1976... the beginning
Christmas 1976, in the age of 13, i got my first radio, a simple 3-channel CB-handheld made by
"Universum". That toy infected me with the "hf-virus" very quickly.
In those days CB-radio became very
popular in germany and it was easy to make contacts even with this cheap handheld.
It came as it always does, one gets more and more involved in this new hobby, equipment was
bought and sold over and over.
In 1978 the DX-conditions on 27MHz were phantastic. The solar cycle #21 reached the maximum
and made contacts all over the world possible. We managed to work all continents in SSB, had QSO
with nearly all european countries. That was about the time, we learned to build new, more
effective antennas and got our first ham-radio equipment (Sommerkamp FT277e).
Since all this activity was barely legal, a few friends and me decided to get the amateur-radio
license - that was in late 1979.
We started to learn soon and got some help from already licensed OMs. They were teaching us
all the theory, we needed to pass the exam, which we did in march 1980.
1980-1981 (dd9hl)
DD9HL was my first callsign, german license class "C", issued in 1980.
We were allowed to use all the vhf/uhf bands in phone-modes with a maximum tx-power of
150w.
I got an used Kenwood TS-700S, 2m/10w allmode transceiver, built a simple 9-ele yagi, mounted
indoors and started my ham-life :)
After some FM contacts on our local repeater DB0XA, i started to focus on 2m-SSB. Conditions
were varying, but with a bit of patience and a lot of enthusiasm, i finally managed to make
some qso (qrb ~30-100km). That was real fun!
Then my 1st tropo-openings
to PA0/ON/G happened and i was able to work some new countries and increased the dx-distances.
That was followed by some Aurora and sporadic-E openings, where i tried to work as many
stations as possible.
All that has been completely new to me - very different from 27MHz-DX - but it was very exciting.
After a few month, i had filled my log with hundreds of contacts all over europe again, with
just 10w and an indoor antenna.
We had a lot of fun that year, but after a while, we realized that we're missing something -
vhf-DX was nice, but "real DX" means noisy, busy shortwave-bands!
Unfortunately that meant, we had to learn those
ancient dits and dahs, invented by S.F.B. Morse,
nearly 150 years ago :)
I never wanted to learn CW, but we had to swallow that pill, since we wanted to work the hf-bands.
It took a while, but then we started learning in small groups or single at home.
After some weeks we felt ready for the next
step and drove to Hamburg, to get a "real ham-license", the freshly created german class-A.
early 1981 (dh1hal)
A cold and dark morning, january 1981. 2 lonely, nervous hams are driving from Cuxhaven to Hamburg. They are on a mission...
Listening and keying CW with 6 wpm only was all we need to get the class-A license. It took us about 15 minutes
and a lot of sweat but finally we did it. We raised our license-class, we got the ticket to legal shortwave-DX!
That german A-class was nearly the same as the C-class, but with limited access to some hf-band(80m/15m cw and 10m cw/ssb).
I got an old Kenwood TS520S with an external antenna tuner, built some simple wire-antennas and started to work on
shortwave. Since the conditions were poor on 10m around that time, i had to do that disliked CW on 15m...
It was a real pain for me to do the first qso in cw, but one thing was really helpfull - our new prefix DH
(DH1HAL my call). This prefix was new and still rare, so lots of prefix-hunters came to that small part of the
15m-band we were allowed to use, to work us. I never ever got called by that many VK-stations again later on
the bands, like that time. Since DX always was my main goal, i really enjoyed that time. It also switched my
mind according CW. I always had seen CW only as a thing "i had to learn" to get on shortwave, now i learned to
like it and i tried to improve my skills quickly.
After only 4 month, we went again to Hamburg, to do the final step, the (former) B-class - the ultimate piece
of paper for a german ham.
since 1981 (dl9haz)
Early may 1981, i got my final(?) callsign DL9HAZ
Only 4 1/2 years after having been infected by the hf-virus, i was allowed to operate all bands in all modes.
I worked lots of DX on the higher bands (20-10m), lots of EU on 40/80 and the number of CW-qso increased steadily.
