Don and Billie Oberbillig collection

Donald (Don) Dale Oberbillig was born on November 3, 1906, in Boise, Idaho. Don’s father was the president of United Mercury Mines Company, which had established mines in Yellow Pine, Idaho. Don attended Boise High School and took a radio course which ignited his interest in radio communications. Don graduated in 1924 and worked as a radio amateur until 1929. Don was a member of the Naval Communications Reserve in Seattle where he trained to use naval radio procedure. Around 1932 he joined the Army Amateur Radio System.

Don married Lesley “Billie” Eva Brakel of Boise in 1934 and together they had four sons (John, Don Jr., Robert, David) and one daughter Charlotte. Don served as a radio technician for the United States Forest Service in the Payette National Forest from 1937-1940. In 1940, Don was selected to establish a defense radio school at Camp McCall and was later transferred to Boise to set-up combat radio operator training at Gowen Field. Don also was a full-time printer for the Idaho Statesman newspaper.

Don and Billie started a radio network in 1949 that maintained radio service for backcountry people in Idaho, where Don spoke with pilots, gave weather reports, and assisted with connecting emergency personnel with backcountry people that helped save lives. As operators of a mobile phone system in the Idaho primitive area, their mobile phone system was the only communication between some Idaho primitive area settlements and the outside world. They started with only one ranch (the Flying B) and then added three or four per year as they could.

One of their businesses was the Industrial Radio Cooperative Association which was established in 1959. Another business was Mountain Messages. Don died on August 6, 1964, at his home near Rocky Canyon, Idaho. Billie continued to operate the radio business for eight years before it was sold. At the time of selling the company, there were approximately 50 annual subscribers and additional mobile units in the summer.