Hi there, thanks for visiting my blog. I am Danny Folmer PD0JDF and a radio enthousaistic for many years now. Maried with Tanja and we have 1 daughter, Ilse. Occupation in IT, working in the financial market.
Starting in the mid 70's as a pirate(!) on 11 meters with a Samdo 700 (40 channels 5 Watts AM) and a 1/2 wave GPA vertical antenna. Having a CB transciever in those days was illegal, but I and many of my friends couldn't resist the fever called 'radio'. Many hours were spend wit this little box. For local transmissions that was.
As soon I got the hang of it I traded the little AM box for a President Madison and a 200 Watts SSB amplifier. A wonderfull piece of electronics, equipped with a clock and a seperate speaker. This was for me the beginning of trying to make as far as possible inter-continental transmissions. As member (6230) of the international Alfa Kilo group I made several QSO's with stations throughout the world. I still have most of the QSL cards received. The Dutch governement legalized the 11 meters March 1, 1980 setting things back to 0,5 Watts 22 channels FM. Going back from Petropavlovsk, Russia to the end of the street.
The following years others issues needed attention and the hobby dissapeared in a box away at the attic. Sometimes I spended a little time listening to the local frequencies used by the police and firebrigade. This was nice but by far not enough for me. A license was not an interesting matter in those days, because the amount of knowledge to gather was in no comparison to the 6 (six!) channels in the 2 meter band you got back once you obtained a license.
To satisfy the DX fever I bought a Yaesy FRG-8800 receiver, an costly but a wonderfull piece of electronics. Impressive to show, and great for spending time. With a small wire it was possible to catch the signals on
0 - 30 MHz again! This receiver also offered me a first experience of connecting ham hardware to a computer. Equipped with the optional VHF converter I stil have this classic receiver in te shack. A lightning strike demolished the powersupply, but fortunately the rest survived and it's still a lot of fun using it.
For the higher frequencies another little Yeasu wonder entered the shack, the FRG-9600. Another fine piece of Japanese technology. Lots of amateur called it a deaf receiver of low quality radio, but not in my shack! Receiving 60 to 1300 MHz, it learned me DX-ing is also possible on the higher frequenties VHF and UHF. Later I equiped it ith the optional video print and connect it to a monitor. This was my first contact with SSTV. And yes, offcourse I still have and use it.
After several career- and housemovings we settled in a place called Almere, 20 kilometers east of Amsterdam. Halfway 2007 somebody informed me about a online hamradio study. This was the moment I've been waiting for! After a few months of dedicated studying basic electronics, science and propagations, I passed the exam. Licensed since April 2008, I am allowed to use the call PD0JDF. Since then QRV on a daily basis on the PI2FLD repeater and more and more HF (again). In the meantime I learned to know a lot of fellow radioamateurs and feeling very comfortable in thes comunnity!
