I had long time a thought, that i want to go to ham radio course. I have been interested radiotechnology for some time already, so would be fun to contact people around the world in so called ”old fashion way”.

But when i lived in Tampere, i always missed those.

So finally, here in south i found local club OH2AP and went to course in january 2020.

Things went well, made my first K-module exam in february. But then… 3 days before last T1 exam, goverment forbidded certain meetings and these exams were forbidden until end of the june!

So i had to wait. I manage to buy used rig for listening, i left the microphone off so i wouldn’t transmit anything.

It was nice to hear stations from europe. My antenna is a vertical ground plane antenna. 6 meter high metal pipe holds the antenna above the roof, so minimal interuption hopefully.

While i was waiting to make final exam, i build portable long wire antenna. It was fun project. I tested it in our cottage, worked better than i expected!

Ok, so finally end of the july, made my final T1 exam. But… inspector printed papers, i made the exam… then he noticed that there is wrong name.

At this point, things started to take time. 2,5 months actually!

Papers lost because of postal service, een the copies which SRAL (Finnish amateur radio union) send were delivered to wrong address! Originals were found before copies were found.

October 9th, got finally a message from TrafiCom who gives permissions and licences. And finally i got my call sign : OH3CBT.

So what i will do in the future? Simple.

I want to combine hammock camping and ham radio hobby.

I am interested QRP equipments, which means low power portable devices and antennas.

I have device on my mind already, most likely Xiegu X5105 or/and G90 models. Compacr and feature rich devices with decent price tag.

I bought OM0ET Paul’s build magnetic loop antenna and i made my first europe contact with it. Only 5W and 15W power.

So, it will be interesting to see what i will do and experince in the future.

73 to all, de OH3CBT!