How it all started
I 'm born on the 5th of June 1954 and since then I live in Ichtegem, a small village about 20 km south of Bruges and 20 km east of Ostend on the Belgian border. On the oldest picture I found, you will see me with my parents and my 9 years older sister. I think I was then about 4 .
A few years later you could see the first signs of my interest in electronics. After seeing the installation of a telephone line in our street, I borrowed all the wires and ropes my daddy had and tied together the chairs and tables to started my own telephone company. From that moment on, I was interested in electricity, and was always looking for books related to technology. When I was at the age of ten, my daddy gave me an soldering iron for my birthday present. From then on I begged the whole family for old radio's to break down . With this components and the books from our local library I constructed my first radio at the age of 11.
When I finished the basic school I went to the local technical school and started a course in mechanics and electricity. On the next picture I was in the last year of the lower course .
To finish the course I have to study three years more. I couldn't study this locally, so we where searching for an other school. At there "open day's" we visited a few schools in the environment . When I came in the "RITO Roeselare ", there was a amateur radiostation active (ON6RS).
Whaahhh, after all that reading about radio amateurs I finally saw a real radiometer station. My decision was made. That was my new school. Here I could learn everything about radio!!!!! So in September 1969 I started there. When I finished the course in June 1972, I had never seen the amateurstation back. The station was running by a club of old students and was only accessible when you had finished the school......
Anyway I had learned a lot there..... I was started to smoke and to drink .... and I had learn digital techniques with mechanical relays . On the positive site, I could repair most of the B/W TV sets without a diagram at the end of the last year. We had also some note's about transistors an color TV. So I had a good fundamental education, but nothing seen about transmitters, SSB or even antenna's.
Now my career could start. But first of all I had to do my military service. I hoped to learn Morse code there and so I asked to serve as a radio operator, but they decide that I should be a radio repair man.
No , I was never in jail, but that 's the only picture a found from that time .
After my military service and some small job's I could start a job ,as radio technician, at the RTT ( Belgium's national telephone company, now Belgacom). As a start we had 8 months education about all kinds of radio and there I could finally learn the real stuff , transmitters, receiver's, antennas, radar, microwaves etc,etc.... ON6BC was also a student there, and he learned me the Morse code after the lunch... So I was perfectly prepared for the next amateur examination, and the 15th of October 1975 I had finally my license and my call ON6EO.
Now, I still have my call and my job as a radio technician. After working as a radar technician in Antwerp, I 'm now the repair man on the receiver site of Oostende Radio, the Belgian Coast station. There I work on HF radio's and so my main amateur interests are now VHF and microwave.
Thank you for your interest and please e-mail me any comments or corrections.
73' de Wilfried
