Everything begun at Christmas Season in 1993 when my uncle (F6ICN) offered me a HF receiver (Yaesu FRG 7).
I have been a SWL (F-14322) for a while, then I passed my ham exam and became FA1CWU in 1994. It was a first step but I was frustated not to be allowed to work on HF.
So I started learning all the technical program and finally passed my exam in 1996 and became F1CWU. A couple of months later, I upgrade to F5CWU (after code exam) which gave me acess to all bands.
I’m very interested on HF even if from time to time I’m active on VHF/UHF. At the present time I do not have a VHF setup, so this kind of activity is done during contests.
On HF, I have 2 stations from which I can make contacts. One is located in my parents’s home with a 40 feet tower and 2 els quad. I also have now my own house with a proper station, mostly dedicated to LOW BAND DX’ing.
I have some neighbours around but in Carabean, USA, Pacific, Asia and Middle East the shot is 100% clear ! That’s a very important point. From September to May, I have a dozen of poles which are a fairly setup to fight on low bands. Except to contact an expedition during the summer, I remove most of them when spring come and I only keep a single vertical on all bands (30/40m) plus the cubical quad as summer is not the best season to make new one especially when most of them are on zone 31/32 !
160m inveted L
80m 20m vertical full size
40m – 4 Square home made
30m – 4 Square home made
RX – mostly on TX antenna or bev
High bands – 2 els quad