PA3GUU/9H3YT

Just relaxing in my shack

How it all started.

Hello. This page gives a brief impression of my hobby. My name is Peter Smit and I'm a HAM radio amateur with the call sign PA3GUU. I did my exam in April 1994 and received my license on April the 27^th, with the call sign PE1PKK. Unfortunately, I had promised my XYL that if I were to pass, I would immediately start digging the foundations for a new shed (25m2), and so that’s what I did. A promise is a promise! Not long after my first experiences as a C amateur (cept2) I began to study Morse code because I had always wanted the HF. The exam for the A license (cept1) was in May 1995 and on June 7th 1995 I finally received my A license with the call sign PA3GUU.
In April 1998 I went on holiday to Malta. Since Malta hasn't got CEPT a Maltese Call sign was requested. I had to pay 5 Maltese pounds (approx. 12 euro's), and they assigned me the call sign 9H3YT. I liked Malta a lot and have been there three times since, twice with the VRZA, (1999 and 2001) and once on my 12½ th wedding anniversary, which was in 1998.
My great passion is the CW mode. Per year I make more than 400 QSO's of which  95% in CW. Meanwhile, I have got the Deutschland Diplom (DLD) 100 of the DARC and am now busy working for the DLD 300. When you pass this you receive an honor pin in bronze. See also http://www.darc.de/ For info about the DLD visit:  www. darc.de  I am also a member of the MARL the Maltese Amateur Radio League and the Kempische Amateur Radio club.
At home I have a FT 1000 MP Mark V Yaesu. There will be more about that later on.

Yaesu FT990 (photograph by mods)

It all began in 1970, when I became the proud owner of two small CB toy portables. I had great fun with these handsets, together with a friend from school.

the porto Palladium CB612 AM

However, my interest started to get really serious in 1972, when I bought a 2 Watt AM portable with 12 channels at Quelle in Füssen (Germany). This portable still stands in my shack (radio room) as a reminder of how it all began.
In 1973 I went to the LTS (Lower technical school). There I made friends there with two other kids who were active on the CB band. They were more experienced than I was at the time, and I learned a lot from them and we had a lot of fun together. The nice thing about this is that those two kids are now licensed too. In 1977, after my graduation from the LTS, and after having moved house several times, our friendship ended.

In 1976 I became a member of the Veron because I had begun to lose interest in the CB band, and also because it was illegal in the Netherlands. I had already had a couple of  unwelcome "visits"  by the RCD, who had confiscated everything (except for my portable which I had obviously hidden well). They had also visited one of those two friends and had taken his Sommerkamp FT350, a HF transceiver in which the10Mc had been converted to11Mc and so we really had 100W output in our possession. This was a real pity, because we had always had a lot of fun with that transceiver (although I don’t think the neighborhood did HI). The furthest connection we made was to Gainesville in Texas in SSB on 27.575MHz. This was on October the 12^th 1974. In 1976, I requested a SWL number at the Veron and was assigned the number NL6351. However, in the meantime I was becoming more and more interested in the HF. In 1977 I bought a Panasonic DR28 and began to listen to real radio amateurs on the short wave bands. It was here I gained some of the practical experience I would need later on. In 1984, I bought my first short wave receiver, an Icom R70. The wire attached was an impressive 20 meters long. With that receiver, together with a homemade antenna tuner, I did a lot of listening and had lots of fun.
But what I really wanted, was to be a HAM amateur myself. So I started to study the Veron course book in order to get my authorization. The outcome of this is the above story.
I sold that receiver when I bought my first transceiver.

Icom IC-R 70

But to go back in time for a while: the CB was legalized in the Netherlands in1980 and so I bought a Skyline SM2008 CB radio (no photograph) which cost a lot of money at that time. My landlord was somewhat less happy about it, but he nonetheless gave me permission to install a GP27 antenna. Incidentally, that landlord went on to become my father in law a few years after that. Stranger things happen HI.

However, my CB days were numbered: in 1983 when I went to live in Vollenhove with my girlfriend, the CB radio landed in the closet, never to be used again. I became more and more interested in the HF, and as a  SWL (Short Wave Listener) I have sent quite a number of reports and also received many QSL cards. Even so it took until 1994 before I took the exam for radio amateur. As a C amateur I haven’t done all that much, and yet my furthest connection was with OK2BLE (the Czech Republic) on 144.310MHz with just 25 Watts PEP SSB, the distance was 936 km direct, unfortunately I never received a QSL card.

