Belgian Amateur Radio Station ON5AW, sk

OP: Jean-Marie QTH: Boussu

Jean-Marie, ON5AW. I met him in 1980, when I was living in Belgium. He likes DX-hunting in CW....and comes frequently to my QTH. Back home he uses a Kenwood  TS-940S Transceiver and various Beams/Dipols/Verticals.

On December 8th, 2021 Jean-Marie became silent key.

At the time when I left NATO I met Jean-Marie in 1980 at the Radio Club of Borinage. We were visiting each other frequently at our homes. Jean-Marie was upgrading his belgian radio amateur license in 1980. His new callsign was ON5AW and mine was ON6ZS. He was the first belgian ham who has a qso with BY1PK in CW. He liked very much to operate CW as well in RTTY from his qth at school.

There he had a 2 element Quad antenna installed @ 40m above sea level for 20-15-10m band. He had always a fantastic take off to get in contact with various dx stations.

Even though I moved in 1982 to the Netherlands and back to Belgium in 1985 we visited each other often, we met on the air on vhf and hf. When I left belgium some time later he came to germany and helped me with local hams to install a new antenna system.

In 2011 I moved to Hofgeismar - he came reguarly to me, enjoying ham radio.

With time Jean-Marie became more and more disabled so I managed the logging and qsl service for him. In 2021 his health degraded rapidly and my good old friend Jean-Marie passed away on the 8th december 2021.

/rev Sep 6th, 2023