My first steps into the hobby.
When I was around 12 years my father was speaking of DXing on the 11m band (CB). So yes I was a pirate in the beginning. I bought my first transceiver when I was 13 years. It was a President Washington. After I was graduated from (bakery) school I went to work for the Belgium army and became a soldier.
At the age of 19 I was living on my own far away from my childhood area. I grow up in the city of De Panne and lived there till the age of 18. At the age of 19 I was living in Peer because the base was not far away of that city. In 2004 my lovely Daughter Annaïs was born. The first steps to amateur radio was also in 2004 where I met a person who was licenced and took me to his local radio club. At that time they just start with a new class so I signed up and after some months of classes I past the exams for the foundation license. At that time we only were aloud to use the 2m and 70cm band with 50 watts and my first call was ON2MV.
In those days all candidates that participated with the course got a mentor, I was lucky mine was ON4AEK (OT4A), If you look at his QRZ you will know why I was lucky.
Some months later there was a new legislation that permits the foundation license to be active on the HF band with the use of 10watts only. So my next call was ON3MV.
At the local club they started to give classes again for the biggest licence in Belgium we called it here the Harec licence. The lessons were given by ON6TM and after a year of hard studying I past the exams. In the meantime my dad finally got his foundation license too and his call was ON2OPA unfortunately he is already a silent key. My mom who has been active in the old days on the 11m band also passed for the foundation license and even after very hard studying she past the Harec exams her call is ON8TC.
In 2017 I hopefully met my last spouse (yl) who has also a lovely son his name is Aydin. One of the first conversations we had was " I am having a strange hobby and that I am spending quite some time doing that". Luckily she said how can I get my license to. After some studying she past also for the exams. Her Call is ON3MA, She is not that active like I am but it’s good for me she understand what I am doing and support me in what I am trying to accomplish.
After moving around in Belgium I bought my own house in the town Vladslo in 2017.
From 2009 till this moment I am member of my local radio club ‘Sectie KSD” where I am know the teacher to give lessons to other candidates in helping them getting there licence.
As you can read in my small biography, I had not a technical background, I am not an expert on any subject at all, with the hobby I started very small with old and mostly broken equipment. At that time there was not a lot of money for the hobby and seeing it afterwards that was a good time learning all sort of things with a minimum of funds. The situation is different at this time more funds can be used but still love to make it all from scratch.
Thanks for reading.
88's from Mieke ON3MA and 73's from Mike ON7MV
My email is my call (at) telenet.be
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