In 1995 when I received my A license I didn’t have enough money to buy a HF transceiver. A friend of mine offered to let me use his transceiver for one afternoon a week until I was able to afford my own transceiver.
My first HF connection was with SM5BDQ on June 19th 1995 at 10:58 UTC on 14.235 MHz in SSB. Unfortunately I didn’t receive a QSL card. That still bothers me as it was my very first HF connection and really meant something special to me.
Unfortunately, my friend died much too young on October 20^th 1998 at the age of 50. His name was Geert v.d.Schaaf and his call sign was PA3FRS .

In December 1995 Steef PA0IB made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He had a 40W HF transceiver that he had built himself and said I could borrow it until I had my own transceiver. I accepted this offer without hesitation and on December the 15^th 1995 I made my first HF connection from home, with EW1WC on 7.057 MHz with 40W PEP and as you may have guessed already.... no QSL card to show for it either. In April 1996 I purchased a secondhand Kenwood TS440, but this wasn’t a success: there was something wrong with it, it was a trifle deaf. In October 1996 I ordered a Kenwood TS 45OSAT at Schaat in Katwijk. Somehow it disappeared in the post and after a few phone calls with Schaart I was sent another one, no problem. On November the 16^th I finally received my brand new transceiver, the postman wasn't all that happy to be handed that much money in cash, but he had no choice in the matter.
The first contact with this transceiver, was with DF2FZ on November the16th 1996 on 7.056MHz in SSB with 100W and now with a FD3 antenna at 13 meters above ground. I received a QSL card of this connection

TS 450SAT

I had that Kenwood until May 23rd 2002 and had great fun with it.
Meanwhile, on Malta (2001) I had become acquainted with the Yaesu FT 990 which I was very pleased with. As a consequence  I bought a second hand FT 990 on May 31st 2002, which was a significant improvement on the TS450: much less noise due to a better signal-to-noise ratio; even very weak signals <S3 were good enough to work with; no way was this possible with the TS 450. I have now had this transceiver for over a year and I'm still very satisfied with it.

My love for CW

My love of the CW (Morse code) began at a much earlier stage. Together with a friend from elementary school we were listening up in the attic to an old radio belonging to my Grandpa. We heard strange beeping sounds and speculated that they might be espionage information from the Soviet Union. We didn’t dare say anything about it at school. When we later learned it was Morse code it all became much more exciting, as this seemed to confirm our "espionage story".  Several years later we discovered that those mysterious sounds on the radio really came from Radio Scheveningen and some Beacons on the Medium Wave. And so our big secret of being “secret agents” fell apart.
That friend moved to 's-Hertogenbosch a few months later, and that was a long way away. I never saw him again. 
Another friend followed. This was the boy with whom I used to play with the CB toy portables. We also listened to Morse code on the Short Wave. It was often such a confused din that we couldn’t understand a thing, but that was all part of the game we were playing and guess what? We were pretending to be ..."secret" agents. When I went to secondary school (the LTS), I moved to Heemstede because of my father’s work, and this friendship also ended. My interest in the Morse language disappeared for a while, along with that friend. When I left the LTS in 1977, and came into contact with other radio amateurs, my interest returned and started to grow again.
And so I bought a book on Morse code and attempted to learn it, but that’s easier said than done. I got very fast at encoding the beacons of the amateur repeaters and I could also recognize all sorts of beacons on the Short Wave. But I let things slide from the first day of my courtship with my contemporary XYL onwards. I found my girlfriend much more interesting than all those beeps HI.
In 1994, following the C examination, I seriously started to learn the Morse code, but I found that everything I had previously learned had gone, so I had to start all over again. And so I got myself a Morse code course on diskette by Yaesu. I would listen daily to the Morse code course on 145.325 MHz translated by the Veron. I went to great lengths to keep up my study-routine, even returning home every day (40km) during our holiday at a campsite in Bladel, just to study Morse code. But my efforts were rewarded in the end when, after months of studying hard, I finally obtained my fiercely desired A status license (cept 1 license). I could now finally start working the HF bands myself.

