AMATEUR RADIO ISLAND

This summer I (Pe2W and my YL made  a long round trip through Scandinavia  with our camper. Beside the I did bring also my portable HAM gear. A Yaesu FT-857 with an End-fed. During the trip I did mount my End-fed between my “fishing pole” antenna mast and a local tree to work the world. So now and then I “google” around and sitting on the “end of the world”, at least of Europe. we we’re in Havøysund when I did found www.oh73elk.net.

Alex,  has a lovely holiday home in OH. He and his YL Raisa (2nd operator), are offering the place for rent including the HAM radio shack with several antennas. When I told my YL on my discovery she enthousiast responded and suggested to contact Alex to see if we could rent the place for a couple of day’s. So that was how I initially got in contact with Alex and Raisa. After some emails and WhatsApp chats we changed our holliday route and drove towards the HAM radio island of OH73ELK. Alex and Raisa arranged that we got travel instructions, even google doesn’t know the street ;-) and instruction s for in and around the house. Alex and Raisa we’re during the days we stayed at there place bussy with ARDF (amateur radio direction finding) championship near Moscow. During our stay we really enjoyed the silence en the environment. Beside operating the radio I of course spend time with the YL. Enjoying the weather, enjoying the lake (we are both triathlete's and did swim several km’s in the lake. Or jumping in the water after enjoying our private sauna.

Living in crowded holland the radio bands are quite full with QRM, turning on the radio was a great pleasure for the ears, what a silence! During the days I did work a lot of different countries and some new DX one’s too. Working as guest operator of OH73ELK is guarantees a pile up :-). I worked some nice DX beside the regular europe/asia/us and new one’s

Oman, Japan, South Africa,Brazil,South Korea, Acension Island, South Cook Islands

Alex and Raisa worked hard to build a great place to stay for HAM radio enthusiasts or people who just wanna enjoy a great place away from the busy world. The full size beam for 10,15 and 20m on the 18m high tower worked fabulous.  For 40 and 80m there are inverted -V antennas available. After our visit Alex installed a Ground Plane antenna for 20/40m, great for DX. Will definitely try this one the next visit!  If you wanna bring your own wire antenna, feel free, there are enough trees around the house.

We were privileged by Alex to stay for free because I was the first amateur of the Netherlands. (And the second who stayed at their place). Alex and Raisa are offering a free week for each amateur of a new country visiting! If you want to rent the place check out the www.oh73elk.net website.