1. Hobbies

My Ham shack (my callsign: PA3BKL)

Glimpse of my ham-shack. A room CRAMMED with stuff.
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My hamradio obsession all started with the so called 'Citizen Band'<br />
 (see: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2c4wa9c">http://tinyurl.com/2c4wa9c</a>) <br />
<br />
It started as 'NASA'. I just picked that name because it was the brandname of my CB tranceiver<br />
<br />
This was my nickname as a 27 Mhz amateur in the seventies.<br />
The set that I used was a tube set: The NASA 23 VB<br />
<br />
(you can see a picture in this gallery)
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My hamradio obsession all started with the so called 'Citizen Band'
(see: http://tinyurl.com/2c4wa9c)

It started as 'NASA'. I just picked that name because it was the brandname of my CB tranceiver

This was my nickname as a 27 Mhz amateur in the seventies.
The set that I used was a tube set: The NASA 23 VB

(you can see a picture in this gallery)

CCF011220120000

  • My hamradio obsession all started with the so called 'Citizen Band'<br />
 (see: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2c4wa9c">http://tinyurl.com/2c4wa9c</a>) <br />
<br />
It started as 'NASA'. I just picked that name because it was the brandname of my CB tranceiver<br />
<br />
This was my nickname as a 27 Mhz amateur in the seventies.<br />
The set that I used was a tube set: The NASA 23 VB<br />
<br />
(you can see a picture in this gallery)
  • My NASA 23 VB<br />
<br />
Great set, great signal, great modulation.<br />
The only 'negative' thing was, that the tubes needed to warm up, before you could actually use it...
  • Not even a radio-amateur (yet), this picture was made on 22 November 1979 (I was 23 here): <br />
my FIRST day of my FIRST job on my FIRST ship: merchant marine Radio Officer....<br />
This is the radio-station of m/v Raamgracht / PFON, a 82 mtr coaster.<br />
The 19-inch racks contain: 2x Skanti R-5000 receivers, in the middle rack (top) the battery-charger for the batteries of 500 Khz emergency transmitter, the latter is on the far right side, with under it the Automatic Alarm Device, that starts ringing when an emergency signal is received.<br />
Above the transmitter you see a SOLID copperwire to the antenna on top of the wheelhouse. <br />
My first voyage: From Amsterdam to Hudeidah (in Yemen) via the Suez Channel. <br />
(Picture made by my [late] dad)<br />
(Camera: Rollei 35-S)
  • m/v Leliegracht / PFON, entering port of Rotterdam.
  • I'm a licensed radio-amateur since january 1981. Because of expatriation (1990) I stopped the hobby (I even officially suspended my licence in december 1999 because I didn't want to pay the licence-fee for nothing!!). But I activated it again in June 2008 (wow, that's almost 10 years of OFFICIAL suspension!!). Unfortunately, during mentioned period, some pirate asshole (mis)used my PA3BKL callsign, as I received many QSL cards from QSO's that were made by that pirate during my suspension. I NEVER worked in SSB in that period and also not BEFORE that period (I'm a 'CW only' operator), and all these 'pirate' QSO's were made in SSB mode. The pirate also called himself Rob.<br />
Fuck you very much, 'Rob' !!!<br />
To celebrate my come-back as a ham, I got myself this plaque, that now hangs on the wall of my shack.<br />
The plaque is handmade, out of hardwood by Bill Stoltz /  K5YRT from Pearl River, Louisiana USA.<br />
Thanks Bill !!!!<br />
Have your own plaque made at:   <a href="http://www.hamplaques.com">http://www.hamplaques.com</a>
  • 1981: Official FIRST payment to former PTT (now KPN) for my yearly amateur licence fee... 59 guilders<br />
The card is actually a PUNCH CARD, yes, the one with holes in it. Those were the days...
  • Robbert / PA3BKL in 1985.... (I was 29 here, sun-tanned, just came back from Florida USA). <br />
QTH: Culemborg (JO21OW)<br />
Drake Line (TR7 + MN7, and R7 + MN77) [sold the complete Drake-line to EA3NJ in 2009]. <br />