HF on holiday

My HF adventures on holiday began rather painfully. My XYL has absolutely no interest whatsoever in the hobby and has always ardently maintained that "that stuff stays at home". Try to go against that! Since 1994 we often camped in Bladel during the spring. And that was before I became a HAM operator.
When, in 1994, I finally got my C license, I wanted to have something to use at the campsite and which would also enable me to listen to the rounds of PI4EHV on Sunday evening led by our chairman Kees PB0AIA. And so I thought out a crafty scheme with the purpose of gaining my XYL’s consent for bringing equipment along to the campsite.HI. The "discussion" was opened and to my utter amazement she immediately said ........ YES! There I stood with all my carefully worded, and clearly superfluous, reasons and excuses. The first 2 meter/70cm portable station I took along with me was a Yaesu FT 470, this portable unfortunately "died".

Portofoon Yaesu FT470

Because I had a J antenna I was only able to work the 2 meter band, but a radio amateur friend PE1OPT of mine had a Daimond X-50N he wasn’t using.
I attached that antenna to an aluminum pole (4 meters long) at the front of my trailer. I was now ready for the real thing. I only used the antenna for the repeaters and the Sunday evening rounds. That summer we went on holiday to Barcelona for the first time. Again, I took my portable station with me. Meanwhile I also had an alamode 2 meter transceiver in my car, the Kenwood TR-751 which I had received for my birthday from my XYL. I didn't use it much in Spain. Unfortunately, Spaniards don’t speak English as a rule. So several CQ's were not answered, with the exception of those of a few fellow tourists from Germany, England and a Dutchman who was staying in Sites. I sold this Kenwood in1999 which I still regret, and bought a Kenwood TM-V7,which I only use for the Sunday evening rounds and packet radio.

Kenwood TR-751

Kenwood TM-V7

However, it took until the summer of 1998 before a HF transceiver came with me on holiday for the first time. In the summer of 1997 a friend of mine went on holiday to the Far East, and (on my request) brought an Icom IC-706mkII back for me.

.

Icom IC-706mkII

This was the first transceiver I took on holiday. The destination was Spain. This first year I placed the transceiver in a toolbox, while the antenna was mounted onto the back of the car. In the car I had two "banana" plugs, which were connected directly to the battery, which I had installed to allow for future mobile use of the transceiver. It had also been used on holiday in Austria in October 1997. Thus the HF connections were made from the car and not from the trailer. The portable station was still in use in the trailer. And so there I was, on a campsite in Gavá, 20 km south of Barcelona city, with a HF antenna on the car, a 2m/70cm vertical antenna fixed to the front of the trailer and not to forget: a small satellite dish on the caravan.

The "mobile unity" in Spain

The first connection in Spain on the HF was with my friend from the town where I live PA3FRS on July the 5^th 1998 at.14:00 hours local time. We had arranged to contact each other every day at 14:00 hours, unless we were unable to: we were on holiday after all. That first connection wasn't very strong but it lasted more than half an hour. The location of the campsite was by no means ideal for HF experience; according to my GPS the altitude was 0 meters, while the town where I live, Geldrop, at its 26 meters above sea level, is not exactly “high up” either. And so every day it was uncertain whether we’d reach each other or not, but we succeeded each time, some days better than others.

In the course of that holiday I went to Tibidabo one afternoon for a few hours. Tibidabo is a kind of  large fancy fair, set on a mountain, overlooking the city of Barcelona. It is managed by the cathedral next to the park. I parked in a parking lot approximately 500 meters away from the fancy fair. It was a beautiful high spot (602m) and it was totally free to all sides. I fixed my antenna onto the back of my car and turned my transceiver on. The conditions at this altitude were reasonably good. During the few hours I stood up there I worked with Indonesia and Japan on the 15 meter band (21.225MHz.) for the first time. Also I picked up stations in the Ukraine, Egypt, Pakistan, India and few European countries, although strangely enough no Dutch stations. I didn’t work with my friend back home either, because he had been prevented that day himself. I received QSL cards of the connections with Indonesia and Japan. Towards the end of the afternoon (after 4 hours of making connections) I took stock of what had proven to be a very successful day. In total I made 54 connections in the time span of a few hours. The shortest distance was with Valencia EA5 and the largest distance was with Japan 7J. We decided to visit the same camping site again in 1999 and naturally I'll took my entire "mobile unity" along with me again.

