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Fascinating shortwave bands

Listening to the radio in the early seventies was as fascinating to me as it is today! While Klaus (DJ6RX), Gun (DL6EN) and the others from the Bad Kreuznach DX-Gang had their daily DX-contacts around the globe, I was eager to get my own transmitting permission.

Too young to be a radio amateur?

During the early seventies it was still required by law to be at least 18 years old to be accepted for an amateur radio examination. Too bad for me as I was only 16 years but ready to start!

Than, with the great support of Harry (DK4PR), Günter (DJ8CY) and the DARC I was accepted for the examination even though I was only 16! This was an unusual exception at this time! On December 3rd 1973 I finally got my license with the call DK7PE. I was one of the youngest radio amateurs in Germany.

DXpeditions

Working DX - which means having radio contact with other amateur radio stations more than 3000 km away - was one thing. But after I had worked 265 DXCC countries, I was eager to visit some of this exotic spots myself.

Egypt was the first rare DX-country. With the invitation of Keith, VO1LX/SU (now VA3YC), I was allowed to operate out of the UN-Camp in Ismailia on the Suez Canal. This was in 1978.

In 38 years of Amateur Radio I have visited 154 and operated out of 129 different DXCC-countries (see page Call Signs). I was told that this amount would be a world record under the living radio amateurs.  Who knows?

However, getting a license in some of these countries and operating from there wasn't always easy, so to mention Congo Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, Burkina Faso and Bangladesh.

During all my DXpeditions I focused on countries most wanted in CW (Morse code) and especially on the low bands like 40, 80 and 160m. For this purpose I designed several antenna systems that fit into my suitcase and work extremely well on the HF-bands. One of my designs is the 3 element Jumper Beam made out of wire. It was described in the Ocober issue of QST Magazine  and several other magazines too..

On my page Photo Gallery you may find some pictures I took during some recent DXpeditions. The last one was the Central African Republic, TL0CW in October/November 2011.

CU on 160!

Rudi - DK7PE