Member of the Royal Union of Belgian Amateur Radio, division N.O.L.

After 20 years of interest in radio, I decided to become a Ham. During the winter of 1996, time was right to get into the books. It took some effort to learn how to study again but after a while, it was fun. My friend Alex, now ON4CEP, also studied at the same time so We could solve some of the questions together. The course from our club, the N.O.L. helped a lot. We went to Brussels in March 1996 and both passed the technical test. This was a very nerve-racking day with a happy ending. I only got a 2 mtr call in August 1997 but was never interested in VHF FM. A few month's later I went to Brussels for the second time and passed the morse code test.

First of all, I had a home made 5 element monoband Quagi for 10 mtr. but propagation was not that great on 10mtr, so it was time to build a triband beam. During the mild winter of '97-'98 I built this two element cubical quad and still use it today. It costed about 100 $ for materials but maybe 2000 $ for personal labour and development HI! HI!.

As one can see on the qsl card, the quad has aluminum spreaders. The loop is made out of PVC- coated copper litze-wire, insulated from the spreaders. The three loops are fed with one 1\2 inch coax- cable through a relay-box and then with RG213 via individual gamma-match systems. So this is the 10-15 and 20 mtr. antenna. See the antenna design page. On 40 and 80 mtr. I use an inverted-V dipole, not a very good antenna.

My radio is an old YAESU FT 101 ZD, a rig I would never part from. Because lack of interest in VHF I sold my TM V7E.

My personal interest in radio is rag-chewing, and the occasional contest. Also DX-hunting and IOTA island hunting is high on My list and I do this without the use of a cluster. My modest opinion is that One can't call Himself a DX-hunter staring at a cluster with the amplifier on stand-by, ready to rush to the frequency, announced on the cluster. I dont really want to brag but last year (2000) I worked 250 prefixes and made 406 points for the IOTA 2000 Millenium programme in SSB without a cluster and with only 100 watts from the old FT 101 ZD.

My projects for 2001 are building a antenna rotator and control-box and building an HF amplifier with the Russian GU43b tube, together with Alex, ON4CEP. I am also into designing (theoretical) big Quad-antennas. Maybe I will put the designs on the Web, in the future.

HOPE TO MEET YOU ON THE RADIO FOR A GOOD RAG-CHEW OR AT LEAST A GOOD QSO.

QSL 100% via UBA bureau or direct .

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