Small fall holiday adventure.

In October 1999 we spent our fall holiday in Greglingen-Münster. Munster is small village on the border between Baden-Württemberg and Bayern.
A well-known town at about 15 km from the campsite is Rothenburg o/d Tauber, a nice medieval town which I had visited many times as a child with my parents, and later on also with a few friends during a motorcycle holiday. Unfortunately, the boarding house (Reichsapfel), situated just outside of town, where we always used to stay, had been closed down: the owner had moved to the old people’s home and there had been no one to take it over.

When we were at the campsite I discovered that I had forgotten the DC electric cable belonging to my transceiver, but no need to panic: I still had a car battery, "that's what I thought". Because I had bought a new car, I didn’t have the banana plugs in there anymore, so I had to come up with another solution.

A piece of cake, or so it seemed!  One evening I fed the DC cable through my window, opened the hood of my car, and connected it to the battery. After I had loosened the battery clamps, I stuck the cable in between and the ‘adventure’ could begin.
My first contact was with a station in Eindhoven (about 8 km away from my town of residence) one and a half hours passed and it had begun to get chilly, so I decided to stop. And then a little mishap took place. I had completely forgotten to deactivate my car alarm-system and consequently the system was activated the moment I loosened the battery clamps. The alarm began to blare, an ear-splitting howl that resonated in the hills around the wooded campsite. By the way, it was about  22:30 hours at that time. It was clear what certain campers thought of it: I heard someone shout “RUHE”, meaning SILENCE, in a very loud voice.
After 5 minutes the alarm stopped and the peace returned. The following day I was still getting unfriendly looks, so I chose to keep a low profile for the rest of that holiday.

Mobile in the Alps.

In October 1998 I took the plunge and set about realizing a long-standing ambition: to go mobile in the Alps. I asked my father if he would like to accompany me, and he jumped at the idea. So on the morning of October the 25^th, at about 06:00 hours, we set off for Austria. Unlike our holiday in Spain, I turned the transceiver on before we left so I could make contact during the trip. The first connection (QSO) I had was with an LA station when I was driving near Koblenz. It wasn’t feasible to start transmitting any sooner due to heavy traffic, even just listening wasn't possible. Safety first.

The QTH was near Bergen in Norway and he gave me a really good report (RS) of 58, I was very satisfied with this. After that QSO I only had two more QSO's until we crossed the Austrian border. In Ehrwald (Austria) I had a QSO with a PA station from Rotterdam, but after that  I had no more QSO's due to road safety conditions until we reached the farm, where we had arranged to stay, in Lafairs (Gem. Pfunds) in the Oberinntal, which is situated at 940m above sea level, although unfortunately in a valley; and that was evident from the strength of the signals I received there.
The next day, after a hot coffee, I took my transceiver to Samnaun in Switzerland, at approximately 13km from Pfunds.
Samnaun is a kind of tax free zone in Switzerland and gasoline prices are very low there. One liter of  EURO95 costs about 37 eurocents ($0,40),  so fill her up Jack. I also bought cigarettes and spirits for my relatives (but not for myself, because I don't smoke or drink much alcohol, just a beer once in a while). So they were very lucky.
After the "shopping", I turned into a parking lot situated at about 1912m above sea level and turned my transceiver (rig) on "at this altitude the signals must be particularly strong", I thought. But... what a disappointment: all remained remarkably quiet. The QSO's I had in those two hours were only from within Europe ( DL' s OE' s PA and G' s), and no DX which I’d hoped for. I was so disappointed that, sooner than planned, I returned to our host family at the foot of the mountain on the Austrian side of the border. Here I made a few more QSO's. These were all within Europe too.
In the evening we were in the so-called “Aufenthalsraum”, chatting with the host and his wife, drinking delicious beer (BrauAG), when our host told us that there was a chance it would snow overnight. I knew my father really hates snow and I saw his face fall. He didn't believe it, because it was only October the 26^th. But I knew it was, because I’d been there often in the fall and winter so I knew that they could have snow that early in the year. And the next day...yes indeed, about 20cm of snow. You should have seen the look on my father’s face!

