Biography

Best 73s to you all from a new old ham, thanks for visiting! :-)

I work HF in portable and mobile only at this time due to antenna restrictions where I live. Plain portable at every nice and suitable location I can find. I don't do POTA/IOTA/xOTA with activation and such.

So don't assume that my actual location is my QRA as shown above.

I passed my ham license at age 16 in 1977 in high school ("F1" license i.e. no CW, no HF, only VHF allowed at that time).

I have been active at my school's radio-club F1KJJ for 2 years (no callsign of my own), then on the CB/11m band for 5 years or so.

I've been inactive since then until I regained interest in radio first by doing a lot of SWL with hand-held receivers (Xhdata, Tecsun...) before I registered for a callsign mid-2023.

I favor "real" chatty voice QSOs, quality over quantity. I don't compete in contests, I just hunt for good DX during these. I like DXing!
I try to keep my logbook here complete, although it's sometimes lagging by a few days.

I work low power (20 to 100 watts) most of the time, using simple vertical whips or homebrew wire antennas.
I work a bit of VHF from home, mostly on the RI49 and RRF French networks of repeaters.

My main spots for portable are within a 30 km / 19 mi circle around Paris:
- The Meudon forest bordering the south of Paris at JN18ct
- N-W of locator tile JN08xq
- S-W of locator tile JN18as

During my vacation time in Brittany I work mostly from the coastline, especially here at IN77vt, Exact location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/9fzpwVXX3KCNsR4v5
I mainly use my Xiegu G90 (20 watts) and a 5m high 1/4 wave vertical telescopic whip on the beach with the magical ground radial that goes to the sea water and catches VK/ZL stations (;-) to Walt K4OGO)

I also work from IN77tw and sometimes also from elevated places inland, like at IN78vc (285 m ASL)

I'm an IT systems engineer so I only do VHF/UHF and HF bands in analog (voice) mode because digital modes remind me too much of my work ;-)
I like talking to a human more.
I'm not CW-capable... yet?

I still often enjoy shortwave and air band listening a lot, from home and from a nice park in Meudon overlooking Paris

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Transceivers:
Icom IC-7300 (newcomer!), Yaesu FT-891, Xiegu G90, Dynascan 10M66 (aka. Anytone AT-6666), CRT SS7900v Turbo, Radioddity QT40, Retevis RT95, Quansheng UV-K5. Radtel RT-860, Wouxun KG-UV86

Tuners:
LDG AT600Pro II, ATU-130 mini tuner

Antennas:
Portable HF: JPC 12 field HF antenna, 20m 1/4 wave telescopic antenna, M0CVO Magitenna (Rybakov), LW-20, HW-20HP and various home-made wire antennas on telescopic poles: random wire, 1/4 wave and end-fed half-wave
Mobile HF: President Ohio, Lemm Turbo 2001, Diamond HF10/20-CL mono-band, Comet CA-7HR 40m mono-band, Outback 2000 multi-band
Base VHF/UHF: Diamond X30
Mobile VHF/UHF: Diamond MR77, Sirio HP2070R