Biography

5t0jl is currently active on ALL HF with the exception of 160m and 6m !!

THE MAN & HIS RADIO, DESTINY or PASSION?

ON8RA/5T0JL/Jean, Belgian born 1928, grew up in the middle of the new era of radio broadcasting with the growing importance of shortwave radio.
At teenage back in 1939/1940 WWII is striking Belgium, despite the odds I joined the local Boy Scouts where I will be learning the Morse code by using a «whistle» and built my first crystal radio with the help of my father. I completed my ability to copy the code by listening to the many CW networks during the war. and I finally joined the Royal Air Force to be a pilot but I could not fulfill the eyesight requirement so I ended up as Wireless Operator end of 1946/early 1947 flying DC3, 4 and 6, I retired in 1968 and kept on going over HF since.
An interesting part of my radio life occured between 1978 and 1980 when working in the Silicon Valley, California, on an HF oblique ionospheric sounding program to observe the ionosphere behaviour in real time which ultimately led to the production of the AN-TRQ 35V. At 85 in october 2013, I'm still currently involved in HF, CW being my favourite mode, while being professionally involved with Data over HF.
Up to now I scored a total of 58 countries, lived in or visited. I speak fluent french, english and brasilian. My current call signs are ON8RA, Class A CEPT licence and 5T0JL, delivered in Mauritania by the Regulation Authority as well as a few expired international licenses. What a page of history. HF radio, passion or destiny ?

Equipment

Kenwood TS-570D conservatively set @ 90 watts output on all HF bands

Yaesu FT-840 backup just in case ! Antennas are as follows:

- GP7 (7 to 28 Mhz)a great Vertical-Dipole design from Poland (Tks to the 5T0SP team).
- Carolina Windom 80 an extraordinary performer on 14 Mhz, just like a beam !! (Tks Ed/KG4W).