Contesters In South-Eastern Poland

While visiting Poland in the summer of 2007 I made a short trip to the Subcarpathian voivodeship (province) located in the very south-eastern corner of the country, bordering with Ukraine and Slovakia. This region has a great recreational potential being partly hilly and wooded in almost 50%. The human population density is low while deer, wolf and bear thrive here. Today this area is accessible and has a good network of roads, gas stations, hotels and restaurants. And the Amateur Radio activity is on the rise.

The most potent HF signal originating from south-eastern Poland belongs to Andrzej, SP8BRQ. He lives in the southern suburb of Rzeszów, (pronounced with the French �Je� for �Rz�, the English �sh� sound for �sz� and the letter �ó� sounds as in the word �move�, if it is of any help) the main town of the province. Andrzej had lived in the city but as it often happens, anyone who gets serious about Amateur Radio, and contesting in particular, needs more space than even the most liberal town can offer so he moved to a rural area a few years ago. His station has directional antennas for all bands from 80 to 10 meters. Flat fields around his house provide ample stretch for numerous Beverage receiving antennas.

SP8BRQ is the south-eastern pillar of the SN0HQ team. In 2007 edition of the IARU HF Championship there were 8 operators here apart from Andrzej himself. The main station was running 7 MHz CW while the second set was chasing multipliers on other bands.

One of the SN0HQ operators here was Janek, SP8FHK. He used to live in Rzeszów but being retired, he spends most of the time in his rustic hut somewhere in the woods in the north-eastern part of the voivodeship. But I found him - without GPS assistance - getting the final instructions on 144 MHz FM. Janek is very active in contests and has gathered a large number of trophies and certificates in spite of relatively simple antennas and the trees around them. He has been using a shorter call sign SN8F for some time.

Not so far away from Janek's hideaway, some 20 miles north-west, near one of the main roads, easy to find as a piece of cake, is the station of Marek, SQ8JLA. He became interested in Ham radio in the 70´s but it was only 8 years ago he got on the air with his own call sign. In the meantime he had spent several years in the USA and is still a fequent visitor to Dayton Hamvention. Marek´swife, Alicia holds the call sign SQ8JMB. So she does not mind a radio room in the newly build house, filled with bulky equipment.

His station is also a part of the SN0HQ network and in the most recent IARU HF Championship he took care of 160 and 15 meter bands with the assistance of a few local guys and Lukasz, SP8CUR from Lancut, east of Rzeszów.

Lukasz, SP8CUR shares a modern and versatile station with his father Marek, SP8CUW. Marek is more technically inclined while Lukasz is keen on contesting and advancing his proficiency. Having good support is crucial to being successful so I am sure we are going to hear of and from Lukasz in the future. This father-son team is active on VHF and microwaves as well.

I have also met Wojtek, SP8AJK who used to be quite active in contests but not any more. He is about to be retired so maybe he will devote more time to contesting then. He is a very competent operator on CW, Phone and RTTY which is evidenced by a dozen DXCC certificates for different bands and modes, all of them with stickers in the region of 300+. Wojtek uses a compact SpiderBeam antenna and a compact and ancient home-made power amplifier.

Talking about power amplifiers I must mention Edward, SP8FUX. He is called here Mr Amplifier, known for his excellent home-made but professionally finished assorted power amplifiers. When I visited him in July 2007, Edward was busy assembling a very advanced 2-tube microprocessor-controlled HF amplifier. He lives in a apartment and never uses high power but gets an occasional DX thanks to a modest rotary delta antenna on the roof. Edward lives downtown Rzeszów.

This area used to be one of the poorest and disadvantaged in Poland. Today the economy is good, the roads are fine, it is easy to explore the natural beauty of the province. The number of Amateur Radio operators is growing and the activity is surprisingly high. I have met only a small fraction of the total Ham population here.

Henryk Kotowski, SM0JHF

[email protected]

August 2007