The Day.........................isn't it beautifull

I hadn’t prepared for the eventuality of snowfall and so I hadn’t brought my winter tires with me. They were in the garage back home. I had the summer tires on my car.
I couldn't manage the steep driveway up to road from the farmhouse and had to be pulled onto the road by my host’s tractor. For the rest of the week I had to park my car in front of  the barn at the side of the main road. On October the 31^st we set off back home. Up until Füssen we had snow; after that there was a gradual transition to rain. That week I only made 35 QSO, mainly with DL stations. This HF week had been a bit disappointing.

Summer 2000 in Italy.

In July 2000 we went to Italy instead of Spain for our summer vacation. We camped near a small village called  Marina di Bibona approximately 40 km south of Livorno in Tuscany.
Of course the equipment came along too. Fortunately, I didn't forget my DC cable this time. If  I had, I wouldn’t have been able to do QSO's as cars weren’t allowed in the camping area. For the cars there was a guarded, covered car park just outside the site, especially for camping guests. The first QSO I had was with an EA3 station. And so this holiday had a Spanish connection after all HI. During these three weeks I had only worked a few European stations, and strangely enough: there were no PA's. I didn't have many QSO's because it was our first holiday in Italy, to be precise just 24 stations.
Apart from this we did a lot of sightseeing in Tuscany and the people there are very friendly. However, we shall never visit this campsite again. It’s not that we had any complaints about the campsite itself: the sanitation was very good and the site itself was very nice, but it was expensive and its boss was not customer-friendly at all. One day we returned from a daytrip only to find that three large tents had been pitched right in front of our trailer with their tent pegs almost “in” our trailer. Whenever we had to go to the sanitation block, we were forced to go via our neighbor’s trailer. We didn’t have a free way out any more. We were very disappointed, and after that our holiday was lousy. So it’s back to Spain for us in 2001!

Holiday 2001 in Spain.

In 2001 we returned to Gavá (for the last time for the time being). My first QSO here was with 9A2WT from Split on June the 30^th. As we had planned our holiday for the beginning of the summer season, the campsite was still reasonably empty and that was great. It was my daughter’s birthday on July 1^st and of course that had to be celebrated. The awning was turned into a party tent and the celebration could begin. It was warm that day: 32° C in the afternoon. During this holiday I only worked one PA station and that was PA3AQV from Maastricht. This was on July the 9^th, but the most memorable QSO's of that entire holiday were, without a doubt, with N7ET/DU7 an American in the Philippines in CW on 14.002 MHz. at 22:12 UTC on July the 16^th and that with a German-speaking Australian VK6BCP on 7.095 MHz. SSB on July the 10^th at 21:56 UTC. Since then both stations have been affirmed by a QSL  card.

QSL card VK6BCP QSL card N7ET/DU7

Apart from that I have worked a number of stations from Europe and the USA, the farthest station in the States was W4SAA from Texas on July 14th on 14.002 MHz. at 11:24. Unfortunately this has not yet been affirmed.
All in all I was very satisfied with 48 QSO's to look back on,  mostly of course in CW on 20 and 40 meter band. This was the final of several holidays in southern Europe. In the summer of 2002, we are going somewhere completely different, namely the Czech Republic.

Holiday 2002: Cerny Dul, giant mountains, the Czech Republic.

As mentioned above, in the summer of 2002 we traveled to an entirely different part of Europe, to Eastern Europe to be precise. For three weeks we camped on a campsite by a little town called Cerny Dul between Vrlabi and Trutnov. The locator there was JO70UO.
Cherny Dul is a small town at the foot of the Riesengebirge, with views of Snezka, the highest mountain in the Czech Republic (alt.1602 meters). The site has a small stream running down the side of it and a large reservoir, in which you aren’t allowed to swim, in the vicinity. It is situated at an altitude of approx. 640 meters above sea level, and so it was ideal for making far connections. Having built up the mobile unity, attached the antenna to the front of the trailer, I was ready for my first connection, which I had on the 6^th of July with DF0HSC Udo from Poecking. I already knew Udo from several connections at home and we had an amusing chat. His RST was very good indeed; so I certainly had found a good location. From the trailer I also had an unimpeded view to the west.