Kenwood TR-7800 (Mobile set: 2 meters FM). ICOM IC-120 (23 cm FM).  Kenwood TS-770E (Base: 2 m/70 cm, FM/SSB/CW).<br />
The 'keyboard' there is the notorious TONO-9000E: a great RTTY unit (for that time!! but the RTTY signals sounded 'clicky', I added some filters as a mod). <br />
See also the great AMT-2 (Amtor), on top of the TRIO Oscilloscope. To the left of the scope: a Takeda Riken Spectrum-Analyser, in that time very popular among the CAI builders in the Netherlands. Suddenly many local FM pirates came to our house with their (ILLEGAL) transmitters and asked if I PLEASE could check if their (illegal) FM modulated spectrum was 'clean', ha ha!!<br />
Just to the left of my nose you see a 'Big Boomer'. It was a Linear Amplifier (tubes!!), a '200 Watt booster' for the 27 Mhz 'Citizen Band'.<br />
The (Dutch) licenced radioamateur community was quite upset that I (as an official licenced amateur) 'dared' to appear on the cover of Radio Amateur Magazine [RAM] next to 'that thing for citizenband pirates...'. Hey guys: MANY of us STARTED the hobby with 27Mhz!!! It is NO SHAME!!<br />
(Camera: CANON A1 !!!!!, but this photo had to be scanned in, as ... the A1 was NOT digital, folks. Check out that camera here: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/5vou9nx">http://tinyurl.com/5vou9nx</a>)
  • Real cooks use Sabatier kitchen-knives ('Le diamant du cuisinier').<br />
CW enthousiasts (like me...) prefer one of the best morse paddles available: <br />
meet my 'The Morse Dirigent'. A massive brass (1.5 Kg !!) paddle, personally handcrafted for me by Uli Scheunemann / DC2SO from Germany.<br />
German quality all over!!<br />
[for this picture, I removed the retractable (hinged) acrylic dust-cover]<br />
(Camera:  NIKON Coolpix 5000)
  • My Begali Stealth Limited Edition (#33)
  • Demo of my Begali Stealth Limited
  • Untitled video
  • My QTH (i.e.: location) in the late 80's. My shack was under the left side of the roof, just between those two churchtower peaks, in the white roof-window. The antenna's were on the flat rooftop (great and EASY location!!). I'm trying to find pictures of THAT shack!!  On top of the roof you can clearly see the HUGE Fritzel FB-33 HF beam.<br />
At the back of the house I had a 'Fritzel W-2000' Trap dipole (for 80 & 40 meters) hanging in between two flagpoles. Those were the days.....<br />
(Scanned photoprint, so quality is poor..)
  • Sky-photo from our former house (1988). On top of the roof you see a platform, which made it so easy working on my antenna's!!<br />
Notice the satelilte dish (150cm) on the flat roof at the backside of the house. We used it to watch the Gorizont satellite (Russian: Горизонт, Horizon, see: <a href="http://www.russianspaceweb.com/gorizont.html">http://www.russianspaceweb.com/gorizont.html</a>) launched in 1978. The russians used it to relay coverage of the 1980 Olympic Games from Moscow to the rest of their HUGE country. This satellite was originally launched for this sole purpose. Even local Dutch newspapers came to us to see what a satellite dish was all about.<br />
Things have quite changed now in 2014... <br />
(Photo: HollandLuchtfoto.nl)
  • My DELL workstation, with left and right the tuning/control buttons to tune the 2 VFO's in my 7800.
  • Just a little to the right of the microphone, you see a hendheld tranceiver.<br />
Looks new huh??<br />
It is NOT. It's a STANDARD C528 Dualbander (144/430Mhz) and I bought it in..... 1989<br />
So it's now 24 years old......(it's now 2013)<br />
A guy in Germany  <a href="http://tinyurl.com/a6fbmvc">http://tinyurl.com/a6fbmvc</a>) refurbished it for me (Thanks, Matthias, great job), and it came back like NEW.
  • Nice overview of my shack...
  • Untitled photo
  • Untitled photo
  • Touchscreen monitor. I use it to control my Perseus SDR receiver (the yellow-ish box sitting on the top left op the laptopscreen.
  • My 'Morse Dirigent' on top of the Logikey K-5 keyer, with next to it the Begali Stealth Limited Edition (# 33)
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