came from São Paulo. He was an engineer called Leonardo Yancey Júnior, and his callsign was SB2SP. In his place he had set a wooden post so that the antenna's wire could follow down to the basement where he had installed his shack. His equipment was made up of a transmitter of a single 50-watt vacuum tube, and a 1,000-volt generator which provided him with the necessary plate voltage. The receiver was a Perry O. Briggs, with the 3-coil circuit of the .

From 1922 on, the names of new Brazilian amateur radio operators could be seen in international magazines, as for example, Leonardo Y. Jones Júnior, SB2SP, and Severino Justi, BZ2AB, in São Paulo; and Tyrteu Rocha Viana, SB3QA, in Rio Grande do Sul (1925), among others in other states.

The military engineer captain Antônio da Silva Lima was the first Brazilian Ham to operate on a vehicle, in 1925. while he was in charge of the Radio Service of the Armed Forces Communications Department. His callsign was BZ-IAV. This set was made up of a vacuum tube , in a oscillatory circuit, placed at the [=trunk?], and of a bicycle frame, on which there was a generator, connected to the pedals of the bycicle, and the battery charger of the accumulator, which in turn moved another high tension accumulator in order to feed the transmitter. The antenna they used was a hertz, of 1496 (as they used to call it at the time), fastened on two bamboo canes.

The first Brazilian woman amateur radio operator was Odette Cecy Chavez, whose callsign was BZ7AB. She lived in Belém, state of Pará, and started her activities in 1926.

++++++ From the book: "Radioamadorismo o Mundo em seu Lar", p. 109. by Roberto M. Rodrigues - PY8JS