Biography

I grew up in England in a place called Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield which is in the West Midlands just north of Birmingham. However, I have been living and working in Southern French speaking Belgium for nearly 30 years now.

I arrived in Belgium in 1996 and needed first to work on my French language skills, which meant going daily for lessons. After a while I wanted to find new friends and not just people connected to my work.

I had always had an interest in radio when I was living in England from my early teens onwards. My uncle had a valve radio in his shed which we used to listen to regularly. I was fascinated by all the different sounds that I could hear and wondered who was sending them and what did they mean. A friend from school (who’s dad was a radio amateur) and I attended the Sutton Coldfield Radio Society for a while. We followed the radio amateurs course and later tried for the licence but unfortunately I didn’t pass the exam, though I was only 14 or 15 at the time. My radio interests then switched to CB, listening to HF and the aircraft bands. CB was a really big thing where I lived with my parents and very illegal.

So, while I was learning French I bought a CB to get myself talking to other people and find new friends. Later, three of us decided to look a bit further into the hobby and as we did not live far from Brussels at that time, we joined the “Radio Club of Bruxelles” where we followed the licence course. Only, this time I did it in French, never do anthing the easy way! Well, I passed my technical licence (ON1) and couple of years afterwards I took my Morse exam and obtained my full licence (We were some of the last to take the Morse exam here in Belgium). My first call was ON1MGM (which was then the technical licence just VHF/UHF), after this I became ON4XN (full licence) and after a while I decided to choose a new more personalised call, ON5REV.

Later I got interested in WWII code breaking, Bletchley Park, Ultra, U-Boats and war time radio in general. I read as much as I could on the subject and it sparked an interest in me for morse code. I had become a bit bored just working SSB.

So, I started out learning CW again (I learnt only to 5wpm for the exam) with various files and web sites but not getting very far and getting increasingly frustrated. This is when I found a book called, ‘Zen and the Art of Radio Telegraphy’ on the FISTS web site. Now, I don’t know much about the Zen part (though I’m sure it’s very beneficial) but the structured daily lessons were really helpful and I made progress at a steady rate. It has been said to me that the book presents a very old method of learning but I made good progress when other methods I tried left me feelling rustrated.

My interest in CW led to an interest in kit building, qrp and portable/SOTA/POTA. I even attached an antenna to my motorbike, using it as the counterpoise, guess what? It works... I got myself a YouKits HB-1B cw only rig for SOTA/POTA and portable in general and when I was at the radio rally in La Louvère in 2017, I saw the Yaesu FT817 on offer and was just too tempted. I have also built a couple of MFJ Cubs, for 40m and 80m which I regularly use in the shack. I also got the Sudden transmitter kit from the GQRP club for 20m which I will use in conjunction with a Howes receiver I built a few years ago. I have a Yaesu FT920 in the shack which seems not to be used so often anymore, I seem to prefer messing around with QRP; its more fun.I even got one of those very cheep Chinese SDR rigs, so small but it works in CW like a dream once you set it up right.

My first HF rig was an Icom 706MkII which is still running very well and I often use it for CW or FT8. I just decided also to take the plunge and bought a Xiegu x6200. Just love the receiver on it and great again for CW.

Computer wise I have a Raspberry Pi 5 for digital with my FT817/706mkII, mainly for WSPR, some FT8 and RTTY from time to time. I also have a couple of Raspberry Pi 4s hanging around that don't really do much anymore.. An old PC of my sons running Debian 12 and an old Mac that I put Linux on too.

I go out and activate SOTA/POTA here in Belgium and in Northern France. To date my highest peak has been the Point de Marcelly in the Haute Savoie at 2000m and I did a couple of lower peaks on holiday in the Julien Alpes, Slovenia. I would love to do a bit more one day but I have a lot to do at work and Belgium is not exactly noted for its mountains.

The REV part of my call gives away my job. I am minister in the Reformed Church over here in Belgium and I have been working in various church positions for the last 28 years and I’m a member of the World Association of Christian Radio Amateurs and Listeners (WACRAL) membership number : 1461.

Married with three grown up boys all working hard. Only one is a radio amateur, Thoms ON3TCP.

Other hobbies include motorbikes, photography, music and reading… oh, and beer, why do you think I love Belgium?

73s de Stephen ON5REV

Worked DXCCs: