19DP054

Hi, I am Harold. Please sign my guestbook. I will definitely sign yours when you do so.

Born in 1962 (so 47 at this moment) and after being active on the band from 1976 until 1987 when disaster hits, I re-entered the frequency in January 2004. I am married and have two sons of 19 and 8 years old (in 2009).

I live in a city called Den Haag, in English The Hague or in French La Haye which is located at the coast of Holland about 50 kilometers south of the capitol of Amsterdam or about 25 kilometers north of the harbour city of Rotterdam. Den Haag has about 460.000 registered inhabitants and probably about some 50.000 more unregistered.

My main hobbies are, ofcourse radio, Formula one (try to go to a race every two years, most spectacular one uptil now, Monaco and holidays. Every year I try to make four or five trips abroad. Sometimes with my caravan but mostly by plain. The last 24 months we visited, Germany (seven times), Belgium (triple), France (triple), Hungary, Slowakia, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Swiss, Austria, Corfu, Albania, Azores islands (75 div.), Tunesia, Italy, Finland, Canary islands and Spain.

In 1976 I bought my first handheld 6 channel AM radio. Climbing on rooftops the longest distance I made with that was about 4 miles. Great dx! Shortly after that I bought a Samdo 700, 40 channel AM transceiver. A little bit more distance but lots of tvi problems with the neighbours. Than FM sets were legalised in Holland. So I bought a 22 channel 0,5 watt set. Tenthousands of others did as well, so the frequencies were completely overcrowded. In 1979 somebody told me about SSB and I had to have one. My first SSB set was a Universe 5500. And yes I had my first contacts with Spain and Italy (division codes were not yet in use). King of the world! But 12 watt was not enough. So I took out my screwdriver and in a matter of minutes I managed to blow up my set. The same happened to the second Universe I bought. Always screeming my longs out and also blowing up several tube amplifiers (Bremi BRL 200, Speedy, Zetagi BV 131), in 1981 I got a Ham Multimode 120 channel and a second Bremi. I had that set for five years and made many nice contacts.

In 1986 I moved to another house. The neighours were not very happy with my antenna on their roof, but they didn't make to much fuz about it. In 1987 lightning stroke and my complete set was destroyed. Unfortunately so were 7 televisionsets, 3 vcr's, 4 stereosets and some other electrical equipment of the neighbours. A great way to make friends! That was the end of my hobby for that moment. Being moved again to another house a new chance arrived to put an antenna again. In January 2004 I was back in the air! Just a few weeks ago my neigbhour asked me something about strange voices on his pc-bo

I told him I was a listening-amateur but that it was possible that the signals into my antenna sometimes are so strong, that there is a slight chance that this kind of overinput could influence his pc sound card. Only two days later I bought a low-pass filter and hope the problem is solved. In 2005 during holidays I started out from my mobile as well. After first having burned out two president lincolns I now use a Kenwood Ts 50 with a small amplifier giving 150 watts. Last year from 13, 35, 109 and 329 with a wilson 5000 magnectic antenna  I had nice results from that equipment.

Starting out on AM and FM with my call Speedy Gonzales turning to SSB I needed a more serious (and mainly) shorter call. In 1979 I switched to Sierra Golf. After having discovered the advantages of club membership, I became member of the Dutch Pirate group and so in 1980 I got my call (19)DP054. In the middle of the eighties the club had about 1000 members, but it ended to exist round 1989. Very seldomly now I hear an old DP member, but most of them turned to AT or SD-calls.

I just made a small website with my main information on it. If you want to catch me on the radio, then give me a call or send me an e-mail. I am also a daily user of  www.cluster.dk . The best 11 meter dx-site. And if there is only zzzzz on your radio, take a look at http://dxqsm.dxinfos.fr. A must for every serious 11 meter operator.

Hope to catch you on the frequency
51's and 73's
Harold
19DP054