After a few months, i rarely did any phone-contacts, just CW. I got my first electronic-keyer, an old
Heathkit HD-1410 and supported by some good friends
(thanks to dj8qq, dj2jg, dl9ce) my next target was the
HSC-membership.
Some hundred qso later, i had my 5 recommendation-qsl and got my HSC-membership #1024.
That's only a question
of practice - some time later i felt very comfortable at 45wpm. Unimaginable for me just a few weeks before.
About that time, i took the microphone off the transceiver and hadn't used it until now. I was a cw-only operator,
still focused on dx but more and more doing chitchat-qso. I bought a Bencher BY1 and a Curtis-8044 keyer, which i'm still
using today, and finaly got a Ten-Tec Omni-C, the perfect CW-equipment. I managed to make several thousand qso per year,
met really nice guys from all over the world and was still excited about this ancient type of communication.
Then in late 1982 i finished my school and decided to make my hobby to my job. I joined the german forces and started
in naval communications.
Navy 1982-1986
This new period of my life started october 1982 at the naval communication-school, Eckernförde, where they tried
to teach us CW up to 10 Wpm (*yawn*), teletyping on those old and loud mechanic Siemens T100, Lorenz LOxx and some
crypto-basics. Of course, they also treatened us with that nasty military stuff, but we all saw us more as radio-ops, not as
soldiers. That was followed by some other courses in Flensburg and Plön and finally brought me to NAS Nordholz (DHJ78)
where we managed all the communication with our aircrafts (Breguet Atlantic BR-1150) and other sites.
I still was very active on all hf-bands during this time. I left the german forces 1986.
1986-1990
During these years, i hadn't been very active. Due to my new job (german civil weather service) i was travelling
a lot and hadn't been at home for longer periods. I only did some qso 1988 while being in Langen(Hessen), using the clubstation
there.
In 1990 i moved to a new location in Lingen(Ems) JO32PM, where i got my first outdoor-antenna ever :)
1990-1999
I bought an used Yaesu FT-757GX2 and a GPA30 groundplane antenna and became active on shortwave again in 1990.
We owned the penthouse of a 40m high building and i was allowed to put my antenna on top of it. That was a real new
experience, as i always worked with simple indoor wire-antennas before. That GPA30 performed quite nice on the higher
bands and still reasonable on 80m. Even that tiny FT-757 wasn't as bad as stated everywhere - you just shouldn't operate
it in EU with really effective antennas on 40/80m.
Somewhat in the 90s i bought a Yaesu FT-990 and an AEA-PK232 and started to work in Amtor and RTTY too. I did some
RTTY early in the 80's, but it was no fun to have that noisy mechanic teletypers in the shack. Now, with this
new controller and some Software on the PC, it gave some variety from the well known CW-operation.
During that time, Amtor was still very popular and i made loads of QSO, mostly on 20m. But then Pactor appeared on the bands,
nice improvement to Amtor in the beginning but focussing on BBS/Mail-traffic later. Unfortunately this "killed" Amtor
completely and it became really hard to find human Pactor- and was nearly impossible to find Amtor-operators on the bands
for some personal qso. Wherever you tuned, just bbs-traffic. "R.I.P. Amtor" :(
Not only this change on the bands forced me to reduce my ham-activities. With the computer came the BBSs and somewhat
later the Internet and i shifted my interests. I sold all my equipment around y2k and wasn't qrv anymore since then.
2000-2010
nil
2010-
After 10 yrs of abstinence i finally got a qrp cw-trx (20/30/40m) and started again to make some qso.
Things changed incredible on shortwave, no more CW needed for hf-band access, lots of new countries and strange
callsigns. Bands are crowded with poor operators, not even knowing some basics of hf-operation.
I'm not sure if this will attract me to spend more time on the bands, but we'll see.
As i never had been a homebrewer - my focus always was on operating a rig, not to build it - i started to
build some simple circuits and hope to get this little 40m qrp-cw trx running some day. Maybe this will be
my new field of activity...