I was born in 1953 in Budapest, Hungary. In the sixties my grandpa - who was an exceptional clever technician - often needed me as his guide when he was working on different projects. I have early decided to be a technician or something like that because I loved to play and work with electric things. I have contacted with hamradio in the technical high school in 1971. Young guy learned things fast (including CW) and got my callsign in 1972. Those were times ! Everybody was working with homebrew TX and some military surplus RX.
My HF work was started on 80 meters with 25W and dipole antenna. What a pity I dont have at least a photo about those equipment.The next big step was a home-made 5-band SSB transceiver. I have worked on it for years. Thank you very much to my former girlfriend - my wife!
That was a FB rig, performed 60W into a tribander vertical antenna. I've got the DXCC award in 1980. Later I've built a PA with a GK-71 russian tube - 300W. Then I upgraded to a Kenwood TS-520SE and later an Icom IC-761 plus a Heathkit SB-220. My first directional antenna was a home-made 2 ele tribander cubical quad, then I changed to a TH3JRS and now a HyGain Explorer 14. I am active on CW, SSB and digital modes, such as SSTV and RTTY .
On contests I used to work on my clubstation HA5KKC also HG5C. We have a FB contest station outside of the city with 4 towers and big HF antennas.
When I was 50 my wife surprised me with a small allband / allmode Yaesu FT-897. My attention turned to VHF wich is a new world for me. I have made a
GI7-b PA and a 3 wavelenght
DJ9BV antenna. Meteorscatter seems to be the only way for me to make VHF QSOs from a low place in the big city surrounded by 10 stories blockhouses.
There are some 40 600 QSOs in my logbook. I have confirmed contact with all active and some deleted DXCC countries.
On VHF I have about 2 500 QSOs, 59 countries and 437 squares.
Been playing with EME a bit and made some 650 QSOs on 6m.
That's the story so far. Hamradio is a great fun.
I hope to meet you soon on the air.
73 Viktor HA5LV