View of the sunset from the trailer

That was the only QSO I had that day. In the evening had coffee with our friends from Eindhoven, who had accompanied us to the Czech Republic. We made ourselves a nice campfire, which is permitted on many Czech campsites.
We made many campfires during those three weeks. Our son and our friends’ son loved this and they could hardly wait until the evening.
Every evening they asked if we could have a campfire. And as 2002 was quite a cold summer, we had nothing against saying yes.
During the day we did a lot. The Riesengebirge are extremely beautiful. One day we went to the Snĕžka, the highest mountain in the Czech Republic. We boldly began our climb until we’d had the first chair lift which took us up to 900 meters. There, we had to transfer to another chair lift that would take us further on up to the summit. Unfortunately that lift was out of operation due to bad weather. We decided to walk to the top.
This was a very long and extremely tiring walk, especially the last 200 meters up to the summit, which was a kind of natural stairway.

Beginning of the walk Finally up on top PD9PSG My son

At first the walk appeared to be very easy, and it was indeed so ... until we began to climb, as you can see by the pictures: "beginning of the walk" and "finally up on top".
On the summit of the mountain there was a restaurant. This restaurant was on the Polish side of the mountain. A single border pole marked the border between the Czech Republic and Poland.
My son took a little rest, leaning against that pole, on the Polish side. I had brought my portable with me to make a few QSO's on 2 meters or 70 cm.
My XYL, the children and our friends took refuge in the restaurant, because it was very bad weather and very cold up there, just 5 C. My first QSO was with a repeater in Zwickau  in Germany about 120km away (by Air).
Because of the worsening weather conditions, this QSO remained the only one. The weather got so bad that I decided to take shelter in the restaurant too. It started to rain; there was a minor storm coming. You couldn’t see any further than 10 meters and the temperature dropped to a mere 2 C.
The restaurant was very simple, with in the middle a few tables joined together to make one and wooden benches to sit on. Here, everyone brings along their own food and drinks in backpacks. Behind a glass screen there was a "real restaurant" where you could order food. But we opted to sit among the locals, which was much nicer.

Dad sat on the pole too.

And the XYL is very glad to be down again.

When the weather improved, we commenced back down again, which was much easier than the way up, I can tell you HI! On that day we had walked about 24km in mountainous terrain and we were very tired that evening. So no campfire for us that evening and everybody retired to bed very early.
Before I went to bed I made a single QSO with PY1SL from Rio de Janeiro on 7.003 MHz. What a great end to this enjoyable day!

The following evening I joined the Dutch holiday net on the 40 meter band, which is enthusiastically organized every year by Ben PA0BWX in Brixen in Tale, Austria. I had just set the frequency, when I got a lot of disturbance due to over modulation. It was ridiculous. After requesting the fellow amateurs lower in the frequency to look for another frequency for the round, I was requested to have my transceiver examined, because I was crowding the entire 40 meter band. I thought this was odd. After all, I was in the Czech Republic so how on earth was I able to clog up the whole band in the Netherlands. But it soon became apparent that those fellow amateurs were in the Czech Republic, in the same village for that matter. After we’d spoken to each other, it turned out to be Arie PA4AR who was not only in the same village, but even on the same campsite; in fact we were less than 50 meters apart. So that explained the over modulation which had effected me, and Arie, of course. After a hour I couldn’t suppress my curiosity any longer and was off to visit Arie for coffee. His antenna worked so much better than mine and I was eager to find out why. It turned out to be a very amusing and pleasant evening with Arie, his XYL and two other amateurs who were visiting him and his  XYL. Arie knocked up a 2 times 10 meter wire o. t. w. 40m dipole for me, as this good old principle works much, much better than my Kenwood mobile antenna. With Arie’s antenna I made many excellent connections during the remainder of the holiday. And I shall certainly take it along with me next year.

On November 3th my son took the exame for radioamateur and requier the Novice callsign PD9PSG

Translation: Ms. S.Rustidge

To be continued

Please write a note in my guestbook.

Look into my guestbook.

                                                            CU 73 Peter de PA3GUU Last update 12-11-2004 22:44UTC

.