Still Dad's hobby N° 1: Amateur Radio

Did we have a QSO before? Check my log: 21.300 QSO's in the file!

The history of DM3XRF

I started to enjoy amateur radio as a 12 year old scool-boy, when I watched the first AM(!) ham-signals in my just finished one-diode detector receiver for local broadcast. It was Walter, DM3RF on 80 m, a pioneer of the East German ham society. A few month later I joined the club and immediatly started to practice Morse Code. After 6 month I held my SWL-license on hands: DM 7102/F. In 1974 I was licensed as DM3XRF, one of the youngest hams in the GDR at that time.

Since commercial equipement was not available, we had to use the radio of our club. We started with an "10RT" as RX (part of a reconstructed russian tank radio) and a home-brew 3-valve TX with 20 W input at an W3DZZ antenna. In 1976 we "purchased" our first 5-band SSB tranceiver, the famos "Teltow 215" (the most left in the picture). It opened the world of high bands to us. After changing our QTH, we could eject 4 towers for dipoles a 2-el. triband Quad at 30 m/100ft.!! From this point of time I really ENJOYED the hobby!

The final breakthrouh was brought by an (once again) home-made linear amplifier, pushing 1 kW of RF to the antennas.
Early I started to participate in amateur radio contests. WAE fascinated with QTC's, WPX and WADM/WAG with real pile-ups. CW was (and is) the only choice for a real contest feeling ...

My logbook filled well in 1980, when the Y2-prefix was issued for GDR and my call-sign changed to Y39XF. At this time I graduated in the former USSR, activating from time to time the call UK1AAE, the club station of the Leningrad's Pioneers (something like Jamboree) Palace.

After returning to Germany I changed to Berlin and joint the Radio Club of Humbold University, using Y54SO. My activity was rather low at that time :-((

Things changed again in 1990, Y2-land became a deleted country (in the real sense of the word!), I moved 750 km apart from Berlin and got DL4VAD.

I started to use this call with an old FT 101 ZD and a FD4 wire antenna from the 4-th floor of a city location. DX-ing became real hard, but I never gave up ... A short but nice episode was my activity in the "Saar-Loraine DX-Club", where I was a founding member. I used to be TM3M at this time and we had a lot of fun from different locations.

For 3 years my radio activity was close to nil - the own QTH had to be constructed!! In 1994 we finally moved, and 1 year later the antenna tower was under construction. A dream became true, my own DX- and contest-station. Improving hard- and software step by step, today I'm using the equipement, listed below. To make it perfect, the German Telecom Regulators allowed in 1997 to apply for the old East German call signs, what I did immediatly :-)) This was the final proof, that I'm getting older.

Contesting received a new kick in September 2005, when one of the new "short suffix" call signs was assigned. So listen for DM3M in contests now!

My station equipment

• Kennwood TS 870 S
• YAESU FL 2100
• PC's: notebook K6/500 at the radio, Pentium 300 for the office
• antennas: 2 el. Quad for 10-20 m by TITANEX; dipoles for 40-160 m
• MFJ Versatuner for the WARC-bands

DXCC-standing

Diplomas

• 5 Band WAC
• S 6 S
• R 6 K
• W 100 R
• DM KK
• DMCA
• WA Y2
• AC 15 Z
• SRAL 70
• WAE I CW + SSB

QSL-statistics

Since 1990 all qso-data are stored in a data base, so I could calculate a return rate of cards from different countries. Considering office delays, I counted qso's only up to year 2002. I choosed only DXCC entities, where cards are sent via the bureau. The total return rate is about 66%.

Important links

There are a lot of amateur radio homepages (just like this, hi), but there are few with real usefull content. Here are some of them for active DX-ers and contesters: