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HAMmer time...

Another one of my vices. In this day and age of virtual communication a little bit of old fashioned radio is a very nice way to pass the time. My preference has always been, and probably will be for a long time to come, 144 MHz. Not to chat with my next door neighbour, but to explore the limits of the 2 meter band in all possible propagation: Tropo, Sporadic E-layer reflection, Meteor scatter, Aurora or even EME these days. Below you will find a small impression of the amateur radio station of:

Amateur Radio Station since May 19, 1981

(Also available for skeds)

The Shack This is a picture of my shack. Starting on the left side, you see my bidirectional coupler hanging precariously on a piece of coax. The coupler is connected to the remains of what once was the cover of a 75 W dummy load, but now only serves as a placeholder for my Wattmeter. On the desktop, you see my rotator controller and next to it, my good ol' TR9000, which I have used for some twenty odd years now. Above it is my PA, seated on its power supply. In this picture, left of the rotator controller you see my old pre-amp, BF-981 type. Now I am using the LNA, designed by PA3BIY. The laptop is used for WSJT.

QRO To the right my PA. It is a W1SL design, run at moderate power. Only 1.5kV on the plate, good for about 300W. I was rather lucky with this PA: Somehow I got hold of a 4CX150 and decided that it would be nice to build a PA around it. Looking for an HT-transformer, an OM (sri, forgot your call) told me he could help me and that I could collect it at his place. He threw the PA in the deal, which was slightly cannibalized, but the major parts were still in place. So now I was looking for 2 4CX250's and some more parts for a power supply...

With a lot of help from PA3BIY and PA2DWH, both in material and non-material ways (tnx guys!), I built the power supply and completed the PA. Now I was finally able to blast some holes in the sky. Especially meteor scatter became a lot easier with QRO, but it also helps in Au, Es and tropo...

If you want to see some details of the PA, look here.

On May 5th 2004, I blew my HV supply to smithereens. Just to be sure I also replaced the tubes, which I shouldn't have... Now I know what flash-over is! Got my hands on some new Eimac's (4CX250B/M) and have been QRO again since June 17, 2004.

Hibernation My aerial, a 15 elements CueDee. Serving me now for quite a couple of years. This picture is from my previous QTH in JO11TL. Update from JO11TM will follow shortly...

Active! In JO11TL I had designed a telescopic mast the picture to the right shows the operational mode! Regrettably 1 meter below sea level, so by far not high enough for real DX... Based on the results till now it is quite satisfactory, though... The old Stolle rotator you see on this picture (which has served me well for more then 8 years and it was definitely not new when I bought it!) has in the meantime been replaced with a Yaesu G-450C.