Veikko Komppa OH2MCN " Veke ", in private
Personal data
I am a Doctor in Technology (funny Finnish degree D.Sc.(Tech.) similar to
Ph.D.(Eng.)) from the Helsinki University of Technology and a Professor
at VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland. My special
professional areas are many and they are too broad and various but I have not
been able to control nor to narrow them:
* Analytical chemistry, environmental chemistry, chemical metrology
* Separation techniques, supercritical fluids - extraction - pilot
chromatography
* Catalysis, supported catalysts, automotive catalysts, DeNOx, cobalt - noble
metal cluster catalysts
* Plastic composites, compounds and blends
* Glass, glassy state, glass fiber.
And a future looks much in marketing area in World Bank
projects or then something else. You never know the future anymore these days,
so precisely. WB projects and their marketing have brought me just recently two
times to Mozambique but I never had time to carry rigs with me. Only data
projectors!
I have about 100 scientific publications, about four text
books and several
memberships in various chemistry related societies: ACS, AOAC, SAMPE, FCS. Officially
I represent Finland in EURACHEM, EUROMET/EURACHEM/MetChem, and in some other international
Working Groups like EA EUROLAB EUROMET EURACHEM WG for Reference Materials. In
Finland I have been establishing and very much involved in Metrology in
Chemistry, national EURACHEM society, and catalysis society. Uncertainty of measurement (chemical and other) has been some
kind of leisure time, serious hobby for me. I have professionally trained more
than 300 technical experts in theoretical and practical handling of uncertainty
of measurement in voluntary training courses. I am also a very active technical
expert for the Court in patent litigation cases in the Court of Justice in
Helsinki.
Ham data
I was licensed first year 1962 as OH5VD. I passed the general
class exam in a few months and next summer 1963 brought me, or
should I say dragged me, to the Aland Islands to start my first DX Pedition
with my young ham mates OH5VF and OH5TK. It was fun, great fun for me, as a
youngster at the age of 17 to be the most wanted in the world! Aland Islands
was a rare DXCC country in those days. That started a constant inner desire for
contest operations and heavy pileups for me and that has brought me to some
other funny travel places like CR9D, VK9YD, VK9YD/VK9X, S79VD, FR0VD, 3D2VD,
9M8VD, and 5W1VD. I almost always travel with my wife and many are the common
memories and friendships that we have been able to share over the years.
The first visit to the Cocos Keeling Islands in 1987 was some sort of a turning point for me, especially mentally. It was then the first time in the Tropics and in the Home Island of the Cocos Keeling Islands. The other 26 coral islets around me, only 2 inhabited. Cocos Keeling is paradise, or to be honest for me, it was. The empire had its end when the formers of the Cocos Keeling establishment, the Clunies-Ross family, were forced to sell all their property on Cocos Keeling due to badly managed maritime investments. Our home in Cocos Keeling, the Oceania House of the Cocos Keeling Islands, does not exist anymore in its splendor and it is no more even kept in condition. The Australian Government owns it but they do nothing to keep it up, even the best library in the whole Indian Ocean is left to rotten.
We had our fair share of the Paradise after having spent Christmas and Mid Summer in Cocos Keeling and the Mid Summer day and New Year in Christmas Island. Good timing isn't it! I know how to do it.
After Cocos Keeling we used
to travel a lot and enjoyed it very much. Now lately other obligations, like
business travels and grand children, are maybe compensating the DX travels a
bit. And priorities have changed. But the dream of the Lonely Coral Island,
especially the Prison Island
of the Cocos Keeling Islands, either in the morning in deep blue and orange
colors, so bright and beautiful that you cannot breath, only sit on the beach;
or then in the evening when the silvery moment is just coming for a few minutes
after the sun is gone behind the horizon. Those instants I cannot relive in
Cocos Keeling any more because the friends, their stories and the moment is
gone for ever. Sunrises and sunsets you can see elsewhere in the Pacific but
not the same what we experienced in the Cocos Keeling Islands.
As to the ham radio operation I have always had a modest DX station with the normal ups and downs in working activity. Antennas not nearly ever in mint condition, something falling down every once and while. Today the setup is 1 kW, 17 ele Log Periodic for 10-30 MHz @ 18 m (still under repair after too heavy snow load), 2 pieces of 40 m Bobtails and a 80 m Delta loop. DXCC is now with seventeen entities missing. Who knows what happens next.
13 March 2002, OH2MCN Veke
