Elastic surface waves in quartz have been excited at 316 MHz by a method which seems also to be promising for even higher frequencies up to a few GHz. The temperature dependence of the absorption in quartz has been studied between 2°K and 300°K. When the quartz is immersed in liquid helium, an additional attenuation due to radiation on longitudinal waves into the fluid occurs which turns out to be noticeably higher than estimated.