ON3PCO - a Dutchman in Belgium
About me ...
Operator : Paul
QTH and location
QTH : Riemst (Bolder) in the province of Limburg - country : Belgium - about 10 km southwest of Maastricht (The Netherlands)
Maidenhead-locator : JO20TT / latitude : 50°47'39,04" north - longitude : 5°36'23,36" east - A.s.l. : 95 m.
Echolink : ON3PCO - node-number : 250044
E-mail : callsign + @ON3PCO.be or callsign + @UBA.be
Additional station-information on Qrz.Com
QSL : via the QSL-bureau, direct or eQSL - QSO-confirmation also via Logbook of the World
Biography of ON3PCO
a Dutchman in Belgium, how it all started and some history :
I got interested in radio at the age of 10 when my father bought my brother and me a pair of walki-talkies. I 'enhanced' these toys by using an enormous amount of copper wire as a 'super'-antenna. Due to the 'DX'-effect (HI) - the number of stations I was able to work with increased 10 times - I got infected by the HAM-virus which never left me since. 1975 - 1978 : my 'real' CB-time.
1978 : SWL-station (NL5944 - VERON). RX-equipment at that time a Cuna SR9 (2m FM-receiver, which I modified for SSB-reception), Grundig Satellit 1400 (HF receiver), home-made inverted-V dipole and an 8-elements 2m yagi
1980 : I developed the 'NL-5944 Morse Tutor + Decoder' for the Commodore-64 computer which I sold numerous times
1981 - 1982 : radio-operator in the Dutch army
1989 - 2001 : HAM-'spirit' at a lower level due to a lot of studying
2001 - 2005 : more active as a SWL (again)
2005 : I passed my exam in Brussels and became ON2PCO
2005 : my callsign changed to ON3PCO and since that time also qrv on HF
Personal biography
Name : P.A. (Paul) Coonen
Born : June 6th 1961 in Maastricht (The Netherlands)
Former callsigns : ON2PCO (since May 2005), ONL10764 (since November 2004), NL-5944 (since 1978)
Primary callsign : ON3PCO (since September 2005)
Equipment
HF : Kenwood TS-120V SSB-transceiver including the Kenwood VFO-120 (2nd. VFO), Kenwood PS-20 (DC Power Supply), Kenwood SP-120 (Speaker) and Kenwood AT-200 (Antenna Tuner). The complete 'antique' QRP-line (output max. 10 W) is about 28 years old, but still working okay. For CW I'm using the classic Junker DBGM-Key.
VHF : Kenwood TR9000 2m All Mode Transceiver including the Kenwood BO-9 System Base. Further some add-ons, such as the Daiwa CN-101L SWR & Power Meter (Cross Needle) for the 1.8-150 MHz range / max. 1.5 KW and the Diamond GSV3000 DC-regulated Power Supply (max. 30A).
VHF/UHF : Alinco DJ596E-MkII handheld transceiver, fully equiped with CTCSS and DCS. Due to the standard TCXO, the transceiver is very stable. I use the handheld mostly during hiking and mobile-operation.
A few pictures of the equipment and shack can be viewed via the 'My Shack'-button on the main page or by clicking here.
Antennas
HF : Fritzel FD4 Windom for 10-80m. This is a so called Off-Centre-Fed antenna, about 41.65 m long. Till now, I have not been able to put the antenna outside, so - for now - it's up on the attic, about 4 meters above the shack. Because the space on the attic is (rather) limited HI, the FD4 is partly shaped like an Inverted-V : about 2 times 13,5 meters in a 110-degree angle and the rest of it is 'folded' horizontaly on the both (long) sides of the attic. Though these antenna-conditions are not superb, so far I've been able to work stations all over Europe, Russia, Africa, United States, Canada, the Middle-East and parts of South America. I'm glad it is working so well ! The FD4 has recently been modified for 15m.
VHF : 3 element HB9CV which is verticaly polarised and also up on the attic.
VHF/UHF : JWX-window antenna for mobile use, made by PA0JWX.
I'm going to take the FD4 and HB9CV antennas 'out' during springtime and put them (including a Diamond X-300 groundplane for VHF/UHF) on the roof, so conditions will probably improve ...
A few pictures of the antennas can be viewed via the 'The Antennas'-button on the main page or by clicking here.
73 de Paul - ON3PCO
a Dutchman in Belgium
