Biography

My interest for radio goes back to 1972, when my father showed me how to build a simple receiver - ever since I was pretty much involved in making audio amplifiers, receivers and other funny radio things using both vacuum tubes and transistors.

As for the amateur radio, I have started with it already in 1977, joining one of radio club stations UK3UAX in Ivanovo, the Soviet Union. At this club stations I also learned the Morse code using a straight key - I remember that I even took part in some contests for high-speed Morse communication - it was a lot of fun! During my time at the club station UK3UAX, I used mostly CW on 20, 40 and 80 m and SSB/FM on 2 m bands, taking part in regular club activities and in contests. Apart from UK3UAX, I worked also as an operator on the regional club station UK3UAA and was very active as SWL (UA3-123-272).

In May 2018, after a long break, I got my Swedish callsign SA7MAX and bought a second-hand transceiver Yeasu FT-897D. After so many years off-air, I found that the style of QSO (at least CW) has changed a bit - it became much shorter and intense.

Feel free to contact me via e-mail.

73!

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

I have a set of very basic tools (the most popular top to bottom):

1. TX-500, a 10 W TRX from Lab599.com (from July 2022)
2. YEASU FT-897D, second-hand, made in 2004 (from June 2018). Typically use at 40 W.
3. QMX 80-20 m, 5 W (from 2023)
4. QMX, 20-10 m, 5 W (from 2025)
5. QCX-mini, 30 m TRX, 5 W (from 2021).
6. QRPver v.1.3, 30 m QRP 3 W transceiver (from 2019).
7. Several compact antenna tuners
8. A set of resonant whips from Diamond: for 80, 30, 20, 17 and 10 m band
9. A tunable resonant whip, 40-6 m bands
10. For portable operation: end-fed wires and single-band whips.

I have also a couple of hand-held VHF/UHF radios, but I am not a big fan of those bands.

At home the whip antennas are mounted on my balcony (10 m above ground).