Biography

How I became an SWL.

The story. Update: 2026-08-28

In 1960, my first job was as a sailor in the Dutch merchant navy, Nedloyd.
My parents gave me a world receiver with SW/LW SSB and AM for my first voyage.

Reception wasn't quite right with the telescopic antenna, and in consultation with the radio operator (Spark), I made a 10-meter long wire antenna. That worked much better, and I could listen to the Dutch World Service. I noticed later that it also had amateur bands, but I didn't understand the "language." The radio operator explained it to me at the time. On a trip around the world aboard a container ship, I arrived in Japan and bought a walkie-talkie in the 11-meter band (27 MHz), but unfortunately, it couldn't be used in the Netherlands. So I just bought a set with SSB/AM in the Netherlands. I thought that was wonderful.

After 5 years, I stopped sailing. I then started training to become a printer in the graphic industry and continued doing so until my retirement. I then got married and moved from Amsterdam to Lelystad. There, I met a QSL manager via 27 MHz who was also a SWL, and he told me a lot about the real world of radio, and I was very interested. My purchase was a Kenwood R1000, along with a beam antenna and rotor on the roof for the 10, 15, 20, 40, and 80 meter bands. I was able to print the QSL cards myself, and quite a few were written from them. My goal was to obtain the DIG, which I succeeded in doing; this is proudly stated on my QSL card. After obtaining the DIG, the radio hobby declined a bit, partly due to the arrival of two beautiful daughters and the rise of the internet. My job as a printer also became much busier due to shift work and promotion. There was no longer time for the hobby. I sold everything back then and threw away QSL cards, as well as the 40 certificates I had obtained at the time. Now I deeply regret doing that. After all, there was also a nice QSL card among them from JY1 King Husin of Jordan.
I have been retired for 6 years now and am 72 years young. I have now bought a Yaesu FT-710 and an FT-70D with a 6-80 meter long wire. Had QSL cards printed and got back to work.
But so much has changed in the past 45 years. In the beginning, I only listened on SSB, but there wasn't much to hear there; on weekends, it was almost nothing but contests. I soon discovered that the 710 could also operate in digital mode, and for me, as a layman, that was quite a puzzle to figure out.
Many HAMs have switched to digital QSL cards, and I hardly saw any bureaus anymore at QRZ and QRZCQ. I did see a lot of direct contact with SAE for a few dollars, though. If a country is interesting to me, I do that, and my first card with SAE went to Ken ZB2MD in Gibraltar, and after 3 weeks I received his paper QSL card; I was so happy, hi. I also see and read that the SWLs are decreasing; it would be a shame if they disappeared because they are specifically hunting for QSL cards, as am I, for awards or collecting punters for awards, but then the SWLs are dependent on the QSL cards they receive from the HAMs. Currently, I am listening a lot with FT8; I haven't started with the others like FT4 etc. yet. Maybe I will also try sending digital QSL cards sometime, but I still have to figure that out completely. In the first 2 months, I submitted about 400 QSL cards to our QSL manager, and a whole lot of those went to the USA and Japan. Finding Japanese Awards is quite a task, but I still need to take a good look at that. Maby have a Japan HAM a sugestion ware to look?

End of story.

Wishing everyone good DX and ‘73 and PSE QSL via Bureau or my email. Thanks
Rob

Member DIG 3956

Equipment

Yaesu FT-710
Yaesu FT-70D
Boafang UV-5RH
Antenne Moonraker LWHF 80-6