Loc: JN47OR, DARC-DOK : A01

Address: Konstanz (Constance in English or French) lies in the south -west of Germany , the locator is JN47OR the German-Swiss border runs right through town. The Swiss town to the south of us is called Kreuzlingen. The Lake of Constance, in English and French named after the town, is one of the mayor lakes in Central Europe, second only to the Lake of Geneva. Three Countries are sharing it 's shore-line: Austria to the East, Switzerland to the South and Germany to the North. The lake has the shape of a sitting hair , that's the reason why all living on it's shores are sometimes being referred to as "Hairs of the Lake".

My present station:

I am interested mainly in CW, SSB, PSK31, MTTY, MT63, FM and Packet Radio on 70cm. I like to rag chew but DX finds me also on the look out.

Short Wave: I am running the FT817 after having assembled and run the Elecraft K2 with plesure.

-Drake TR7 my nostalgic beauty runs about 125W

-The ICOM IC701 is also a design to be kept in esteem.

-The ICOM IC735 is married to my computers for digital modes, primarily

-An old but nicely kept NATIONAL NCX5 , awaits it's resurrection for occasional use.

Antennas : - A 3el. Beam FB33 with a 4th element separately driven for 10,18 ,24 MHz

- A magnetic loop with 2m diameter for 3.5 , 7 and 10 MHz

VHF/UHF -ICOM IC 251 and IC 451, Kenwood TH-D7, YAESU FT817

Antennas: Vertical 1/4 and 5/8 wavelength, TONNA 9 el. and 16 el.

Two cats are complementing the family. The younger one called Michelle ,she does stand in for both.

A bit of history:

I was born in 1939 and by 1949 I got interested in building radios. My first one was a simple detector rig, i.e. one tuned circuit , a rectifier and headphones. That was capable of receiving a local BC-station with a long-wire antenna. My father took that rig away, for a length of time, since my reports at school did not entirely please him. By 1952 I had succeeded to a 0V1, i.e. an regenerative type receiver with a cheap directly heated battery tube, a German RV2.4 P700. Obtaining the heater current and providing the plate-voltage of , >20V was always a problem.

By 1953 an indirectly heated steel- penthode was the successor with a decent power supply salvaged from old radios. I also got in contact with the old guard of German hams that had gotten their licenses back in 1949, to name but a few, Bert , DL1HY, Martin DL1HR, Fritz a former navy wireless operator , who later taught me the Morse code, DL9BJ. All have long left us, however they taught us ham spirit along with Morse code and technology.

In November 1957 I was licensed as DJ4DM, since I was 18 years old then, which at that time was a prerequisite in DL.

My first station was an ECO-Doubler-PA with a 2E24 in the final . The RX was a BC 454 Command Receiver modified and tuning 3-6 MHz. The 2E24 gave way to a smashingly new 6146, that was introduced in 1959 and that would run up to 25-to 30 W input in class C when the plate-supply voltage was around 300V. The receiver was augmented by converters up to 20 meters, then exchanged for a well kept BC348, that would tune up to 18MHz. That receiver had an RF-stage and a crystal -filter , whose phasing control did a very good job. The BC348 was later replaced with a BC 342 an even better design, by now a piece well worth the ham- museum.

In the mid 60-ties all short-wave bands were covered with a home made transmitter and crystal controlled converters, a 100W output was produced in cw,class C., However in phone the limit was about 30 W plate- G2-modulated, since I was only able to produce an af-signal of around 16 watts. The antenna had developed into a 14AVQ- ground-plain and simple dipoles for 80 and 40m.

The SSB-area began in earnest with the assembly of a HEATHKIT SB300/SB400, which gave me lots of fun.

In 1969 I was married and immediately afterwards my wife and I moved to Boston /MA, where I was assigned to one of the divisions of my then qrl. On a bright early autumn Saturday we moved out west and found the country side in full Indian Summer colors. When we were about to again turn east, it was in Vermont, I noticed a huge array of antennas in a small country-side village. We drew closer to have a look and soon afterwards were invited in for a cup of coffee and some ham talk by the owner´s wife who turned out to be the "ham" together with her son. This of course sparked the desire to become operational and so I applied for a license in Washington D.C. . It took some 8 weeks until I was licensed W1/DJ4DM, since in those days the CEPT rules were unknown and ham radio was regarded as "security sensitive".

I obtained an used DRAKE TR4 with power-supply and a RV4 (from Chris out in Havard, west of Boston, sorry I forgot his call, but in those days he was someone with a huge antenna farm and barns full of ham- and surplus stuff. He seemed to me like old Peter at heavens gates then, hi. My neighbors and the apartment manager allowed me to string a dipole antenna for 40 and 20 meters, so I was able to actively do some traffic until we returned to Germany. In the meantime I have been active oftentimes in the US and every time I applied for a license the procedures got easier, until last year when I was told that a CEPT-license and a passport would suffice. So I operated my California kited and German assembled ELECRAFT K2 from the woods in New Hampshire . It was fun.

In brief I thought to list all the radios I enjoyed and owned over the years. This may ring a bell with many a ham:

1969. SB300 /SB 400 and DRAKE TR7
1970. Kenwood RX599 , TX599

1973. YAESU FT277

1976. Kenwood TS820

1978. YAESU FT 301
1979. ICOM IC701
1980. + IC730

1983. ICOM IC751A + FT757

1985. + Collins KWM 2A

Starting around 1985 the computers took over and the ham gear was not exchanged that frequently. I was always fond of the Apple Macintosh line of computers, but starting 1990 I had to convert to Windows 3.0.

Since that time I got hooked by the WINTEL line of computers for reasons of cost and the software available, both in ham radio and in my professional work.

This is but my first try for a home page. Hope that better versions will follow.

Best regards

Dieter, DJ4DM

Dieter

DJ4DM