It started in 1950 when I joined DARC and was a founder member of the local club OV Northeim H-18. The picture shows all the participants of that foundation on June 5th. Number 1 is me, number 2 is Joachim Oswald, DL1TQ, who was my Elmer, and he became the first chairman of the local club. Number 3 is late OM Hansen, DL1JB, who was at that time General Manager of DARC and he travelled from Kiel to be with us.

I got my ticket in 1952 but could not become active on the bands because there was no opportunity from where I lived. Then I could go "on air" from time to time from some friends' places. This way I worked my 1st VHF contest. After my marriage in 1954 I could establish my hamradio station in the house of my parents in law, who were living in Springe/Deister approx. 25 km southwest from where I live now, in Hannover. My first antenna was a groundplane plumber's delight for 10m which made worldwide QSOs possible at that time.

Here you can see me operating my first "real" station. Homebrew RX and Heathkit TX DX-100. One antenna with coax feed and another with ladder line. But soon would come something new.

The RX was rebuilt on basis of a GELOSO frontend, and already at that time I was equipped with an integrated panoramic receiver. There was a G4ZU beam on the roof which was turned with a homebuilt device using a worldmap for direction indication.

In summer 1959 I started SSB after adding the SB-10 adapter to the proven DX- 100. Right in the picture is Georg, DJ1KL, my local collegue  and  callsign neighbour.

That was probably in 1964. The RX with the green front was constructed by myself as a test piece for my qualification as Master of Radio and TV technique. Besides is a Collins R-390 (for comparison :-)) At the left is a Siemens T-37 RTTY machine for the RTTY mode which at that time just appeared.

A few years later and the station is now equipped with F-line radios. RX FR-101, TX FL-101 and linear amplifier FL-2100B. The console above the RX contains the panoramic receiver and an SSTV converter; in those early days with 8 sec. images and P5 phosphor tube.

At that time I lived in Springe, approx. 25 km to the southwest of Hannover. Our house was decorated with a steel tower and a beam antenna. On the roof are now satellite antennas for operation via AO-10.

A big jump: From 1979 till 1995 I was active from my 2nd QTH on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. I worked many stations on HF as well as on AO-10 and AO-13 and sent out many of the pictured QSL card.

This is my modest communication corner in my Teneriffa-QTH  during the first year 1979. My FT-7 and the linear amplifier could be hidden behind the flap. The antenna was a multiband diple FB-13 made by Fritzel. Later I added a satellite station with FT-790R plus linear amplifier and FT-290R.

I was also QRV when travelling. First in 1993 on Jersey Island, than in 1997 on Crete and finally in 2000 from Island of Elba, see below.

This is a view on our hotel appartment on Crete Island. The dipole was fixed on a fishing rod and worked quite well.

I was using an ICOM IC-706 and made several QSOs on 14 MHz and 18 Mhz. However, my digital camera was not the best at that time.

Her you can see me operating from my Honda car on the island of Elba. I selected a mountain site for operating. My transceiver is now a YAESU FT-100D, and also the camera is a new one.

I am living in Hannover. The small map shows exactly where.  My address: Reinhard Richter Lohfeldweg 40 D-30459 Hannover

   

Another picture of the satellite antennas. Low down the mast is a dish for receiving analog and digital sat tv from ASTRA. The mast is 8 m high, made of aluminium with a square profile. It can be cranked down for convenient working on the antennas from the roof of the hut as you may see on the picture at the right. The mast which carries the HF beam is the same construction but 10 m high. When it is cranked down I have easy access to the antenna from the roof of the garage.

This gives a closer view to the antennas with the newly added (April 2003) stacked Helix with 2 x 15 turns for 23 cm which has been replaced by the Tonna 2 x 35 element yagi in July 2003 because they have more gain. See picture on the right. The DB6NT preamplifier for 13 cm is connected directly to the antenna feed, while the DB6NT downconverter is located in the shack to avoid temperature changes from the outside environment. Mounted on the mast are the preamplifiers for 2 m and 70 cm and also a mode J filter.

But I was not quite satisfied with the 23 cm uplink performance. In autumn 2003 I then bought a dual band helix feed constructed by DD7MH which has 2 x 3 turns. The feeds are encapsuled in a plastic cover. You may see how it looks inside at the outer left picture. The feed is designed to fit into a support of an offset dish. So I also purchased an 1 m offset dish and I made a test installation as can be seen at the left. Soon I learned that the dish was not deep enough, or in other words the helices should have 6.25 turns each not to overilluminate the dish. So I had to look for a dish with an f/D of 0.5 which fits best to the helix with 3 turns only.

Such a dish I found at "UKW-Berichte", the mesh dish model GIPA1. To make sure if it will fit I made some calculations which you may check here. I still had to construct the support for the feed enclosure, but this was easily done. The weatherproof cover for the preamplifier and the interdigital filter is a plastic bottle cut to size. The antenna was installed in the last days of November 2003 with help of my buddy Terry, DJ5FK (seen in the picture). Unfortunately when the antenna was up the passband of AO-40 was switched off, so that I could not see how the investment has payed out on my 23 cm uplink. However, the beacon on 13 cm I can receive some stronger than before.

My shack is downstairs and here you can see my full beauty when qsoing via AO-40. You may recognize the sat program SATPC32 by DK1TB on the screen. I just receive telemetry with AO40Rcv. This is done with a separate receiver, a FT-290RII. So I can run qso and receive telemetry in parallel. In the meantime the FT-736R transceiver has been replaced with an ICOM IC-910H.

In October 2001 I swapped my proven FT-736R for an ICOM IC-910H. Besides you see a YAESU FT-290RII, with which I receive the telemetry in parallel. Below you can see my old SEMCO SPECTRO MULTIMODI, a panoramic receiver which is no longer available on the market. With this I can overview the passband of AO-40 and can find any new upcoming signal immediately. On the right you see my bricks for 70cm and 23cm. Both have built-in power supplies which makes them rather big.

At the left of the screenshots you see the beacon signal and right of it various other signals. The left edge is 2.401,300 and the right edge 2.401,400 MHz, a total overview of 100 kHz. There are divisions on the display; horizontally each division represents 10 kHz and vertically 3 dB.

I am fortunate enough to have a rather large shack. So I could arrange a second operating table which mainly carries the hf equipment. The transceiver is a YAESU FT-990. On the upper board is the seldomly used linear amplifier Dentron DTR-2000L. Right of that is an old 486 laptop which serves as weather monitor. On the TFT screen you just see the CAT control for FT-990, and then there is the weather image from Meteosat.