Welcome to the project
My name is Jo Peeters, curator of the WWII Museum of the Resistance HBFV in Belgium.
Being a licensed HAM radio operator (ON3BAF), I created the Athos Remembrance DX progam in the memory of the brave resistance radio operators in German occupied territory during the Second World War from 1940 to the beginning of 1945. Many of them were radio amateurs, connected to the clandestine networks created by the SOE (Special Operations Executive) or just brave patriots trying to serve the bigger goal of providing intelligence to the Allied forces. They were vital to pass information and receiving coordinates on war evolutions and parachutings for the resistance. Provided with professional "spy radios" or simply by homebuild transceivers, they were the liaisons between the Allied and the resistance networks, like Athos and many more....
Follow our exciting program in honoring these men and women, by " going on the air " again, right on the spot where they made their QRP (low power ) contacts by morse signals or even by radiophonic transmissions, more then 80 years ago !
Latest activations and news
Using the Xiegu 6200 unit on it's battery pack, into a modified JPC12 groundplane antenna !
20m band opened up, best QSO towards LU/HB9EOU, took me 40 minutes in a uge pile up at 5W PEP ;-) !
Dropping the Xiegu 6200 into the bicycle bag, along with some extra battery packs and a Moonraker HF whip antenna... no radials, no wires... Running it like a portable unit - using my body as counterpoise, with the metal brackets. Up to 5W, the SWR presented itself lower then 1:1.5 on 20m and 40m.Sure, this antenna suffers from losing gain. A lot. The impedance towards 50 ohm is guided by a capacitor, making it an assymetric radiator with a high loss in dBm. I know, using an extra radial is a uge difference in making gain on the small antennasystem. But hey - trusting propagation as the main support here. And this "bare to the bone kit" is up and running in 2 minutes ! A window of 3 hours with no rain in sight, I drove to the Vlooybergtoren in my homevillage, a vintage point with an artistic staircase in steel, you can climb to see the landscape of the Hageland. But due to the wind, I installed the kit on the bench and got going on 20m... no success, it simply suffered from a lacked in propagation. On 40m, after hunting 3 OM's in the UK, one got a hold of my QRP call !! 2E0YRO, Andy from Plymouth got me with a 42 radio rapport on his homebrew dipole ! Short skip was the only solution for my " biketrip " today ;-) .Heavy clouds signed me off to go home at 15H UTC. And not a minute too soon!
Life is good ! 73 every one !
Switched to 10m after some EU contacts in the south. Tuned the whip to a 1.5 SWR and layed 1/4 wave radials - good to go in a couple of minutes!
10m was wide open at 15.00 UTC. This is a good D-layer band for the winter, for sure. I could even work in a pile up, like this one with WX3B, he picked me up with a 57 !!
THE JPC 12 telescopic groundplane antenna sure delivers in it's simplicity !
Logged in QRZ.COM, logbook ON3BAF/P
73 !!!!
Simply installed the Xiegu 6100 and it's battery pack in the hood of my car this afternoon, wired to the telescopic HF DX Pro2 antenna and dropped an extra radial wire into the water at the riverbank of the Ourthe, La Roche en Ardenne (B). Superb ground and reflector !
At 14:00 UTC the 20m band opened up towards Europe, and I started making QSO's with the 5W output in SSB. I love these minimalistic setups in QRP.
Down here, you can see one of these contacts .
Started with 5W in phone on 20m, but the band was congested with contests... after 40m of CQ, I switched to FT8 on 2W.
With success, even managed to get a HL5 contact in South Korea !
73 everyone !
QRP activation from Sept 17 to Sept 20, 2024 on the La Roche campsite
Worked only at 4W in all the modes I used. The QTH is a hard deal for QRP, embedded near the river Ourthe with high slopes and pinetrees ! But they had to deal with it also in the days, on 80m.
FT8 and SSB, logged in ON3BAF/P
Friday, August 2 2024
Do not forget !!!! Activation from the WWII Museum of the Resistance, Belgium.
Friday, July 26 2204
QRP portable activation from the WWI Marconi site behind " Hill 78" , where on August 16, 1914 - the Belgian transmission troups used a Marconi spark gap transmitter for wireless telegraph communication with the General Staff of the 2th Line Regiment in Leuven.
Working conditions : the Xiegu 6100 on 3 watts PEP, the antenna system is an assymetric inverted-V dipole, adapted with a EMSA adjustable transfo. The antenna is resonant on 40, 20 and 10 meters with the EMSA transfo on static 1:4 , but virtually I can use it on all the bands ( like a random wire ).
Used in on the internal battery pack, delivering up to 90 minutes on the 3 watts output. And I made a lot of CQ and hunting, because the 40 and 20 m bands were horrible, Only 15 meters delivered better !
It puts your QRP work to the test ;-) !!
Best QSO's of the afternoon :
DK5FF/P, running a POTA activation in a park on a dipole wire, made a 53 over there on 40 meters.
HB9CDH/P, running a SOTA in the Swiss Alpes on 10W PEP feeding an endfed wire in the trees, on 15 meters.
I made a 42-52 over there, equivalent to his radiorapport on my 6100 !
HB9CDH with his fieldkit ( picture QRZ.com )
110 years ago this place was filled with Belgian soldiers from August 13th until the 18th in 1914, with a fieldkitchen, a transport company and the famous Marconi transmitter.
Using the Xiegu G90 on 4W PEP Ssb mainly on 40m during the evening fall, connected to a sloping random wire with my EMSA digital transfo unit ! Worked like a charm !
73 everyone !
- Here is a small video of the last contact of that day, towards an OM in the south-east of Sweden.