Another time outdoors in Büren at DF0AT taking part in the IARU HF World Championship 14. This time I did not worked as an operator but standing in the background and talked a lot with the other YLs and OMs. All in all we had around 500 QSOs with DK0CCC. Not bad, but I’m looking forward to the WAG Contest in October.
Today I received confirmation from the BundesNetzAgentur (BNetzA) that the clubstation call sign DF0X is registered. The location for this call is the hackspace AfRA in Berlin-Lichtenberg. That’s the location where we meet weekly with several ham radio operators, give lessons for the ham radio exam and built some antennas. Furthermore we will use this call for our UrbanHamRadio activities.
This is already the third call sign registered on my name. Beside DC4LW I also own the educational call sign DN3CCC, which I’m not allowed to use personally, but trainees under my guidance.
We are ham radio operators living in a metropolitan area.
We don’t own land, a garden, a house or even a car.
We can’t build large antennas for permanent usage.
We have to struggle with the QRM (interference, noise) from the city.
We work with almost QRP (reduced power).
We love HF bands and the greyline.
We carry our ham radio equipment in our backpacks to high locations inside the city.
We are visible to citizens, strollers and joggers.
This describes our ham radio activities. We is a group of several ham radio operators living in Berlin, who meet each other spontaneously in the evening after school, university, work or at weekends for some activities. There is no fixed place where we just can use our equipment. This needs to be carried to the destination. Each time we have to build up the antenna and the TRX.
Thanks to recent transceiver technology and high power rechargeable batteries it’s possible to carry HF equipment in an average backpack. Berlin features several parks with hills inside, which are perfect for a temporary ham radio session. A GFK pole is a great helper for the antenna. A TRX with filters is also highly suggested. Nice to have is a tablet PC with data connection for DX-cluster access and logging.
We were amazed, that we can work all Europe and even transatlantic SSB-connections to the North-American east coast – with 10W output power reduced by cables and couplers. And we get in touch with interested persons who ask what we are doing. Sometimes this results in interesting stories from their own past.
As we meet spontaneously, we most probably will just give a shout out on Twitter with #BerlinUrbanHamRadio. Feel invited to join the group or start your own Urban Ham Radio session!