W7PHO Family Hour DX Net

My radio amateur's path started at the age of thirteen in 1973. I was in the eighth grade when my elmer Tone Hribernik S52MA (ex. YU3UHA) came to our primary school and organized a course for radio-amateurs . On June 13th, 1974 a few friends of mine (Bogdan Barbiè, Tomi Kastner - later S52TK (YU3TOL), YL Neda Peènik) and myself passed "III rd class" exam.

After that I worked for 6 years as an operator on a club station YU3ACP now S59ACP in Brežice, Slovenia. We were allowed to work low power on 80 and 40 meters and on VHF and we were obligated to do at least 80 CW QSOs a year. At first we worked on a home made HF "SSB transceiver" and used wire antennas - a dipole for 80 m and a W3DZZ. Later we got an Yaesu FT101E.

Even though the working conditions were poor this was the time when I met a lot of good friends and really enjoyed my hobby. Let me mention just some of them from the “famous” YU3ACP team beside those of course whom I mentioned before: Vlado Pucko S52PT (YU3TRA), Ciril Medvešèek, Ronald Kleè, Ivan Kovaèiè S52UK (YU3UKP), (X)YL Mojca Barbiè (Planinc) S51RX (YU3TRX, YU3RX), (X)YL Damjanka Kovaèiè (Barbiè), Sašo Planinc (YU3TRY, YU3RY), Drago Deržiè S51XA (YU3UDZ, YU3XA), Slavko Hafner S51YI (YU3TEL, YU3YI), Goran Šalamun, YL Marta Božiè, Dušan Dukiè S52DD (YU3TGU), Dušan - Dule Kostrevc S52NR, Oleg Mamiloviè, Marjan Zupanèiè (YU3HHS), Boris Èelik S57A (YU3TGN, YU3AN), Branko Tucoviè–Tuco YU3TBF, Miloš Prijatelj YU3HAQ, Bojan Ivnik YU3UAQ, Zvone Molan YU3TUO, Vito Molan YU3TUD, Jože Uhan YU3TUG... and many more.

You can see that some of my YL friends later acquired my OM friends’ last names. I really wonder how could this happen ;).

In 1980 I passed my "B class" exam and got the first personal call sign YU3TEX. With this exam I also earned access to the higher frequency bands (20, 15 and 10 mtrs). I got me my first own radio station - an used Trio TS-510 (built in 1969) which is still operational in my shack. In 1984 I moved to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia . Due to a change of the rules in 1988 I was forced to change my call sign again to a 2 letter suffix call YT3KY. In 1990 I moved to a small village called Jezero (The Lake) in the vicinity (10 kilometers south) of Ljubljana where I still live. In 1991 Slovenia won its independence and a year later I got my present call sign S55DX. Now I am a member of Radio club Bober (Beaver) S59DIA in Vnanje Gorice , Slovenia .

In all these years there were ups and (mostly;) downs in my activity but in 2003 I finally took time to boost my activity again. I equipped my shack with an Icom IC-746PRO and an Ameritron AL-572 linear amplifier, erected a homebrew 10 meter tilt tower and put a 4 element 6 band yagi (DHF-6 by Eco antenne) on top of it. Now days you can find me DX-ing on HF bands again.

In 2004 I prolongated the tower to 15 mtrs and hung two home made inverted V dipoles for 80 and 40m, perpendicular to each other on it. These dipoles serve as guy lines for the mast. Now I’m QRV from 80 to 10 meters.