Hello all of you, my name is Pam Ott. I have been licensed as a radioamateur since 1964 the 16 of April. With the help of members from our local radioclub" Waasland" I built my first transmitter. The traditional set-up around that time was a vfo Geloso and a 807 tube for the final, giving us around 50 watt output.

Activity in my early radio days was, due to our regulations in that time, first one year only CW, mostly on 80 meter, the antenna was a long wire and the stations were received with a commercial Geloso receiver. After 12 months we passed the phone examination and after rebuilding the transmitter we were also qrv in phone (AM). Via a common project at our radioclub, I was building in group a two meter rig " a Waeslander" this made that I also was qrv on the two meter band. Activity on two meter was, because of the antenna being a small GP, mostly local with the members of the Waasland Radio Club. Ragchewing with the locals on 80 meter was in the beginning of my radiolive nearly my only occupation. The first year in cw and then on demand in phone on 80m and also on two meter. From time to time I worked some dx, but to become a real dx-er, time had still to come.

I frequented also some radio activities in other clubs, on one of this flewmarked I met Mat, ON5KL for the first time. A dozen two way qso's and a couple of months later, during the national CW fielday in June 1968 we decided to stay together. The ON5KL, ON4QP radio family was born hi.

The set-up of our station changed rapidly, first we bought a new tranceiver the FT100 of Sommerkamp, the first SSB tranceiver available in Belgium. The antenna changed from multiband dipole over vertical to cubical quad for Hf and a 9 el yagi for 2 meter. Having a beter set-up produced also more qso's, my country score was growing rapidly and I obtained my DXCC certificate in 1969 September the 15th with number #10,748.

With two active amateurs under the same roof, arrangements had to be made when and how to be qrv, Mat was normally qrv in the evening and week-ends and I was observing the bands in between my domestic jobs during day time, it was always amusing to see his face when he was arriving at home and I announced that I had already work that new dx-pedition hi...Been for years the only active ON YL operator of the neighbourhood gave me a great advantage in the contest I participated and gave a lot of paper awards for all my firsts as the only belgian YL hi. After a qso with Darleen (now WD5FQX) we became also members from the YL-SSB (ON4QP # 7550, ON5KL #7551 ) and spent many evenings and nights on 14.332. When our UBA qsl-manager at that time announced that he would stop with the job, we were already helping him with the sorting of the qsl-cards, I sollicited for the job at our national socity and I became in 1971 the incoming qsl-manager for the UBA.

Collecting the qsl pacquets at the P.O.Box in Brussels, we sorted first by numbers 4,5,6,7,8 and then for each number on alphabetic following order, putting each qsl at his place, we made at the end of each month the packets for the nearly 70 clubs, put the right amount of stamps on those and drove all of them to the post office. Maintaining the paper work, was nearly a fulltime job, the advantage of all that hard work was that I recieved my qsl-cards the first hi. I mantained this voluntary free job for 11 years. We had to stop only due the coming of our three letters suffix calls, since we had no place enough to place all the cases, any way I found that I did, with this 11 year service, enough for our national amateur radio society hi..

Spending a lot of time on the bands, I produced, from time to time, myself some very nice surprice. One of then, after cq-ing on 15 meter, was been answered by the late JY1, King Hussein 1. I was from then on, after the JY1 introduction, checking regularly the Aribian Knight net on 15 meter. I worked a lot of stations from Aribian countries on that net, this was in the 1970's.

An other day, when cq-ing on 10 meter with the beam direction east, a very weak signal was coming back to me, by turning all the bottoms out of the rig, I was able the pick up the signal, found out that that unknown station was knowing my name, was speaking Flemisch, it was my very good friend Luc, ON4JL, on an observatory trip to East Pakistan with the International Red Cross. East Pakistan ( now Bangladesh ) was devastated in Novenber 1970 by a severe hurricane ( at least 150.00 deaths ). After ON4JL first trip, the General Board of the Belgium Red Cross asked for the help of the UBA-members, to handle the radio equipement for the mission. Radio operators in Dacca were ON4JL, ON5DO, ON4QJ from Novenber 28, 1970 untill March 31, 1971, operated the station "OR4CR" mostly for medical and supply traffic to Belgium. I was one of the operators back home to have daily contacts with hem and that during the 3 months of the mission. This was a very nice humitary aspect of our hobby.

A third event, from the so many, was the day I heard Fons, ON4AXA/MM calling for Belgium on 20 meter. Fons Oerlemans was at bord of the raft " The last Generation" , trying to drift on a raft from Morocco to one of the Caribbean islands, with the sole help of the currents from the Atlantic Ocean. During 82 days I followed, with many more hams, this adventure on the band. I must confess that I had a sked with the raft on daily base, more, there were the newspapers covering this expedition and also the national radio and television paid a lot of attention. I became a sort of VIP hi.. Due to the fact that the raft tranceiver was crystal controlled, one of the frequenties was 14.202 Mhz, we were always on the same frequency and correctly in time for the sked. The beginning was in the flemisch language, but other stations started to ask question, what was happening? So it came that,after the daily sked, ON4AXA/MM started also to make normal qso's for a short time ( limited fuelsupply). At the end of the voyage, when Mat, ON5KL was already helping me with the sked, the raft was drifting to the Orinoco delta of Venezuela instead of to a Caribbean island, and due the fact that Nick, 9Y4NP was also on the daily sked, a rescue operation was started with the aid of the Trinidad coastguard to find this raft before his disparation in the Venezuela jungle. The distance was too short for the 20 m band, so the traffic went from the raft ON4AXA/MM to Belgium ON5KL, ON5KL to Trinadad 9Y4NP and then to the coastguard boat via the marine channel. Quite a relief when, after some hours of traffic, we heared the words from the raft," we see that coastguard boat". Nice celebration took place when the crew was back in Belgium and Fons of ON4AXA/MM shaw for the first time the' voice' he spoke to for 82 days, from 1974 October 26 th till 1975 January the 16 th. I became also his qsl manager for this unique expedition.

During the time I was, in the national society, the incoming qsl-manager my qso rate was very low, because nearly all my time was spent on sorting qsl-cards and not in turning the different bands. So I missed some dx-pedition and new countries, but once the qsl time was finished, the will to improve my dxcc score was coming back little by little hi. The real thrust to make a lot of qso's, came during our first island dxpedition in 1985. Even when I was only active for a short time, the will to make qso's was back en the call ON4QP could be heard from now on the bands again. I needed just a few countries more to have working them all for my DXCC.I had to wait for dx-peditions to these countries. ( By working P5/4L4PN we have worked all the countries now) This is one of the reasons I started with the IOTA-organisation, a chalange inspired to me by my OM, it is one of the very nicest but hardest to reach awards, mostly due the fact of the permanent qsl problems. Why it must be so difficult to confirm a contact ?. Anyway I am proud that I have reached the 971 confirmed islands now. Hamradio is a fantastic hobby as one is able to talk to friends all over the world. In this day and age, it is possible to see and visit some of them during hamradio meetings like on those of Friedrichhaven, Dayton etc. or during the annually IOTA conventions, this makes it so more fantastic for me. I enjoy hamradio every day, and I hope for much more to come hi...

Xyl - Meetingon Saltee island

Copyright 2006 ON5KL & ON4QP.All rights reserved.