My name is Dirk, I was born in 1964 and my callsign nowadays is PA1BD. I got involved in radio in the early 1980’s and discovered DX a few years later on the 11 meters band like many of us I think. It was a great time working DX with QRP power and a homemade HB9CV 2 elements beam. In these years I was (and still I am) an SWL and became a member of VERON who assigned the listener number NL-10355 to me.

I started to study for amateur radio license back in 1990 and succeeded in April 1991 for my C license (PE1OAV) which gave me access to the VHF and higher bands plus a special permit for 50 MHz. I’m not very intrested in VHF as my goal was HF, so I had to learn the morsecode to get my A license. In December 1992 I passed the morsecode test and received the callsign PA3GHP. Back in 1998, ham radio amateurs got the opportunity to obtain a vanity callsign. Therefore, I changed my callsign a couple of times in PA9KW, PA2C and recently since the 1st of August 2018 in PA1BD which will be my final callsign. The things I like most in ham radio is working DX, contesting, building antennas and Dxpeditioning. The modes I prefer are SSB and CW. I also like to experiment with vertical antennas near the seacoast.

In 2010 I visited a very good friend of mine, Ben VK5ZMM, in Adelaide South Australia. We came up with the plan to go on IOTA DXpedition and activate Kangaroo Island (OC-139) for a couple of days and so we did with my Australian callsign VK5AUQ. It was a great experience and we’ve learned a lot. 

Hamradio is fun and I love it!

73 es gud dx de Dirk, PA1BD